We can’t get over the heartbreaking story of Frank Dutra
’s forced farewell to his beloved animals.
We can’t get over the heartbreaking story of Frank Dutra’s forced farewell to his beloved animals.
“These goats are like pets to me. I’ve had them for a long time,” Dutra said about the departure of five goats from his seven-acre ranch. “I don’t understand why they are doing this to me.”
Here’s why: Because suburbia crept around the Diana Avenue ranch that Dutra calls home, because the city of Morgan Hill annexed and zoned the land next door, and because someone filed formal complaints, Dutra was forced to remove the five goats, three horses and one mule he owns or tended.
It’s a crying shame and an outrage, not only for Dutra, but for all of South Valley, which is rapidly losing its few remaining vestiges of its rural heritage.
The animals were favorites of neighbors from children to seniors. They were well-tended, with veterinary care and plenty of space, shade, food and water. But thanks to a shortsighted Morgan Hill livestock ordinance that dates to the 1960s, they’ve been uprooted and moved. Morgan Hill’s ordinance sets an arbitrary limit of two adult livestock animals for any ranch or farm in residential or commercial zone, regardless of the size of the lot.
That’s a ridiculously low amount for a seven-acre plot that has not changed in use over the last several decades. Rather, the neighboring agricultural land changed from orchards and pasture land to suburban single-family and multifamily housing.
“They built around me,” Dutra told reporter Carol Holzgrafe. “I didn’t build around them.”
He’s exactly right.
We urge Morgan Hill City Council to take up Dutra’s plight at its next meeting. The city should immediately amend its ordinance to grandfather current ranches with “illegal” numbers of animals so that they don’t need to fear Dutra’s fate.
Second, City Council should study the livestock regulations the county adopted a few years ago. In the majority of cases, there are no limits on the number of livestock animals permitted, and in all cases where limits apply, the limits are established on a number of animals per acre basis. Sensibly, the county realizes that the number of animals that can be housed on a two-acre ranch is different than the number of animals that can be housed on a seven-acre or 20-acre ranch.
The county’s livestock policy has been, by all accounts, very successful.
Morgan Hill should adopt a similar ordinance that takes into account the size of a farm or ranch instead of maintaining its unfair arbitrary livestock limits.
If Morgan Hill adopts these commonsense solutions, there will be no more heart-wrenching separations of people from the animals they raise on large plots of land. There will be fewer lost links to our area’s rural heritage. There will be fewer reductions in our children’s opportunities to connect with the natural world.
With a grandfather clause, a revised ordinance, a sense of history and a dose of common sense, Morgan Hill can restore a precious piece of its rural landscape, which city officials and residents claim to value.
And Frank Dutra can bring his beloved five goats, three horses and one mule back to his Diana Avenue ranch where they belong.
