I’m a resident of the Viewpoint neighborhood.

As part of my household’s effort to live more sustainably, we’ve been looking into having some backyard hens.

Unfortunately, in Redmond, current interpretation of city code says you must have a one-half acre lot to have chickens and then you can have 10.

In Bellevue, it’s okay to have six chickens on an urban sized lot.

In Seattle, residents can keep three hens. Most cities in this area allow some number of chickens, often restricted to hens only.

Chickens eat kitchen scraps and produce eggs and fertilizer for the garden. Hens are relatively quiet. I don’t think anyone would prefer to live next door to a household with three pitbulls versus a household with three hens.

Redmond code would need minor modification or just reinterpretation to include hens in the household pet definition in order to allow the average residence to have three hens.

This would be a cost free action the city could take to help residents live more sustainably. This would be the kind of action that could really make a difference in how the suburbs can be reinvented as a great place to live now and in the future.

If there are other residents of Redmond who are interested in keeping chickens. I hope they will voice this to the city planner, too, and we may be heard.

Sandra Stromme, Redmond