HONESDALE, PA — The proposal of new zoning regulations for the keeping of livestock attracted much clucking at a November 12 borough council meeting. Councilors agreed to put the working draft on the butcher’s block, but did approve new lighting regulations to prevent homeowner disturbances.

Zoning fair or foul?

The proposed livestock ordinance would have allowed homeowners to keep up to 10 birds on their property if they had a minimum lot size of one-half acre. Each additional half-acre would allow for an additional 10 birds. 

Tom Shepstone, the consultant who drafted the zoning regulations, told the council, “I really hate to get into this issue, to be perfectly honest with you.” He said it should be dealt with, as the borough has “had some issues” with poultry in the past, but that “you can never make people happy with animal regulations.”

Council member Noelle Mundy attested to the problems unchecked chickens could cause in the borough. 

“I personally have had police at my house several times” for poultry-related issues, Mundy said. She said that birds from her neighbors’ properties have wandered onto her porch and that there have been issues with noise: “It’s a legitimate problem,” she said. 

However, chickens can be beneficial as well, said council member James Hamill. 

Hamill said that his family had kept two chickens on an 0.17-acre lot to “help teach my kids the care of animals,” and that “by no means did we have a single neighbor complaint.” Some sort of regulations were needed, but the draft on the table took a hatchet to a problem that required a scalpel, Hamill said. 

The borough tabled the portion of the new zoning regulations that dealt with livestock, intending to give it another pass. 

The council also tabled a section of the new zoning that would have allowed for private cemeteries. The borough council agreed that cemetery regulations would need more specificity. 

The section was three sentences and would have added cemeteries to the list of uses allowed by special exception, without imposing any more detailed standards on this use. 

Let there be (less) light

The borough council adopted the rest of the proposed zoning amendments, including a new set of regulations for lighting. 

Dusk-to-dawn lighting will not be permitted where visible from other properties, except with a reflector. Floodlights and spotlights will not be allowed to shine into the windows of neighboring homes. 

If the borough determines that any lighting system creates a safety hazard, produces unacceptable levels of glare or breaks the zoning regulations, the property owner will be notified by the borough and given 10 days to fix the issue.

At the meeting, a homeowner who has had issues with a neighbor’s lighting said, “Everything that you put in here is really, really good, and it’ll protect a lot of other people who will have similar situations.”