Planning Commissioner Joe Mueller uttered words Wednesday night
that goat-owner Frank Dutra has been waiting to hear:
“The animals can come back,” Mueller said.
Planning Commissioner Joe Mueller uttered words Wednesday night that goat-owner Frank Dutra has been waiting to hear:
“The animals can come back,” Mueller said.
But it’s still going to be some time. The revised city ordinance must receive initial and final approval from the council. It is scheduled to go into effect about April 15.
To allow the goats’ return, the Planning Commission unanimously recommended changing the existing ordinance, defining the difference between commercial and non-commercial uses. Dutra’s goats were used to keep weeds down but otherwise functioned as pets, being favorites of neighborhood children.
Dutra’s goats have been gone from his seven-acre property at 815 Diana Ave., between Butterfield Boulevard and Highway 101, since September. After Dutra and several neighbors – the friends of goats contingent – took the matter to the council, planning staff and the Planning Commission were asked to find a way to allow goats as pets while still providing protection from out-of-control amounts of livestock in residential areas.
What staff came up with, and what the commission approved, is to allow up to two adult livestock and their immature offspring for every 40,000-square-feet (nine-tenths of an acre), in a secure corral located at least 50-feet from the property line.
Mueller said Wednesday that the 50-foot line allows more control.
“You have to maintain some separation,” Mueller said. “I think this ordinance will work; Frank should be able to live with it.”
Each additional five-acre piece can house two more animals, plus their immature offspring, with a 100-foot set back. The commission wanted to make sure to allow 4-H projects, selling a few eggs and other limited personal, not commercial, use. The new ordinance would allow a family to sell calves resulting from resident cows and bulls if they would exceed the set number of animals per acre.
Current city ordinance allows the same number – two plus offspring – on one acre and no more than two on property of any size without a special permit. The animals had to be at least 200 feet from the nearest school, church, hospital or residence – except the animals’ owner’s house.
Domesticated animals include horses, mules, burros, cattle, sheep, goats, llamas but not hogs or pigs, and no difference is drawn between commercial and non-commercial uses. Poultry are excluded from the ordinance.
City residents can keep up to five dogs or cats, or any combination of cats and dogs, totaling five plus any number of puppies and/or kittens up to four months of age. This will not change with the new ordinance. The complete current ordinance can be read at www.morganhill.ca.gov/
Also new is the cost of asking for a variance; requests for extra animals will now go to the planning director at no cost, as developers do for conditional use permits; previously the City Council had to approve at a cost of $3,000 or more.
Planning Manager Jim Rowe said that any neighborhood’s CC&Rs would override the city ordinance, in most cases so, if Jackson Oaks, for example, forbids livestock of any kind, the city law would not allow such animals. The city is not the one to enforce such restrictions, however.
“It would be up to the individual homeowners’ associations to enforce the rule,” Rowe said.
Neighbors can still file complaints with the city’s code enforcement officers if there are too many animals, too close or if flies, noise or smells become offensive or if there is a danger to others. The code enforcement number is 779-7241.
Dutra was a bit dubious when contacted Wednesday, because the 50-foot distance would make him build a new fence across the northern boundary. Two horses he was keeping were rubbing against and breaking a good-neighbor fence that separated his land from a newer condominium’s yard. This will have to be remedied, Rowe said.
“It was my plan to let the five goats run the whole five acres,” Dutra said. “I don’t want to flood the place with animals; I just want my goats.”
Still, Dutra was grateful to the council for helping him out.
“I am glad they changed the law; we’ll see what we can do,” he said.
Even though Dutra has had goats at the Diana Avenue address for years, they have always been illegal. The original ordinance was written in the 1960s but, as long as no one complained, the city did not enforce the law. After the code enforcement department received one formal and more informal complaints, they had to take action.
Carol Holzgrafe covers City Hall for The Times. She can be reached by e-mail at ch********@mo*************.com or phoning (408) 779-4106 Ext. 201.
