A new pecking order: Collingswood will allow backyard chickens after earlier ban
Collingwood residents can begin applying to get one of the Camden County borough's 30 available backyard hen licenses.
Collingswood residents have debated whether to permit backyard chickens for more than a decade. On Monday night, the commissioners finally voted to welcome hens to the borough.
Now, residents can apply to keep hens on their properties by filling out a form, taking a chicken care course, getting their yards inspected before and after installing a coop, and paying a $20 annual fee.
The new ordinance passed with “yes” votes from Mayor Daniela Solano-Ward and Commissioner Amy Henderson Riley, both elected to Collingswood’s three-person board of commissioners last year. Commissioner Jim Maley, who helped pass the borough’s ban on fowl back in 2008, voted against backyard hens.
No one from the public spoke out against the chicken ordinance before the vote.
Graham Patterson, a Collingswood resident and a software engineer, plans to lead the borough’s Backyard Hen Advisory Board with seven other residents, who will be responsible for investigating complaints, inspecting coops, and helping relocate hens in the case that a resident can no longer keep them.
After years of chicken discourse, Patterson said he’s glad that there wasn’t any negative pushback on Monday. Much of the meeting was focused instead on the fate of Collingswood’s Scottish Rite Theater, a historic event and performance space, and the nonprofit running it.
“A lot is going on in Collingswood,” Patterson said. “So I think chickens are the least of people’s worries.”
Collingswood’s pro-chicken residents, currently gathered in a Facebook group called Collingswood Chicken Uprising, will now work to educate residents on how they can start a coop of their own, Patterson said. But with winter rapidly approaching, most residents will likely wait until next spring to get started on an application, he said. That’s his plan, at least.
Backyard hens are legal in 19 other Camden County municipalities, including Haddon Township, Haddonfield, and Stratford Township. Gwenne Baile, known locally as the “Chicken Lady of South Jersey,” has helped get most of those ordinances passed.
“In all the towns where I have helped the residents get an ordinance change,” Baile wrote in the Collingswood Chicken Uprising Monday, “Collingwood was definitely the first one where no resident stood up during public comment to say anything negative about backyard hens.”
Only 30 Collingswood residents can have backyard hen licenses at a time, and residents with properties under 4,000 square feet aren’t allowed to keep hens at all. Roosters are forbidden, and licensees can’t sell their eggs or slaughter their chickens. The new code has rules on cleanliness, smells, and waste.
The number of hens residents can keep depends on the size of the property, with 12 hens — the maximum — requiring 9,000 square feet or more.
A person who breaks the rules could get a fine up to $1,250, 90 days imprisonment, community service, or any combination of those after a conviction in court.
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