Guilfordbeekeepers.org

Read the story about chickens and bees in the Greensboro News & Record, published today (7/23).
Urban Chickens Home to Roost
By Lorraine Ahearn
Wednesday, July 23 updated 9:08 am

http://www.news-record.com/content/2008 ... e_to_roost

I cut out the blah, blah, blah. Here's the point at the end of the article:
A hearing on the city’s rules for keeping chickens — and bees — is set for 5:30 p.m. Aug. 19 at City Hall.

I am going to see if I can clarify what Council will be considering. The Planning Board met July 16th and voted not to recommend either the City Planner recommended version or our version of the amended bee/chicken ordinance. Instead, it voted to recommend changes to the ordinance regarding fences for chickens and chickens roaming at large.

If everything that was covered is going up to Council we need to be there. If only the chicken amendment is going up, chicken people should be there and I would attend out of an abundance of caution.

I will see if City Staff can clarify exactly what is going before Coucil and post here.

I spoke with City Planners yesterday morning. I did not get an exact copy of the text going to Council and will try to do so.

STAFF IS SENDING UP ITS VERSION OF THE BEE ORDINANCE DESPITE THE PLANNING BOARD'S UNANIMOUS VOTE NOT TO RECOMMEND IT (OR "OUR" REQUEST).

I am planning on being at the meeting to speak AGAINST this change. Others will need to decide if it helps them enough to be for it.

Just bumping this up to the top as a reminder.

A hearing on the city’s rules for keeping chickens — and bees — is set for 5:30 p.m. Aug. 19 at City Hall.

It seems things went very much in Greensboro beekeepers' favor.

http://www.news-record.com/content/2008 ... n_chickens

Things did go well. I met with Mr. Hails of the planning department a week before the meeting and got the proposed wording of the ordinance and the memo that Council would be working from. It had the back yard limitation for bee colonies and relief for 12000+ square foot lot owners only if they could not meet the 50 foot setback and only to the extent of giving a 10 foot area to use.

I spoke at the meeting and asked the Council to amend the proposed changes by striking the limitation of placing bee colonies only in the back yard and by substituting the option of the 12000+ square foot lot owners to be able to use the same setback as the 7000-12000 square foot lot holders were being granted under the Ordinance before them. Council voted unanimously to accept my requested amendments. They then unanimously passed the revised Ordinance.

I obviously have not seen the exact wording of the new Ordinance, but will try and get it when it is available.

Ken (Ski), Wally, and Marc attended one or more of the public meetings (Planning Board, City Council). I am sure others did and they deserve credit for taking their time to "show the flag" on behalf of beekeeping in Greensboro.