By D. L. Norris
Around the 2010 time frame, the urban hipster locavore movement was sweeping the country, pushing for cities to allow chickens to be raised in urban backyards. The urban hipster movement is a liberal progressive movement and one would think that heavily conservative Okaloosa County would be immune from it; but, that did not turn out to be the case. In June of 2015, the Okaloosa County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) voted 4 to 1 to adopt a backyard chicken ordinance. The ordinance was spearheaded by District 3 Commissioner, Nathan Boyles. The dissenting vote was District 2 Commissioner, Carolyn Ketchel. There were actually two ordinances passed, 15-09 and 15-10, both regulating backyard chickens in residential zones. Each ordinance is 5 pages, totaling 10 pages of regulatory requirements for keeping backyard chickens in a residential zone. The intent was to ease restrictions and allow more homeowners to raise backyard chickens; disregarding the fact that history and civility have led us to create separate zones for livestock and human habitation for obvious health and welfare reasons. As a conservative, if the county BOCC takes a liberal position and passes laws that I disagree with, I’m o.k. with that; BUT , only if they fully enforce those liberal laws when violated.
Fast forward to May 22, 2017, I filed a formal complaint on a neighbor, three doors down, violating the backyard chicken ordinance. The neighbor was violating multiple parts of the ordinance, the biggest being that their chickens and coops were in the front yard and the ordinance clearly stated they could not be there. Code enforcement responded by issuing a notice of violation with instruction to remove the chickens. Instead of removing the chickens, the neighbor paid $800.00 to apply for a special exception to keep their chickens and coops in the front yard. A quasi-judicial hearing was held with the Board of Adjustment and the board granted the neighbor their exception to keep 16 chickens as long as they moved the coops to the backyard. The neighbor did not move their chickens and coops to the backyard and code enforcement issued a second notice of violation to remove the coops from the front yard. The neighbor did not remove their coops from the front yard. What the neighbor did was petition the BOCC to rewrite the ordinances to allow front yard chickens in residential neighborhoods. Every commissioner on the BOCC claims to be conservative and conservatives do not rewrite laws to allow violators to become legal; BUT , this BOCC unanimously did.
On October 3, 2017, I had an attorney speak to the BOCC during the public comments portion of their monthly North-end meeting to persuade them not to rewrite the ordinance. I thought surely they would reconsider their actions if an attorney informed them of how we arrived at this point. All five commissioners seemed to double down after that, requesting a loosening of many of the restrictions in the ordinances and proceeded to task the Planning Commission to rewrite the ordinances. My District 4 Commissioner, Trey Goodwin III, told my attorney that we could use the nuisance laws if we had a problem and that the county can’t let the land development code become an HOA for everyone in the county. Now, what was never stated publicly on October 3rd was that, somewhere back around September 25, 2017, the county attorney, through a deputy attorney, sent notice to my attorney that code enforcement actions regarding chicken coops in the front yards were abated. The county did not cite and fine the neighbors. This abatement was a unilateral, arbitrary, behind-the-scene decision and there is no Florida statute that allows for this action to be taken. Government doesn’t get anymore progressively liberal than this: the BOCC wrote a liberal law, the law was grossly violated within 2 years of it’s passing, then the BOCC set out to rewrite the law to make the violator legal.
So on to the Planning Commission meetings we went. I, and my attorney, presented opposing arguments along with even more nuisance evidence. We also got a few members of the public representing each county district to stand in opposition. In April 2018, the Planning Commission unanimously voted to NOT rewrite the ordinances. Then the big stall happened. The county refused to close the process out by putting the rejected ordinance on the BOCC agenda for an up or down vote. Also, the county attorney refused to lift the code enforcement abatement order. That left me no other option but to sue Okaloosa County and the neighbor. On 19 December 2018, I filed a complaint in 1st Circuit Court, case number 2018 CA 004472 F.
I decided to borrow the ancient Chinese warrior and philosopher, Sun Tzu’s, advise from his book, The Art of War, and “attack alliances”. Clearly the Okaloosa County government, to include the BOCC and paid staff, had aligned themselves with a land development code violator and had no intention of enforcing the code on this particular family. So, I figured the county had an unlimited amount of funding and would go all in on a defense for a lawsuit; however, my neighbor likely was not as financially fluid and would do whatever it took to avoid the lawsuit. I guessed right. After a little over a month of legal posturing, on 3 February 2019, my neighbor removed the chickens and coops from their property completely and the lawsuit was dropped.
To this day, I do not believe the neighbor was ever cited and fined for their violation. In addition, the neighbor violated the terms of their special exception; and, I do not believe Okaloosa County has taken any steps to revoke the exception as they legally should. This would be done through a public hearing with the Board of Adjustment.
This entire year and a half ordeal should have never happened if all actors within the Okaloosa County government followed the Florida Statutes and the Okaloosa County Land Development Code. Government employees and elected officials must follow the law. The only evidence I have of Okaloosa County wrong doing was Exhibit M in my legal complaint, presenting the 25 September 2017 email from the Okaloosa County Attorney’s office stating code enforcement actions were abated. On 17 May 2019, I wrote a letter to Governor Ron DeSantis explaining what happened. To this date, I have not personally heard back from the Governor’s office; however, I don’t take that to mean the issue is not being looked into. Investigations into government wrong doing are usually not announced. It is interesting to note that the Okaloosa County Attorney retired this past September 2019 and, I’m o.k. with that, whether it is a coincidence or not.
So, I know what you’re thinking… to bad for her but what does this have to do with me? Well, if they could do this to me, they can do this to anyone. How many citizens can afford to drop a lawsuit on their county in order to get basic code enforced? You know what I’m thinking…how many citizens have they done this to already who did not have the financial means to fight back? How many citizens had no choice but to allow the county to supress and repress them? This is how liberal progressivism tries to get a toehold into a conservative society.
Post Script: At the April 5, 2022, BOCC regular meeting, the board unanimously voted to amend the Okaloosa County Land Development Code, Ordinance 91-01, as it pertains to the keeping of poultry, specifically, providing for the repeal of Section 1A.04.05.7 and 2.21.05.10.d, e, and f, the amendment of Section 2.21.05.10b, and the recodifying of existing Section 2.21.05.10g to 2.21.05.10d, amending Section 5-25(c) of the Code of Laws and Ordinances of Okaloosa County, Florida. In plain language, they simplified the code by cutting it down to 4 pages and removed the requirement to obtain permission from the county to keep up to 4 chickens per 1/5th acre in an R1 zone. They still have to be behind the primary structure in the backyard.
You can contact the author at dlnorris@theparadispatriot.com