A rooster and two hens eat scratch grain in the Greenwood-area backyard of Liz Eblen in 2012.
A local woman wants the town of New Whiteland to allow small backyard chicken ownership — and so far more than 200 people agree with her.
Angela Eck started an online petition earlier this month asking New Whiteland officials to consider allowing residents to own small poultry flocks, which include chickens, ducks and turkeys. The petition gained 232 signatures in the nearly two weeks since it was posted.
New Whiteland does not allow residents within town limits to own any size poultry flock, unless their home is on agriculture zoned land, such as a farm.
With inflation on the rise and the cost of groceries going up as a result, Eck thought now would be a good time to allow people to become more self-sustaining by producing their own eggs, she said.
Eck would personally like to own her own small flock of chickens also because she wants to know exactly where her produce is coming from and be in control of the nutrients her chickens get.
“It would be nice to be able to raise them myself so that I could ensure that. I know that buying those types of eggs at the grocery store is very expensive,” Eck said.
Eck realized there was some interest among other residents when she saw posts on social media asking if New Whiteland allowed backyard chicken ownership. Many were surprised that the town did not.
“It was clear to me that there was interest in it. And some people were already disappointed that it’s not allowed,” Eck said.
Nearly all the cities and towns in Johnson County do not allow backyard chicken or poultry ownership, unless the land is zoned for agriculture use.
Franklin has an ordinance banning ownership on residential lots, and so does Greenwood. Greenwood banned residents from owning small flocks in their backyards with a new ordinance passed in 2016.
Whiteland also considers a owning a small poultry flock a “nuisance” if it is within 200 feet or less from another person’s house, which would be most subdivisions in the town, according to city documents. Bargersville does not allow residents to own small flocks, but they can come before the Board of Zoning Appeals to request a zoning variance, the town code says. Trafalgar does not explicitly ban chicken ownership in its town code, and chickens, ducks and turkeys are defined as “domestic animals.”
Nearby, cities including Indianapolis and Bloomington allow residents to own small flocks in their backyards, with limitations on size and if residents can own roosters.
Eck plans to bring her petition before the New Whiteland Town Council at its next meeting July 6.
The council will likely listen to Eck’s petition and have a discussion about allowing chicken ownership, if they see the interest is high enough, said John Perrin, council president.
Where it would go beyond that, he is not not sure, he said.
“It came up a couple years ago, nothing developed because there’s not an interest in it,” Perrin said.
The other side of this also has to be considered, he said. There are people who may consider chickens a nuisance and maybe do not want to deal with the noise of chickens next door, Perrin said.
“We’re still a residential neighborhood,” he said. “We may get to a point where it’s not a bad idea to consider it … but what about a person next to the person with chickens that doesn’t want them? We have to look at that side.”
