A tale of two city chickens

It's like A Tale of Two City Chickens:

First, the best of times: Up in Cedar Rapids, city councilors are only days away from approving a new backyard chicken ordinance.

And then there's the worst of times: Over in Iowa City, where just as many citizens have been working just as hard to bring the issue to City Council - nothin'.

In Cedar Rapids, chickens are the heroes of the story. They eat weeds and bugs and vegetable scraps. They lay nutrient-rich eggs, fertilize the garden, teach kids about the food chain and the value of hard work, and entertain their healthy, self-sufficient owners.

In Iowa City, chickens are villains who poop and make noise and hatch plans to run wild in the streets and turn the idyllic Big Ten town into some squalid border outpost: The Los Robles of Iowa.

It's an odd plot twist.

The third and final reading is Tuesday for Cedar Rapids' new urban chicken ordinance. It will allow folks living in single-family homes to keep up to six hens in a fenced area at least 10 feet from property lines and 25 feet from adjacent homes, churches, school.

There are some strings: No roosters, for starters. Chicken owners also must take an Indian Creek Nature Center class on raising chickens, and they've got to pay a $25 annual permit fee. Hens will have ID tags, so they're not just running wild in the streets.

For all the controversy, less than a year after Cedar Rapids-based Citizens for Legalization of Urban Chickens formally asked Cedar Rapids councilors to allow the birds, the city has managed to craft ordinances that strike a balance between pro- and anti-chicken camps.

Not so in Iowa City, where public discussion about the issue has been so lacking you can practically hear the crickets chirp.

Months before the like-minded CLUK formally approached Cedar Rapids councilors, folks in Iowa City presented their elected representatives with nearly 700 signatures on a petition asking them to consider chickens.

But Iowa City leaders chickened out, putting the idea in the laps of a newly elected council and then taking it off the table entirely when new members Terry Dickens and Susan Mims said they weren't interested in discussing the issue. They haven't budged. Still, maybe there's hope.

The chicken-friendliness of places like Des Moines, Sioux City, Madison and Chicago couldn't convince Iowa City councilors it's possible to craft a set of reasonable, practical rules allowing chickens within city limits.

But maybe an example a little closer to home will change their minds.

Comments: (319) 339-3154; jennifer.hemmingsen@gazcomm.com