Chicken %$&*#

The Cobb County Board of Commissioners are a hoot. And by “hoot” I mean that I’m pretty sure my blog is being monitored by Homeland Security so let’s just leave it at that.

Here’s what I strongly dislike about the government – we are holding hearings and gathering names for a petition to ask our ELECTED officials if we can please, pretty please, have chickens on our very own property! Currently, the law states that in Cobb County you must have 2 acres. Due to public pressure, the BOC put together a proposal that said you STILL had to have 2 acres, but for a $1000.00 NON-refundable application fee, you might get a special land use permit so you could possibly have chickens. If they agree. As you can imagine, that was not well received.

Now news comes that they have put forth a new proposal. From the Chicken Chatter Newsletter:

They revised their Code Amendment concerning Poultry. The dumped the Special Land Use Permit for a Variance Permit. This would lower the fee from $1,000 to $150. The Variance request would have to be approved by the Board of Zoning Appeals, and then by the Board of Commissioners. There is language that defines ‘Poultry’ as the hen of a chicken- no roosters, no ducks. They limit the number of hens to ONE per 5,000 square feet of property. The proposed language does not get around current language that would only allows Variances for ‘Poultry’ on lots 1.5 acres or larger. This is as bad or worse than the original proposal.

Is $150 better than $1000? Don’t answer that. If you do, you’ve accepted the premise that you should have to PAY the government to use your property as you wish.

I wrote my commissioner AGAIN. You can write yours here.

The bad news is that I don’t know that it will make any difference. The good news is with the Presidential election 4 years away, I have ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD to involve myself in local politics. And by “involve” I mean “work really hard to change the system.”

Move along Homeland Security, there’s nothing to see here.