Afterwards I met with Commissioner Tommy Hunter (District 3) who completely agrees that our property rights are being stomped on regarding the issue of responsibly keeping back yard hens.
Then I met with another commissioner. These are essentially the reasons she gave me as to why Gwinnett County should not rewrite zoning to allow for backyard hens as we conversed:
- neighborhoods don't want chickens
- chickens cannot be kept inside like dogs
- Fulton County has spitting ostriches
- A neighborhood in Norcross is overrun with wild chickens
It may seem like I'm being condescending, but make no mistake: the Gwinnett County Commissioners, save Tommy Hunter, are the ones being condescending. In case she mistakenly thought I was uninformed of my rights or unaware of the 14th Amendment, or lacking a portion of my brain, I easily deflected each of these arguments this way:
- I'm not advocating for neighborhood chickens. I'm advocating for securing property rights to have chickens on my property, that I pay taxes on, in such a way that does not disturb the rights of the neighbors around me who do not want chickens in their yard. But they don't get to say what I have in my yard that they can't see, hear, or smell.
- Do I look stupid? People do not keep their dogs inside at all times. They walk them around to poop in everyone else's yards. They take them to the park. They keep them in their backyards to bark at every living thing that passes by all day. This argument is ridiculous and, like all the other arguments I've heard against my right as a property owner to keep chickens in my own back yard, doesn't hold a drop of water.
- Are you high? (Just kidding, I didn't say that. But I did just laugh and move on.)
- That neighborhood is not my problem. It's been overrun with chickens for several years and I guarantee you that if the people that lived there were voters and citizens, the problem would have been dealt with already. Not to mention, the reason the few chickens were initially abandoned there was because of Gwinnett's overly prohibitive zoning against chickens.
I'm sharing these points so you can see how your conversations and visits with the commissioners are going to go. There isn't a lot of sensible talk that is going to happen, but you should still call, still email, still make appointments with them.
Previous people have tried to communicate with the Commissioners of Gwinnett County and have stopped once they were given these flimsy fickle responses. The Commissioners are pulling things out of their behinds and they don't care because no one has held them accountable or grouped together in any way that was effective until now.
They are going to give you arbitrary and easily debunked reasons why you should not be allowed to have chickens. We must always counter with solid, evidence-based reasons why our personal liberties need to be protected that point to the fact that there is a simple zoning clarification that could be written in that is good for all residents of Gwinnett.
We are not advocating that everyone have chickens.
We are not advocating that people get to disturb the comfort of their neighbors with noisy, smelly chickens.
We are advocating for a zoning clarification that meets the needs of ALL Gwinnett county residents. There is a minority that is being denied it's rights, that is being ignored, blown off, and patronized, in favor of a fickle majority.
And according to the Gwinnett County website, one of the values of the Gwinnett County Commission is: We believe in honesty, fairness, and respect for all. We believe in stewardship of public resources, protection of the environment, and that all citizens should expect to live and work in a clean and secure community.
The plan for now is we continue emailing, continue calling, continue trying to get meetings with these Commissioners and we form a group. The fourth Tuesday of every month are open to public requests and we will attend these meetings every month and keep... well, we're going to keep bothering them.
Comment here and let us know how it's going for you as you approach all of the commissioners!
