Pet or poultry? A Fort Mill neighborhood rallies for one of the oddest debates yet.
One of the true political quandaries of these times has run one Fort Mill neighborhood afowl of its county rule book, prompting handwritten letters and vocal protests.
The Foxwood henhouse at the corner of Pelham Lane and West Way dates back only a few months. Several neighbors helped build it. Some stop by on walks or bike rides to visit the hens -- Reba, Dixie, Regina George, Elliott, Shakira, Dumbo, Esmerelda and Stumpy.
So when neighbors heard the county wouldn’t allow the hens to stay, they spoke up.
What, exactly, is a chicken?
“They’re pet chickens we got because we were cooped up during quarantine,” said Foxwood resident Chad Byers, who along with wife Alicia own the eight birds in question. “They’re not livestock.”
The county has received 28 letters in support of the Byers’ birds. Half of them handwritten, some for multiple pages and not a form letter among them. All insistent the chickens are pets, not poultry.
“Since we walk by their house at least twice a day while walking our dogs, stopping frequently to talk with them, we have witnessed them and their children playing with their chickens,” wrote neighbors Andrew Puzzio and Dawn La Clair. “They treat and care for the chickens as one would treat any domestic pet.”
Neighbors also say chickens are a tradition in the neighborhood. Chad Byers said he didn’t check to make sure his property could have chickens before building his coop because so many neighbors already raise them.
“The Byers are not the first family to own and raise chickens in Foxwood,” wrote Alice Rabun, a quarter century Foxwood resident. “Hopefully they will not be the last. Chickens have been part of our neighborhood for as long as I can remember.”
Neighbors didn’t stop with letters. There are about 200 homes in the area. A petition of mostly neighbors gathered more than 190 signatures. About two dozen residents drove across the county to York for a weekday 6 p.m. zoning board of appeals meeting, on behalf of the Byers family.
“We felt very supported,” Chad Byers said.
Looking out for each other
As area public debate questions go, that much support is almost unprecedented. Consider:
On June 10, York County Council held a special meeting for a public hearing on its $388 million budget for 2020-21. One person spoke. The meeting lasted nine minutes.
During primary season this summer, two council districts went to runoffs after fewer than 200 votes separated the top two candidates. Republican Tom Audette won the Dist. 1 runoff by 147 votes, after finishing second in the primary by 57 votes. He’ll face Democrat Kristin Thomas this fall to serve, among other areas, the Foxwood neighborhood.
A typical York County Council meeting may have a half dozen total public comments on its entire agenda. Area municipalities often hold public hearings with no participants. At a local level the Foxwood chicken issue was the political coup, so to speak, of the season.
“I feel like they’re like neighbors used to be, looking out for each other,” Chad Byers said.
Foxwood is an established neighborhood in unincorporated Fort Mill. It has no HOA. Many people moved there, Byers said and neighbors wrote, for the rural character. There’s a bit of a libertarian feel there, Byers said.
“This neighborhood is not within city limits,” wrote resident Ann Marie Gibbs, “we are permitted to have open burns and even shoot off firearms in our backyard, why can’t they keep their chickens?”
Many neighbors wrote chickens, at the Byers or other homes, simply aren’t a bother.
“It is clear they are pets and most of the neighborhood enjoys them, many children as well,” wrote neighbor Belinda Goldstein. “Chickens are harmless, they sleep early and stop making noises by sundown. They are no noisier than dogs, children, lawn mowers, cars or wild birds.”
Anonymous complaint, then enforcement
Many area municipalities have what’s called complaint-based enforcement. They don’t actively seek zoning or code offenders on items like temporary signs, or chickens in a side yard. If someone complains, they investigate and enforce the rules.
On Aug. 4, the county received an anonymous complaint. A neighbor wrote specifically about the Byers but said other addresses with chickens would be named later. The neighbor wrote about concerns the chicken coop may expand.
“(The Byers home) seems to be running a home based business ‘Foxwoods Farmstead’ that is selling chickens and eggs, with plans for other livestock soon,” reads the complaint.
The neighbor offered concern that other creatures could follow.
“Unless something has changed that I am unaware of,” the neighbor wrote, “chickens are not allowed with the current zoning here and I am concerned about the public health fallout arising from vermin that are attracted to chicken feed.”
Alicia Byers said parts of the complaint are unfounded. There isn’t a business, she said, nor plans for one. They aren’t selling, but rather giving away eggs to neighbors.
“It was supposed to be, ‘come on over,’” Alicia Byers said.
There is a sign that reads “Foxwood Farmstead est 2020” that a relative made, she said. But it’s ornamental and unrelated to commerce.
County code enforcement investigated the day the complaint arrived. A code violation letter was sent the next day. On Sept. 14 a certified letter and email confirmed the ruling: the chickens couldn’t stay. The Byers appealed, and made their case to the county zoning board of appeals Oct. 8, where again they were denied.
“We’ve never seen government move so fast,” Alicia Byers said.
Chad Byers argued the chickens should be allowed in his residential zoning since they’re household pets. Foxwood, which predates current county zoning code, is zoned to allow pets but the zoning doesn’t list pets by species. Other zoning districts specify poultry as an allowed use, typically in lists of mostly commercial animals from cattle to goats to hogs.
Which posed the question of the Byers: Are the chickens pets or poultry?
To a farm up north
Chad Byers soon may have to tell his children (Bailey, 4, and Barrett, 3) something so many other parents have. The pets must go.
“They have no idea that we’re going to have to get rid of them,” Chad Byers said.
He’d rather be forthright, and say the family pets will go to a farm up north. The Byers have friends on a farm in Clover.
Chad and Alicia still hope for a way to keep the chickens.
Timing is tough. The family will wait until they get official notice of the final decision. Based on his newfound experience with zoning letters enforcement dates, Chad Byers said Wednesday it could take weeks or a month.
“We’re thinking around Thanksgiving or Christmas maybe,” he said.
Several protest letters from neighbors pleaded with the county to consider the two young children who would lose pets.
“Pets no matter the species are vital to life,” wrote neighbor Sabriena Rabun. “They bring so much happiness and joy to the humans they claim.”
Neighbor Shawn Marie McGarrigle wrote in 13 years at Foxwood there have been neighbors with multiple dogs or cats as pets, along with chickens, ducks, bunnies, rats, squirrels, opposum and roosters.
“None of the above were ever a nuisance,” McGarrigle wrote. “The same goes for the Byers chickens.”
All hens, the Byers chickens produce about an egg each per day. Most all of them make it into the kitchen before tiny hands break them.
“It’s been so nice to have the kids take care of something, and to learn,” Alicia Byers said.
The pet project began at an odd time for the family and most everyone else, as the COVID-19 pandemic sequestered parents and children for weeks that turned into months.
“It definitely makes for long, interesting days having everybody at the house,” Alicia Byers.
The chickens have been something new and still somehow normal. The children learned to feed them and gather eggs. They watched Stumpy grow from the runt unlikely to survive, to top egg producer. Then the children painted rocks to thank neighbors who stepped up for the Byers family -- even in a lost cause.
That lesson, not whether chickens can stay but that neighbors support one another, stands out most to Alicia Byers.
“We wouldn’t change doing it,” she said. “We wouldn’t go back and not do it.”
As neighbor C. Knowlton wrote in protest to the county, the chickens probably wouldn’t either.
“The chickens all have names and the family often spends time carrying them around,” Knowlton wrote. “If I was a chicken I would hope to live at their house.”
This story was originally published October 15, 2020 at 12:24 PM.
