Animal and Bees Bylaw Adopted

Palmerston North City Council has now adopted the Animals and Bees Bylaw Policy.

The consultation ran from May to July 2011 with hearings in August. The Community Wellbeing Committee made their deliberations and recommendations on 5 September.

The Council received 95 submissions and as a result of these submissions Councillors made a number of changes to the bylaw.

Some of those changes are as follows:

• A permit to keep stock in urban areas will no longer be required. Stock owners are required to prevent stock from causing nuisance or damage to the neighbouring properties.
• The requirements on disposal of manure and effluent have been modified permitting it to be ‘reused’ as fertiliser, provided it does not create a nuisance.
• The construction requirements for poultry houses now include wooden floors, and the distance poultry houses must be kept from dwellings has been reduced from 10 metres to 2 metres.
• Poultry can now be kept next to the boundary of a neighbouring property provided there is a solid fence separating the properties.
• Poultry no longer needs to be kept in a poultry house, but poultry must be provided with a poultry house. Poultry are allowed to be free range as long as they remain on the property.
• The maximum number of hives has increased, replaced with a sliding scale dependent on property size. If your circumstances do not meet the requirements of the bylaw, you can still apply for a permit to keep bees.
• A definition of “nuisance” has now been included in the bylaw.
• The definition of the ‘urban area’ has also been revised, to include any property zoned residential in the District Plan.

These changes have been brought about as a direct result of public submissions.