The Richwood Planning Commission voted 4-1 to send a final version of a proposed zoning amendment to regulate livestock to the council for consideration, with Mayor Scott Jerew dissenting.
Jerew suggested the commission ask the council members if they would like to prohibit all livestock in the village before continuing with a zoning amendment.
“If the council says, ‘Yes, we want livestock in the village,’ then we come back and start hashing all this out because we’ve wasted two or three or four meetings trying to figure out something that I think council is going to vote down,” he said. “To me, it would save time and energy if you take it to council for a vote.”
Village Solicitor Julie Spain replied that the commission was “pretty close” to finalizing the language of the proposed zoning amendment.
Jerew expressed favor of prohibiting all livestock within the village. He said allowing livestock in the village will bring problems to the character of the town.
“You’re going to have rats, you’re going to have flies, you’re going to have predators,” he said.
However, the commission continued discussion about the proposed zoning amendment and agreed to several changes regarding lot sizes and setbacks before approving the final version Monday.
The proposed zoning amendment states that agricultural use in the village “shall not create a nuisance, disturb the peace, and result in a health or safety violation reported to or acted upon by the appropriate enforcement authority, and animals and poultry shall be contained on site.”
“We’re putting everything back on (Zoning Inspector) Marion Bump to try to decide what’s a nuisance, what’s disturbing the peace,” Jerew said.
He and commission member Laurie Eliot-Shea expressed concern about pushing the commission’s responsibilities onto others. Spain replied that the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) is designed to make decisions based on the zoning ordinance.
Spain explained that the statement in the proposed zoning amendment “gives your Board of Zoning Appeals some authority to say that a part of this conditional use permit is that your animals can’t disturb the peace.”
“But if you did take this out, you do already have a law on the books that says they can’t create a nuisance, they can’t have a certain odor and they can’t be of a certain volume, so it is somewhere else,” she said.
The commission agreed to maintain the statement in the proposed zoning amendment for the BZA to use as a guideline when granting conditional use permits.
“With the conditional use, the idea is that the board should be saying yes with these conditions, unless there is something extreme,” Spain said. “They should be giving the applicant the conditions under which it is feasible if their acreage is right and if their units are right.”
All applications for conditional use permits will be voted upon during public hearings. The BZA has the discretion to add conditions when granting a conditional use permit for agricultural use, Spain added.
Ownership of cows, horses, sheep, swine, goats, turkeys, geese and ducks will be prohibited.
Furthermore, all agricultural animals and birds will be prohibited on any lot that is less than one third of an acre.
The commission recommends council permit rabbits and chickens for agricultural use on a lot of at least a third of an acre. Rabbits and chickens must be contained within a fenced lot. No roosters would be permitted.
The number of chickens or rabbits should not exceed one bird unit or one animal unit per a third of an acre. The proposed zoning amendment defines one animal unit as three rabbits and one bird unit as three chickens.
According to the proposed zoning amendment, “the accessory structure that houses an animal unit or the confinement areas for bird units shall be setback at least 50 feet from a non-agricultural use.”
All animal and bird units require conditional use approval by the BZA before any property may be used in such a manner.
Residents who are already raising livestock on their properties within the village will be grandfathered in, according to the Ohio Revised Code.
Spain said there are “two schools of thought” for grandfathering in non-conforming uses.
“One school of thought is if you have four large animals, then four large animals is where you start and stop,” she said. “The other school of thought is – and I’ve researched this about as much as I can – is that some people in the zoning world would say that if you’re using this square of your property for agriculture and your animal is (a) cow, then you are grandfathered in and this square of your property is for cows and as long as there is no nuisance how many cows is your business and if there are new ones and they live or die is your business.”
Spain said she believes the most sound method of grandfathering in is “this part of your property is used this way” and “you’re not going to expand it.”
“If you abandon your non-conforming use, you lose your non-conforming use,” Spain said.
The commission is considering a two-year cycle for agricultural use on grandfathered properties, which means if a resident does not use part of their property that is grandfathered in for agricultural use over the course of two years, then the resident would be prohibited from non-conforming agricultural use on their property.
In other news:
– Chair Reddy Brown announced that his and Eliot-Shea’s terms will be 6 years, Cheryl Johncox’s term will be two years, and Jim Dew’s term will be four years.
-The commission also held a brief public hearing about an amended zoning map, but village residents did not attend.
The Village of Richwood Council will hold a special meeting for the purpose of evaluating proposed legislation to amend the village zoning map and to regulate animal and poultry husbandry within the village at 6:15 p.m. on Monday, July 25.