In the words of Tampa City Council member Mary Mulhern, changing the law in Tampa to allow for residents to raise domesticated chickens in their backyards is simply "recognizing what the trends are and the reality is," which she says is that more people want healthy food and that urban agriculture is a big part of that trend.
Mulhern weighed in on the subject on Thursday morning during a Council workshop on possibly changing current code to allow for residents to raise chickens in urban areas.
The Council passed a motion authored by Councilman Harry Cohen that requested the city's legal staff to draft an ordinance that would address several issues, such as revising the current law that requires those that currently have chickens to be separated 200 feet from their neighbors (Cohen said it should be less than 100 feet). The proposal would only call for chickens and not roosters; that they be cooped up, and would examine whether to allow such an ordinance only in certain parts of the city (a proposal that Mulhern disagreed with, saying earlier that people currently have or want chickens in all parts of the city).
The only dissenter was Council member Frank Reddick, who has previously made his opposition well known.
This article appears in Apr 26 – May 2, 2012.