Karolina Fedoryszak is a chicken lover.
Not in nugget or barbecued or fried form.
The
Forks Township
woman is raising 10 of them in her backyard.
She says they’re as much a part of the family as her husband, her son and her four dogs.
She’s heartbroken that the township says they must go because she doesn’t have enough land to raise them legally.
The
township ordinance
says you need at least five acres to raise poultry or livestock. Her home in the 400 block of Apple Blossom Road has only 0.2 of an acre.
“This is so ridiculous. I’ve had these chickens for five years. There are no issues,” Fedoryszak said in an interview last week.
She says the former township zoning officer told her in 2019 and it was OK to raise chickens as long as she was keeping them as pets, wasn’t selling the eggs and didn’t build a permanent structure to house them.
So she built a coop. She keeps a rooster, Jack, and nine hens, including Zebra; Julia Jr.; Petunia; Henrietta; Martina and Betsy.
When she applied for a permit earlier this year to build a patio in front of her home, the zoning office noticed the coop and cited her.
Township Manager Donna Asure says chickens are not listed among the domesticated animals allowed under Forks’s pet ordinance. The township doesn’t have any documentation that Fedoryszak was given permission to raise them. Nor does Fedoryszak. And, the coop needs a permit because it has reduced the amount of her property’s impervious surface — surface that includes pavement or any buildings where rainwater can’t be absorbed into the ground.
Asure said the
township zoning officer
has investigated rat complaints and linked them to residents keeping chickens. The township needs to enforce the ordinance to keep residents healthy and safe, she said.
Fedoryszak said she doesn’t have a rat problem. She keeps her birds and the coop clean. Her neighbors love them. She has five notarized affidavits from neighbors who want Fedoryszak to keep the birds.
“I happen to love her chickens,” said across-the-street neighbor Bernadine Koslowski Moncczewski.
Asure said the township must be consistent in how it enforces its ordinances.
Township officials “cannot just pick and choose who to enforce any ordinance against,” Asure said.
Fedoryszak said her retroactive application for permits was denied. The township says she can appeal that denial before the zoning hearing board. Or she can apply to the zoning office for a certificate of non-conformity. If that’s denied, she can appeal it to the zoning hearing board. Or, she can argue to the zoning hearing board she has a vested right to keep the chickens, an established right that cannot be arbitrarily taken away.
She’s not sure whether any of those strategies will work. Each appearance before the zoning board costs $2,000, Asure said.
Fedoryszak is consulting lawyers. She’ll pay what it takes to keep fighting for her pets, she said.
She plans to appear before the
township board of supervisors
at the Thursday, July 17 meeting.
Other communities
near Forks Township allow chickens on small plots of land. She will ask the Forks supervisors to amend the ordinance to make it less restrictive.
None of the supervisors responded immediately to an email seeking comment for this story. One supervisor indicated a willingness to learn more from Fedoryszak, but she said that supervisor hasn’t followed up.
“This is an opportunity to modernize the ordinance,” Fedoryszak said.
She’ll tell the supervisors, “I know many of you value fairness and property rights. I respectfully ask you to consider the broader implications of my case.”
Fedoryszak said the chickens jump on her lap as she feeds them and pets them. If you’re a pet lover, you’ll understand what they mean to her, she said.
“You can’t help but get attached to them,” Fedoryszak said.
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