An Ordinance By The Pasco County Board Of County Commissioners Amending The Pasco County Land Development Code; Creating Section 530.25; Backyard Chickens; And Other Sections, As Necessary, For Internal Consistency; Providing For Applicability; Repealer; Providing For Severability; Inclusion Into The Land Development Code, And An Effective Date.
What the county recorded
Staff recommendation
No Action Required
DispositionNo action
No action was required as this was the first public hearing. The adoption hearing was scheduled for the November 12, 2025 Board of County Commissioners meeting at 1:30 p.m. in Dade City.
The source document
The county’s agenda for Board of County Commissioners, Oct 21, 2025
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
The county’s minutes for Board of County Commissioners, Oct 21, 2025
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
This case, across meetings
PDE-26-0001 in full →PDE-26-0001 was taken up 2 times between Oct 21, 2025 and Nov 12, 2025 — this is appearance 1.
- Oct 21, 2025BoardP67▶No actionthis item
- Nov 12, 2025BoardP61▶Adopted
What was said
Machine transcription of 13m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 83% of 82 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
All right. Thank you very much. Okay. P sixty seven. So
just
Just for the record, this is the this is the this is your first public hearing. The second public hearing will be held on November twelfth twenty twenty-five at one thirty in Tate City. Yes.
He's sixty seven. Proof of publication, Tampa Bay Times,
September 3rd. Oh, I'm sorry, one second. Did you get my video? Um, can I show you something real quick? Sorry, one second. Denise? I want I want you to look at this video. Um And this is this is a house in my district. And um they are metal scrappers. I've shown you videos of this house before.
I ha I have a problem with this kind of What this does to a neighborhood. These trucks never move. They store their their metal there. You know this house. Um but how is that is that Commissioner We you know we we don't have an any rules here against multiple vehicles in the yard. But I don't think this is good for our community to I have Have you got a little bit of a people I I mean I
don't know who would want to live next door to this. Commissioner Starkey send me the information we'll look into it. I mean the these there's a couple of violations I already see there just by looking at the site.
But these trucks are always there. Are they registered?
Yeah, we'll have to look at that. We'll look into that.
But legally we can't even go behind there, right? And see if they have um Um there is a concept in Chapter 162, Florida statutes uh regarding cartilage and we'll We can take a look at that. Okay.
Well, I feel so bad for this neighborhood. Okay.
Seven. Yeah, P sixty seven.
September third, twenty twenty five.
Good afternoon, Commissioner is Amanda Hill, Planet Development and Economic Growth.
County.
Item P67 is an ordinance by the Pasco County Board of County Commissioners amending the Pasco County Land Development Code, creating section 530.25 Backyard Chickens and other sections as necessary for internal consistency. Providing for applicability, repealer, providing for severability, inclusion into the land development code, and an effective date. The intent of this ordinance is to allow for backyard chickens within residential properties for the purpose of egg production. This ordinance does
not seek to add any provisions or restrictions for the keeping of chickens on estate residential or agricultural zoning districts. Standards related to the keeping of chickens will be detailed in Chapter 14 of the Pasco County Code of Ordinances. This will be brought to the board for consideration at the November 12th public hearing in Dade City.
The proposed provisions in section 530.25 were quite short and include the prohibition of the keeping of chickens in multifamily zoning districts. Additionally, the setbacks shall be the required setbacks of the nearest zoning district, where minimum lot area width, depth, and setback regulations can be met. for nonconforming use for a dwelling unit on a commercially zoned proper parcel. the parcel shall be considered a residential district. And finally, the provisions
of the proposed section will not supersede any covenant or restriction of record.
This is the first public hearing of the proposed land development code amendments. The adoption hearing of the proposed land development code amendments will be on November 12, 2025. at 1.30 p.m. in Dade City. So on November 12th, you would have two items before you, both the adoption hearing for the Land Development Code amendment and then the Chapter 14 Code of Ordinances amendment. And I did include here a comparison of some of, I'm sorry, can you go through things? There you go. Um a comparison of some of the research that
we did in preparing the standards, especially for chapter 14. So for the communities that we looked at in general, they allowed between four to six uh chickens, hens only. Most of them, they don't require permits. I believe there were two Hernando and City of Brannetton that required permits in some capacity. They all restrict the chickens to residential zoning districts. And the square footage allowed for the birds range, some as
little as two square feet, some four feet. And in terms of the overall size of the coop, that also ranges as well. And I have the language here for chapter Five hundred. 530.25 and if you have any questions I'm here to answer. Yes.
Yeah. Did we amend when we reviewed this a made a l last time, did we amend some of these rules that makes it rather cumbersome?
To have chickens. I mean they're if it's the
class.
I disagree with
That's I mean that's in their rules.
Everything well I won't support it as is then, but I mean we we make it we're gonna make this so cumbersome for folks to have backyard chickens, so bureaucratic, permit and everything else. It's like if people want chickens and they have the appropriate zone, let 'em have the chickens. I mean you you don't have to do all that to go adopt an animal from the animal shelter. And this is to feed your family. So I just You know appreciate the work. I just disagree with the how bureaucratic this ordinance is.
Well, Commissioner, I I kinda agree, and IPAS doesn't even really have a class. So what if we're gonna have to pay the But I think they should have some knowledge. What if we just make 'em liberty what what if they have to sign on to an informational page?
Can I add some
clarity to? This solves a lot of the issues we've had with chickens.
Yeah.
Oh you know I w could have 'em, some people couldn't, and they're they're out in a rural area and they should be allowed to have them. Yeah. For them to get a permit to have 'em, it makes sure they're responsible owners of those chickens. They can't have roosters, there's other things, geese, quail, any game manners they can't have. But this corrects a lot of that that we've had to do. You know,
I've been trying
to and allows some people to have 'em that couldn't have 'em before.
