Victoria is hoping B.C. Supreme Court will agree that a Rockland neighbourhood property owner is running afoul of a city bylaw limiting the number of chickens she can keep.
In a petition filed in B.C. Supreme Court, the city is seeking a court order to force Wei Tu, owner of a heritage mansion converted into a rooming house at 1322 Rockland Ave., to reduce the number of chickens on her property to 15 from the estimated 100 now being kept there.
The city wants the court to:
• restrain Tu and any of her tenants from contravening the city’s Animal Responsibility Bylaw
• reduce the number of chickens on the property to not more than the 15 allowed, within a week of the order being granted
• if Tu does not comply, the authority for the city remove the excess chickens and to “sell, destroy or otherwise dispose” of them.
• the ability to treat any costs incurred as if they were taxes
City council adopted an amendment to its animal bylaw June 20 which limited the number of poultry any person could keep on a property to no more than 15 female chickens or other poultry or any combination of chickens or other poultry no greater than 15.
The city’s petition to the court says the city has made efforts to assist Tu with coming into compliance with the bylaw, including allowing an extended period of time to do so.
Despite those efforts Tu has continued to keep approximately 100 chickens on the property and provided the city with no evidence to show she’s in compliance with the bylaw, the city maintains.
No statement of defence has been filed. None of the allegations have been proven in court.
Prior to the city imposing the 15-hen limit, Tu appealed to councillors directly urging them not to do so.
Tu said at the time her goal was to utilize her 2.2-acre lot to provide residents of the rooming house with fresh eggs and the opportunity to grow their own food.
Some neighbours, however, have cried foul, raising concerns about noise and open compost from a farm-like operation which they say has attracted rats.
