By Nicholas Voltaggio
They say you can’t fight City Hall, but Peter Sudol sure is trying his best.
The Morristown resident is not protesting a parking violation or a speeding ticket. Sudol, 43, is fighting to keep his four hens.
An unconventional pet for the New Jersey suburbs? Sudol, a field engineer, admits as much.
When he moved to Morristown with his wife and infant son last October, he envisioned a normal suburban life. Circumstances changed when Sudol lost his job in March, during the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak.
Amidst so much uncertainty, the notion of self-sufficiency that came with owning chickens began to appeal to Sudol.
“We didn’t know what was going to happen,” Sudol said. “We didn’t know if we could go to the store. So we got really excited” about the idea of getting chickens.
He contends the chickens are quiet and virtually odor-free, and lay enough eggs to share with all his neighbors.
Sudol concedes the coop is too close to a neighbor’s property — a law he plans to challenge before the town council at its Zoom meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2020.
Acting on an anonymous tip last month, an animal control officer cited him with a code violation at his home and gave him until Aug. 20 to remove the coop–or face a municipal judge and potential fines.
So far, Sudol said, no council member has responded to his emails for help. Councilwoman Sandi Mayer, whose Fourth Ward includes Catherine Lane, told Morristown Green she will study the matter.
Sudol said Mayor Tim Dougherty’s secretary told him the mayor’s office is “following up with the town attorney now” regarding chicken ordinances. Morristown Green has reached out to town Attorney Vij Pawar and will update this story with any response.
When Sudol set out to prepare the coop and ensure it met safety and sanitary codes, he acknowledges overlooking Section 25-9.1b of the Morristown municipal code, which holds that “no part of a coop… shall be less than 50 feet from any property line.”
Sudol said he misinterpreted this rule as barring coops from within 50 feet of homes, not property lines.
Sudol questions the rationale for the 50-foot rule. He believes Section 25-9, approved in 1980, should be revised to reduce the maximum distance between a coop and a property line to 25 feet, which would bring him into compliance.
“It’s like we’re being penalized because our houses are on top of each other,” Sudol said. “Our hens bother nobody, they make no noise. Unless you were trespassing, you wouldn’t know we had chickens.”
Next door neighbor Maria Largo seems to corroborate that.
“The (presence of) the chickens doesn’t affect us at all,” said Largo, who reports neither disruptive noises nor odors from her neighbor’s coop.
More than 200 supporters have signed an online petition calling for the council to update Morristown’s chicken ordinance, while a national petition has more than 1,800 signatures.
“The way they care for their chickens is AMAZING,” posted one petitioner, describing the family as “welcoming and kind.”
Sudol estimates his coop could produce about 600 eggs per year, a harvest he said he would share with the eight neighbors on his small side street.
His proposed ordinance changes are not without precedent. He points to retired nurse-midwife and domestic chicken-keeping advocate Gwenne Baile as a potential model for the Morristown government.
The founder and CEO of Camden County Chickens, Baile started her organization in 2015 in an effort to convince Haddon Township in Camden County to allow individuals to keep up to four hens in their backyards.
In the years since, Baile has worked with 10 New Jersey municipalities to either draft new, progressive chicken laws or tweak existing ones, according to her website. Haddon Township now permits residents to own up to eight hens, provided the owner is approved for a license and the coop is “set back at least 20 feet from the habitable portion of any neighboring residential dwelling,” states the Township’s municipal code.
Licensed hen-owners then are subject to the supervision of a Chicken Advisory Board, established by code changes stemming from Baile’s activism. This code also includes a provision barring individuals from owning roosters, hens’ male counterparts. Roosters, not hens, Sudol contends, are responsible for disruptive noise.
Morristown can adopt similar changes with relative ease, Sudol insists.
“Morristown’s actually quite progressive in its chicken laws,” he said. “Some towns don’t allow them at all. The ordinance just needs a little tweak.”
Chicken licenses even could generate some revenue for the town, he said.
After spending some time around his egg-laying pets, Sudol is not afraid of ruffling feathers in town hall.
Chickens, he said, are “extremely sweet, docile, and funny animals.” Gwenne Baile, the advocate from South Jersey, even has used hens for therapeutic purposes, much like therapy dogs.
“They’re just wonderful animals that people don’t understand,” Sudol said. “People think ‘Oh, barnyard, gross animals,’ but they’re our pets, and, really, they’re providing us food.”
He is determined to keep up his fowl fight.
“I’m not going to stop trying to make this happen,” Sudol vowed. “I’m not going to get rid of my pets.”
Does anyone know what the laws are for Hanover?
I had the same problem. We have no ordinance for chickens in the Town of Hackettstown. My neighbors tried every which way to get rid of my chickens. I eventually hired a lawyer and won! I kept my chickens.
Good luck! We had chickens in Morristown from 2010-2015, with no issues. The coop was 50 ft from our house, but closer to the fence, which was a town park. We did have one chicken that often escaped, but our neighbors didn’t mind.
In response to Mud – we live near them and I’ll tell you for a fact the wild birds and dogs around here are the ones who make the noise. We wouldn’t have known they even had chickens unless they had told us. We think it’s great!
Unpopular opinion coming:
I’d be totally fine with him keeping the chickens if all the neighbors signed off and they did not bother anybody. However, someone called that tip line for a reason, so it must be bothering someone.
Good luck. I live in a nearby town and we have the same location limitation. To be compliant, the coop would have to be dead center in our yard and so far back it would be near the property line.
Good luck Pete!!!