08-20-2012 Planning Commission Packet

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.� i � �, � . � ' � . � . PC Exhibit D REVISED ' Wade and Laura Shatzer 3685 Watertown Road Orono,MN 55359 � 952-473-9045/952-210-7597 August 4, 2012 Dear Mr. Gaffron, � While you were out on vacation, I'm sure you are aware that the planning commission held their work session on August lst. Ms. Curtis kindly invited me to attend the meeting to listen and observe. I did my best to be quiet and listen but it was very difficult as I could see that no one,with the exception of Melanie,was very familiar with the case and the many documents the both of us had provided-this may not have been the case... but just my observation. At the meeting I asked for permission to speak. No one objected. In retrospect, I probably should have kept my mouth shut. As you know, from my original letter and phone calls,this has been a very difficult situation for both my husband and,myself last year and now again this year. Just again this morning my husband went .-� :, out to have coffee on our deck and was bombarded by the sounds of roosters crowing continuously. ``' We feel that it is unreasonable and ruins the peaceful setting of our property-why we moved here in � the first place. � Recently I learned that another neighbor(to the west of the neighbor with the roosters) completely agrees that the roosters are loud and obnoxious—he calls it noise pollution. However,he would like to remain anonymous and not be involved since he lives right next door. He did share with me that the chickens would come onto his deck last year and "crap all over" as he put it. He also shared this with Officer Barnes. The neighbor with the roosters moved the coup from his side of her yard to the Butterfield's side of her yard(east side). The coup is at most 10 feet from their property line and I believe it is to be 75 . feet from any property line. I doubt she has over 150 feet between the two property lines to be in accordance with the current ordinance zoning code 78—419. • We are exhausted with dealing with this issue(as is Officer Barnes most likely). We hope and pray for a reasonable resolution from the City of Orono now and to help prevent a situation like this from occurring again in the future with a clearer chicken/rooster ordinance. We are not asking that Orono change from a rural community,but rather implement some common sense standards regarding the number of chickens allowed and prohibit roosters like many communities do (most recently Shorewood-I recently talked to Paul Neilsen,planning director—he says to say"hi"). It should never be okay,rural community or not,to continuously annoy your neighbors breaking noise ordinance 62-10—at this point it is feeling like harassment. � } The problem with our current chicken(fowl) ordinance/regulations is that anyone who owns several acres could potentially have hundreds of chickens and/or roosters which would put them into the chicken production business. They would have hundreds of eggs a day/week to deal with andlor chickens that would need to be butchered for meat... no single household would need this many chickens/roosters—per a discussion with Mr.Nielsen,planning director of Shorewood.