La Grange gears up for backyard battle with hen ordinance

When La Grange resident Jeff Cogelja purchased four hens and built a backyard coop in April, he thought it was only a matter of time the village would amend its ordinance prohibiting chickens so that more residents could enjoy farm-fresh eggs.

After all, the place he discovered backyard chickens was in another resident's home in La Grange.
"I was fascinated by them," said Cogelja, a pharmacist with the University of Chicago Medical Center. "I knew then I wanted my own."

But the La Grange Village Board last month decided not to pursue amending the local ordinance and his four hens — Bertha, Henrietta, Maybel and Myrtle — that just started laying eggs, would need to go.

“My kids have become attached to them as pets,” Cogelja said, adding that his daughter had misspelled Maybel when naming her but he insisted on keeping it that way.

And Cogelja isn’t giving up his fight. Even though he was told he needed to get rid of the chickens by Nov. 22 (ironically, on Thanksgiving Day), he’s started to collect signatures on a petition to bring the issue before voters during the April 2013 election.

Admittedly, Cogelja was “bending the law” in the first place by having the chickens, but he said that’s how change happens.

“I have 150 signatures and I haven’t really even had much time to go out yet,” Cogelja said last week. “When I was going around, for the most part, people thought it was a great idea. They said they might not want to do it themselves, but they don’t have a problem with me having them.”

A majority of the Village Board and Village President Liz Asperger had opted informally on Oct. 8 not to pursue allowing backyard chickens after trustees said they talked with neighbors and friends about the idea and received a backlash of negative feedback.

“This type of issue is one that is difficult for a board like this who are volunteer representatives of the community, representing the whole community, and we’re faced with a situation in a case like this where we have to perform a balancing act,” Asperger said. “A balancing act that respects an individual’s right to use and enjoy his or her private property, but also respecting the equally important right for neighbors and others to the quiet enjoyment of their property.”

Residents’ concerns ranged from noise, disease and odor to attracting other predatory wildlife.

Ken Koelkebeck, poultry extension specialist and professor at University of Illinois, said neighbors should not be worried about noise coming from backyard chickens. And as long as coops are cleaned regularly — and the clothes worn during cleaning are not taken inside the home — he said hens do not pose health concerns to humans.

However, young children should not be allowed to play where the chickens are kept, he said, as they might put their fingers in their mouths.

“If people do their research and know what they’re doing, I don’t really see a problem with it,” Koelkebeck said.

Cogelja said the misperceptions of chickens is one of the things he’s trying to change in the community.

“They’re quieter than most dogs,” he said. “Their waste is little compared to that of a dog. And diseases, the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) has a list of 15 diseases you can get from a dog and 14 diseases from cats, but none listed you can get from chickens.”

Cogelja said he thinks the Village Board simply wasn’t interested in having chickens in La Grange. The original ordinance banning chickens and other farm animals has been on the books since 1981.

“I don’t know where the negative feedback is,” Cogelja said. “I just think the board doesn’t feel like changing the ordinance and that is that.”

At least one trustee, Mike Horvath, said he thinks the board didn’t handle proper procedure in investigating the issue.

“My view is pretty simple. It was a request that warranted due diligence process,” Horvath said. “What we did was very anecdotal. I don’t think that’s the right process. The right process would have been taking it through the Planning Commission.”

Only Horvath and Trustee Jim Palermo wanted to continue a policy discussion on the issue, which did not represent a majority and thus an amendment proposal was unable to move ahead.

Horvath contested the negative feedback reported from residents, but Asperger said during the Oct. 8 meeting she thought it was a “fair” and “engaged” process.

“That wasn’t my experience,” Horvath said. “The overwhelming information that I personally got was very positive. I just don’t know where the negative comments came from. No huge amount of evidence was ever presented.”

Asperger could not be reached for follow-up on the topic.

For now, Cogelja plans to continue pressing the issue in hopes of being allowed to at least keep his chickens until the matter can be put to a vote by residents in April.

"I don't think the politics are in his favor right now," Horvath said.

— Reporter Ed McMenamin contributed to this report.