Bristol Twp. Family Can Keep Chickens, Zoning Hearing Board Rules

A Bristol Township family will be allowed to keep as many as 30 chickens on their property.

The Bristol Township Zoning Hearing Board ruled Monday evening to allow Kim Burns and her family to keep the backyard fowl in two coops in the rear of their half-acre property in the 1500 block of Newport Road.

The exception to the township’s prohibition on farm animals at residences was made after Burns agreed to keep her chickens at 30 or below. She also agreed to not get a rooster.

“I just want to be able to keep my chickens,” Burns told the zoners.

Burns said she uses the chickens to help feed her family and that she is a “serious chicken keeper.” She also called her fowl “good neighbors.”

The chickens are confined to two large coops and are not running at large or making an obscene amount of noise, Burns said.

Two of Burn’s neighbors spoke in support of her keeping the chickens.

“If you’re going to shut her chickens down, will you someday shut down my garden?” one neighbor asked.

Burns said shes raises her flock by hand and only replaces a chicken when one passes away.

Code enforcement brought the chickens to the township’s attention while dealing with an unrelated problem at Burn’s home, Bristol Township Director of Building, Planning and Zoning Tom Scott said.

Burns and the township have been locked in battles over various other code problems over the years but none related to the chickens.

Scott did not wish to elaborate on the other issues with Burns.

Earlier this year, a family in Falls Township won a similar fight to keep chickens at the Fallsington property.