If you change it, they will come.
A potential amendment to an animal ordinance created a completely packed room during an Osceola City Council meeting Tuesday, May 5.
A public hearing was held on a proposed amendment to an ordinance titled “animal control.”
The existing ordinance about livestock reads, “It is unlawful for a person to keep livestock within the city except by written consent of the city council.”
The proposed amendment was to add “upon the sale or transfer of property, it shall be unlawful for the new owners to maintain the right of possessing livestock on property contained within the city.”
Why the amendment?
For many years, the city has dealt with the issue of livestock within the city limits, including requests for urban chickens.
Recently, there was an issue with a property that was being sold where, years ago, the council had approved the request for horses on the property to the original owner. However, that allowance for horses wouldn’t transfer to the new owner.
At previous meetings, the council realized this could be a problem that could come up a lot in the future and were trying to find a solution for it.
Ty Wheeler, city administrator/clerk, discussed concerns he had heard from a local cattle farmer.
“When he’s looking at acquiring that property from his dad …. in the distant future, he’s worried what would happen if the council dug in as the ordinance is written and amended now, saying no more livestock, then he’d have a fairly significant portion of that property no longer able to be used for the cattle operation,” Wheeler said.
Ag zoning
Wheeler also discussed the potential of creating agriculture zoning within the city.
“Thereby, (it’s) exempting them from this ordinance, which would allow those uses to continue and allow a sale to happen unencumbered by the no livestock ordinance,” he said.
Agricultural zoning would have to go back to the city’s planning and zoning committee, and then go back before the city council for official approval.
However, many property owners who attended the meeting had concerns about needing a guarantee their land would be officially rezoned as agricultural.
“If we send this back down to planning and zoning, I would think, if you have property that you’re interested in getting that rezoned into agriculture, petition them, I don’t think you’re going to have any problems,” said Councilman Dennis Page.
At this point in the public hearing, a lot of time was spent discussing size of acreages, land assessments, city annexations from the late 1980s, types of livestock and various other issues.
Working out the problems
Approximately 45 minutes later, the council proposed to direct city staff to evaluate or assess the agricultural property situation in town, specifically how it is zoned and how many areas have such permitted uses. It should come back to the council as a report.
That directive was approved by the council.
“Rezoning is a very public process, in current practice. Everybody gets notified in writing. That will occur,” Wheeler said.
Councilman Chris Dorsey also made a suggestion about the ordinance amendment with needing to “kill that for the moment.”
The city approved rejecting the first reading of the “animal control” amendment.
“If the perception that it’s still there as written, it might behoove (us),” Dorsey said. “Then, we can come back and address it. It’s going to be rewritten, but there’s part of me that says let’s just get rid of it, eliminate it … tear it up. And then, as we move through the process, we’ll have to do it again.”