Friday, August 13, 2010

I was wondering when this was going to happen...

Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA and chickens... This story makes me glad (again) that I don't live in Carmel. Tourists think that Carmel is a magical, wonderful place. Regular people who live around here tend to think it's snooty, persnickety, and ridiculous. And I'm one of those regular people.
Anyway, Carmel is also known for being a very "pet-friendly" town. But maybe not. They are currently struggling with chickens. The Carmel Pine Cone is a small paper that I read sometimes just to laugh about what's going on in Carmel. It's usually just the same old arguments between neighbors about who can put in a new window and what type of material the window frame must be made out of, etc. But this week it's about chickens and how they may or may not be dangerous to the fancy-pants lives of some residents. Here's the scoop:

Anna Yateman "asked the city council in April to allow people to keep chickens, pointing out that they lay good eggs and eat pests while their waste makes good compost." She currently has 3 hens and didn't know they were illegal pets. Her neighbor (of course, 50% of the stories in this paper are about petty disputes between neighbors) doesn't want her or anybody else to have chickens. The neighbor, James Jungroth, "told the commission, he didn’t want his $1.5 million home to be anywhere near a chicken farm." He said he only agreed to the purchase after the realtor told him hens were against the law. "Think of 1,000 people each getting two chickens,” he said, speculating the runoff from their coops would create a nuisance or a hazard. And “the cages become larger and larger — they become McMansions for the chickens.” He then went on to complain about other neighbor issues with Yateman, which he said his attorney directed him to do, but commissioner Robin Wilson cut him off, saying that was not the purpose of the commission or the hearing. “I do not want my neighbor to have chickens,” Jungroth reiterated, before sitting down.

Just another reason I'm proud to live in the poor, blue-collar town of Seaside, where chickens can live happily in their "McMansions" :)

8 comments:

Stefaneener said...

Neighbor disputes are the bane of everyone's existence, and they get more ridiculous as the property values go up.

Sigh.

Jackie said...

Ha! Stenfaneener, you are right. The disputes DO go up as property values increase.

Does happiness decrease with increasing property values?

Why else would disputes go up, I wonder?

meemsnyc said...

We have a similar story in our paper this week. I still have yet to blog about it, but long story short, many residents here do not want chickens because of noise. It's so disheartening because we want a few chickens but we don't want to anger our neighbors...

Jackie said...

meemsnyc, I don't understand why they have a problem with noise... My hens are MUCH more quiet than ANY of the neighborhood dogs! Maybe those people don't know the difference between hens and roosters?

RURAL said...

Awww you popped my bubble, I always thought that I wanted to go live in Carmel, after visiting there years ago.

No chicken, no me...LOL.

Sounds like you made the right choice living where you live.

Jen

Michelle said...

I haven't picked up the Pinecone in a while, and I suppose that that kind of story is why. It makes me happy that I'm in a county jurisdiction rather than town, we even get to have roosters here! Carmel does tend to go over the top in when it comes to regulating things. And I agree, chickens are much more quiet and in general less of a nuisance than dogs.

Stratoz said...

great read, I have settled in a small working class town after years of traveling in large university towns and have plenty to celebrate here.

Jackie said...

Sorry to burst your bubble, Muddy Boot Dreams :) Carmel plays that trick on almost everybody who visits!

Michelle, don't worry about picking up the Pinecone...you're not missing much.

Stratoz, glad you are loving the small working-class town life, too!