Yeah. So I mean we're going to require permits for other animals in this county too, cats, dogs, whatever. I mean,
So a previous version, a previous draft of this did require a permit. We did look into that, uh, Commissioner Weightman. And like I mentioned, the chart that I had previously.
Yeah, go back to that one.
Um most of those communities, they did not require a permit. And between looking at that research in terms of the feasibility of implementing that permit, getting it off the ground, as well as the cost. And then even in terms of how many people are coming in for permits, uh the ordinance drafting team decided to remove that requirement for a permit in the draft that's going to be coming forward to you for consideration in November. And another
point to
this,
okay. Code enforcement's already stretched too thin. You really won't want them to be policing chicken coops too. I mean
to now. That's the
right-of-way. I mean I I don't either I I think we need to simplify this, that's all.
Okay,
so you're you're simplifying it for the next reading. Yes. That's what I heard. Yes. I'm I'm okay with that. We have to do it.
Yeah, I'm for no permit as well.
Okay, um uh does anyone here wish to speak to the chicken?
Talia Berkfield.
Talia, come on up and talk to us about chickens. Fourteen
years to
get
to this day.
And you have to introduce your two little kids.
Okay. I'm Talia Burkfeld. I live at [address removed]. Thank you for repaving the road. Oh. Awesome. Just we've all talked about it for like three, four weeks now, how awesome it is. This is Sailor Burkfeld and Sage Burkfeld. Oh. Right. We currently own six chickens. We have done extensive research on how to care for said chickens. We have built our own coop with our bare hands. My husband built roosting boxes or no rooster
and whatever they call the boxes. We clean the coop once a week. We feed, we water our chickens. And more importantly, it's taught the girls responsibility um where your food comes from 'cause we have a garden as well. Um nobody complained, uh just this guy that lived a f we found out. I I'm a I'm Italian so I do a little investigating. And I found out and I drove by his yard and much like the yard you showed on T V, his yard was like that. So maybe you can
go by there a little bit. So that's a little pot calling the kettle black. Um the m the main complaint was that it attracts rats. My family's been in Florida for a hundred years. We've lived uh in Tampa mostly. My grandfather helped construct Ybor City and was big in the Italian club. So you know about chickens? I know a lot about chickens and I know a lot about rats because I'm a Florida native. And if you live in Florida and you think your backyard is not gonna be uh have a rat in it or one come into
your yard from rain, then Maybe you should buy an apartment because that's the beauty of homeownership. You can take care of your house. But the girls we love the chickens. We have taken care of four of them since they were chicks. They yield us sometimes I have two chickens that are laying and sometimes I get four eggs in a span of twenty-four hours. So I'd say my chickens are relatively happy. We've only had one problem with mites and we took care of it right away. I think if you are going to look
at buying chickens, doing the appropriate research is key. I gave myself about six months to prepare and make sure it was a chore that I could handle. And we pay taxes, we own our homes. A lot of the homes in my area are rentals. Um so you know, we've paid taxes. Ten years now I've been in this area. I love Pasco County and I just wanna keep my chickens. That's it. We're very excited. being a part of this process. Um so How'd you find out
about the chicken ordinance? I wrote an email because I got a code enforcement visit from a really lovely gentleman. He was really great. He was awesome. We were talk he was even uh intrigued by one of my breeds because I have ones that has feathers on the feet and just you know, you get into it a little bit. It's a hobby. Um and he came by, code enforcement did. I'm not gonna sit here and lie. So then I wrote an email and they told me about the meeting. And I said, Well, I'm gonna go. Well
that's so I have a I have a question. But that's for the girls. So what is your favorite part about taking care of the chickens?
Uh U Bond with?
Yeah, what about Sailor? What's your favorite?
Putting
them to
bed. Yeah, putting
them away. And do you guys get to collect the eggs? Oh I mean we built a giant pen. It's in we moved it from uh by the fence when code enforcement came out 'cause you know we don't we want to be considerate. Yeah. So we built a pen, we have boxes and uh we have rainbow eggs because we have a chicken that lays blue eggs, one at least green. So do you notice a difference? I live at [address removed]. In a couple months I'll be s swimming in eggs. Please stop by and grab I have one more question for the girls. Sure.
Do you guys notice a difference when you crack an egg from the store and crack one of your own eggs? The difference in the color?
Well, we haven't had to buy eggs for four or five months now. That's awesome. So we've kind of um gotten a little bit more sustainability that way for ourselves and no questions. Do you have a question? Or a comment?
Yeah. A barred rock chicken. Okay. Well we might take a visit to your go see your chicken. You can come over any
time, right?
Thank you,
girl. No eggs for us? Well no, I I had to make some doubled eggs because it was getting overwhelming. So now I'm back. I have a dozen in the fridge. But I was at like I think uh the other day I was at like thirty six eggs. I had more eggs than I knew what to do with so I had to bake and Get rid of 'em, you know. Yeah, that's awesome. Well thank you for coming today. Bye girls. Say bye.
Bye.
That was awesome. And we're gonna make those little ones pull a permit for this one.
I think they have to give up an I think they have to get rid of a chicken too. How many do we allow? Four. Yeah.
Okay, one of them's ready for, you know, the other.
Okay, project.
Okay. Um well I'm doing you vote on this today and then vote no. No, it's just informational? Yes. All right.
Date so yeah. It's at the county court. Okay. Uh County the old county courthouse. Yeah. All right. Bye.
Please bring them back.
I wanted my granddaughter to be named Sailor, but I no Collar.