By Héctor Alejandro Arzate
Many homeowners associations don’t let people raise chickens in their backyards. But a new Missouri law going into effect this month says HOAs must allow it.
Nearly every day for the past two years, Sarah Kaldenberg’s hens have laid half a dozen blue and green eggs in the backyard of her Kansas City home.
A horticulturist by training, she’s always enjoyed growing her own food in the garden. But like many people in recent years, Kaldenberg got chickens because she wanted to try a hobby that would provide her family – including her young child – with a new source of homegrown food.
“With the chickens and stuff, they're really cute when they're tiny. So it's kind of fun growing them and everything,” said Kaldenberg, who helped create a local neighborhood group for backyard chickens on Facebook.
However, not all Missouri homeowners can just decide to build a chicken coop and raise hens. Some municipalities don’t allow it, while people who own a house within a homeowners association are subject to its rules and regulations.
But starting on Aug. 28, Missouri HOAs will no longer be allowed under state law to prohibit homeowners from owning chickens in their backyard, even if their covenants and restrictions have banned it outright.
Under the new law, HOAs must allow households with at least 2/10ths of an acre to own up to six chickens. They also cannot prohibit single chicken coops that can hold up to six chickens.
The provision was passed by the Missouri General Assembly as part of a larger bill, HB 2062, during the previous legislative session. Gov. Mike Parson signed it last month.
A driving force behind the provision was Rep. Jim Murphy, a Republican who represents parts of St. Louis County in District 94.
Murphy said he was motivated in part by his grandchildren’s love for raising chickens. He said when his son built a chicken coop in their subdivision, there wasn’t a rule on the issue, but the family heard threats from the board to create one soon after. That’s when he decided to take it up with his fellow state lawmakers.
“I don't believe that HOAs deserve that much power,” Murphy said. “I think that private property is just that: it's private property.”
HOA pushback
Some HOA groups have raised concerns with the provision. Last month, the Heartland chapter for the Community Associations Institute – an organization composed of homeowner and condominium associations – called on Gov. Parson to veto the bill, citing that it would infringe on a community’s rights and regulations.
Elia Ellis, an attorney and the chair for the CAI Missouri Legislative Action Committee, said the group opposes the provision because it offers less flexibility for individual communities.
“It's not because we think that no community should have chickens, but it should be communities that want to have chickens or want to allow for chickens,” Ellis said. “And those communities that don't want to have those should be allowed to not have chickens.”
Ellis said there’s potential for litigation over the specifics of the provision, and the group is working to push back.
“Whether we could convince legislatures in the future to reverse this and do something different – I don't know,” Ellis said. “It's an uphill climb, in that regard.”
As a former HOA board member himself, Murphy said he’s found that boards can overreach. He said that under the law there’s still measures that can be taken to prevent an excess of backyard chickens.
“I'm not real sympathetic to the HOA cause here,” Murphy said. “And frankly, if the city wants to ban chickens, that bill allows the city to do it, allows the county to do it. It just doesn't allow these small groups of people that arbitrarily decide, ‘Well, not in my neighborhood,’ to do it.”
Who rules the roost?
The provision does leave room for HOAs to “adopt reasonable rules, subject to applicable statutes or ordinances.” This could include prohibitions or restrictions on roosters, which can be noisy and a nuisance to neighbors compared to hens.
Kyle Gally, an attorney at the St. Louis-based law firm Amundsen Davis, which has hundreds of HOAs as clients, said that is going to be helpful for HOAs when drafting new community rules to at least outline what a chicken coop structure can look like, as well as where it can be located.
Those restrictions could help limit noise, smell, and even rodent issues often associated with keeping chickens. For Gally, it's the best way to limit any ruffled feathers between homeowners who want to keep chickens and those who do not.
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