CLINTON — That’s one small step for chickens, one giant leap for rabbits.

On Tuesday evening, Dec. 8, the Clinton city council loosened its laws dealing with residential chickens and rabbits. The amendment to the city’s zoning ordinance, hailed by chicken and/or rabbit lovers in the community, was really more of a clarification, according to Will Wright, community development director for the city.

“The city already had an ordinance dealing with residential chickens and rabbits,” Wright said. “But the planning commission had received a request to loosen it.”

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Prior to Tuesday’s decision, chickens in Clinton were allowed only in R-1-10 zones. That’s shorthand for residential single-family lots of 10,000 square feet or larger. Wright said some residents had approached the planning commission because their lot sizes exceeded the required 10,000 feet, but were in an area zoned for smaller homes, like R-1-6 (single-family lots of 6,000 square feet or more) or R-1-8 (single-family lots of 8,000 square feet or more).

City council member Karen Peterson thinks it’s asking a lot to expect residents to know if their neighborhood is properly zoned for chickens.

“People usually know their lot sizes, but not their zone size,” she said. “So, this way, you don’t have to know what your property is zoned.”

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In addition to approving the 10,000-square-foot lot requirement for keeping chickens, regardless of residential zoning, the council also asked the planning commission to look at approving residential chickens for lots smaller than 10,000 square feet.

“Maybe residents could have a smaller number of chickens on a smaller lot,” Peterson said. “Our recommendation was that if there’s interest in the community to allow chickens on smaller lots, we should have the planning commission take a look at it.”

Wright suspects the ordinance may loosen a bit more in the future. He said the prevailing sentiment was that as long as a resident meets the “separation and size” requirements for a chicken enclosure, it might be an appropriate use.

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Kendall Woods, a Clinton resident, was pleased with the council’s decision.

“I thought the meeting went very well,” he said. “It’s just good all around.”

Woods said he’s raised chickens for 10 years, not knowing his property wasn’t zoned to have them.

“Clinton City had put in the newsletter that it was legal to have backyard chickens, but they didn’t explain the specs required,” he said. “So a lot of people went out and bought them, not knowing any better.”

As a result, Woods said a lot of Clinton residents had illegal chickens.

“I went to fight for everybody,” he explained of his appearance at Tuesday evening’s city council meeting.

Woods sees a number of advantages to backyard chickens, including teaching children to raise and care for living things; providing a safe food source free of E. coli and other dangers; and helping families become self-sufficient.

“With chickens, when people fall on hard times — and it doesn’t take a catastrophe for that to happen — they have an optional food source,” he said.

Woods also rebutted the two major criticisms of backyard chickens — the smell, and the noise. If a residential chicken owner keeps the pen area relatively clean and dry, he said there’s very little smell. As for the noise?

My neighbors have kids, and when their kids are out playing, I can’t hear my chickens,” Woods said. “So, I can’t have chickens, but the lady behind me opened a daycare? If I had a mule, I wouldn’t be able to hear the mule over all the children, even if I had to.

“Besides, I’d rather hear any animal noise in the world than the traffic and other noises in a city.”

Out of a population of 21,000 people, Wright said there are 23 households registered to keep chickens. That registration process is free, but Wright guesses there are more backyard farmers out there.

As for rabbits in Clinton, they have a new designation as approved indoor animals. In the council meeting, rabbits were added to the list of small animals the city allows to be kept as pets.

Under the old ordinance, rabbits had to be kept in outdoor hutches.

“Before, technically, you could only keep rabbits outdoors,” Wright said. “But now, rabbits can come in out of the cold. … And then they can go right back out again, too.”

Peterson said the council merely clarified that rabbits are among the animals that can be considered pets.

“Within the previous ordinance, having a pet rabbit in the home was precluded,” Peterson said. “… So this was a clarification of the small animals that can be kept in the home — like hamsters, parakeets, guinea pigs, and now rabbits.”

Peterson joked that Clinton City has become more Easter-friendly.

Contact Mark Saal at 801-625-4272, or msaal@standard.net. Follow him on Twitter at @Saalman. Like him on Facebook at facebook.com/SEMarkSaal.