Interesting letter from Olympia

This is a letter from someone involved in Code Compliance for Olympia, our capital neighbor to the north. Note especially the last paragraph:

Subject: chickens in an urban setting

Our city council decided to allow hens in the City of Olympia six or seven years ago. As I said over the phone, it would be difficult to go back and find out exactly how many chicken complaints per year prior to allowing them. I am sure that since hens are allowed we have fewer complaints, I’d say five or less per year. The complaints are mostly about roosters crowing. We’ve had several complaints about someone having too many hens.

I believe that we now receive fewer complaints because the “chicken advocates” were good about educating new owners care of their hens. It seems that we never get complaints about hens out wondering loose anymore. Good fences (pens) do make good neighbors.

I also should mention that we in code enforcement were not keen on the chickens being allowed. However, that attitude has completely changed.

Georgia Sabol
Code Enforcement Officer
Community Planning & Development
360-753-8393