Belvidere North High School students propose backyard chickens ordinance

Local high school students look to change a law that's been in place for decades in Belvidere.

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BELVIDERE, Ill (WIFR) -- The city of Belvidere prohibits chickens to be raised on residential properties. While this law has been in effect for decades, some local high school students are looking to change that. The students want to prove the myths wrong about chickens being a nuisance, such as being loud and quite dirty.

Two students from Belvidere North High School have a proposed ordinance on the city council agenda that would allow Belvidere residents to own and raise chickens on their property. Gina DelRose, Community Development Planner for the City of Belvidere, says this isn't the first time students contacted the city and the ordinance still has a long way to go.

She says, "At the beginning of this school year, the students contacted me again. They are very passionate about chickens and think they're a great thing to have in your backyards, the fresh eggs and just interacting with the chickens themselves are all beneficial. They thought they could try and get the city of Belvidere to allow them."

Residents in bigger cities such as Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles can keep chickens. Around the Rock River Valley, attempts have been made in the past to make chicken coops legal in residential lots. However, these attempts have failed.

In 2013, the Village Board in Machesney Park rejected a proposal to allow chicken hen coops where up to six hens can live on a single residential lot. The City of Rockford also does not allow chickens in residential neighborhoods. In Roscoe, roosters are prohibited but chickens are allowed as long as the chickens on residential lots don't produce noise loud enough to disturb the noise ordinances of local neighborhoods.

The Belvidere North students proposal would minimize nuisances by banning crowing roosters over six months old and limiting the number of chickens allowed on a single lot to five.

The ordinance will be on the Belvidere city council agenda at their next meeting.