Wednesday, 13 April 2011

Copy of Email sent to Aldermen

Below is a copy of the email I sent off to the Aldermen in my ward. Hopefully I will hear back from them and we can go from there. On a side note the children had a wonderful lesson on by-laws, aldermen, mayors and how we as residents can ask for changes to be made within our town. It doesn't mean we will always get the changes we would like but there is no harm in the asking.


Aldermen of Ward 3
Township of West Lincoln


I am writing this email after a phone call I just made to the Township of West Lincoln office. I was enquiring after the by-laws concerning the keeping of poultry in a residential area. My family and I currently reside at 11 Golden Acres Drive in Smithville and would like to be able to keep hens in our backyard. I was extremely surprised that in 1979 a by-law was passed that prohibited the keeping of farm animals on residential property and included in that list of farm animals, was poultry. My only reasonable recourse in this matter, as I do not feel breaking a by-law is a position I would like to find myself in, is in asking the Aldermen of my ward to request a general amendment to this by-law. With more than 300 cities in North America, including Niagara Falls, Brampton, Guelph, Kingston, Vancouver, Victoria and Surrey having amended their bylaws to allow urban chickens, I would hope that Smithville (self proclaimed Chicken Capital of Canada) would be quick in following suit.

I have done some quick research in regards to other cities by-laws and regulations and have included the websites below that I found useful. I will continue to gather information in the hopes that this issue can be brought before council and changes can be made to reflect this growing trend.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours Sincerely,
Alia Wall
11 Golden Acres Drive
Smithville, Ontario
L0R 2A0




http://www.cityofkingston.ca/cityhall/bylaws/backyardhens.asp - this website shows the proposal to amend the by-law which was then amended on August 26, 2010

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1 comment:

  1. Samantha from Colonial Curve Cottage14 April 2011 at 16:01

    I'm so sorry to hear you hit a chicken snag. I wonder if getting more people in Smithville to write letters would help. Perhaps the neighbors on each side would help. Also, call the paper! They love a 'good news' story! Or write your own article complete with pictures and send it in. Who knows what can happen, you only find out if you try.

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