In October of 2024, one of our members reached out for help with a zoning notice she’d received from her Michigan city. The notice claimed she’d been raising chickens without a permit, violating the city’s chicken ordinance. The notice called for Kathy to remove her chickens from her property.
The thing is, Kathy had a permit for her chickens. The city approved it more than a year before. After receiving her permit, Kathy spent $23,000 building a brand-new chicken run and privacy fence to shield her chickens from view. Now, not only is the city demanding she remove her lawfully acquired chickens, it is levying a fine of $300 per day she keeps them. Worse yet, the city hasn’t shared the full amount of the fine or even when they began implementing it. If the fines began accruing when Kathy first got her chickens, she could be facing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Kathy wanted to know: Could Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund help her fight this ordinance and keep her chickens? For a year, she has been collecting five or six fresh, organic, non-GMO eggs every day from hens Isabella, Sunshine, Sugar, Cinnamon, Piper, and Butter. The hens have become pets, and their eggs a healthy, nutritious staple of Kathy’s family’s diet.
After reviewing the city’s chicken ordinance and talking more with Kathy, the FTCLDF team found that, without giving Kathy any written notice, the city had revoked her permit based on the authority of a single neighbor’s complaint. The ordinance provides that a permit will not be granted if a neighbor objects, placing the role of government into the hands of residents.
What’s more, the chicken ordinance lacks any process for Kathy to appeal her neighbor’s veto — or even be informed of it. Based on these two things, FTCLDF deemed the chicken ordinance to be brazenly unconstitutional.
Our team members swiftly connected Kathy with a litigation partner to take her case to court. Just last week, Pacific Legal Foundation filed this case on Kathy’s behalf with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, Southern Division.
We will be following this case closely — particularly in light of recent advice from USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, who encourages Americans to raise chickens of their own and recently published a detailing her plans to “make it easier for families to raise backyard chickens.”
We also want to hear from you, our members. Are you faced with burdensome ordinances that place decision-making power over your property in the hands of a third party? Is your town denying your right to due process? Email our team at FTCLDF ! We’ve got your back.
