ORLEANS — Complaints by neighbors about backyard farming operations in their midst may not be the most frequent grievances the health dept. gets, but they are among the most frustrating, according to Health Agent Kelly Messier.
“We tell them we can’t do anything,” Messier told the town’s agricultural advisory council at its Aug. 12 meeting. And people “get very upset,” she added.
Neighbors who complain to the police get the same response, she said. And that’s been the case since the town adopted the state’s “right to farm” provisions, aimed at encouraging small-scale local farming.
For nonfarmers, the latitude given farm operations is sometimes frustrating, as evidenced by the recent complaints over noisy roosters brought to the council. The group had yet to come up with a decision on what to do about the complaints when it met this week.
South Orleans Road resident Martin Culik said his frustration has continued to rise. A neighbor allows his poultry to free range onto other properties, he said. Until recently, the neighbor also owned three roosters that Culik said tested the sanity of abutters with their incessant crowing.
“I came to Peter in May about this problem because the agricultural right to farm bylaw in Orleans says people can file a grievance with the agricultural advisory council,” Culik said, addressing council chair Peter Jensen. “It’s now August, and I’m not hearing anything from the committee as to what’s next.”
Culik said the neighbors’ nerves are frayed. “I want to also warn you, there is now a vandalism issue we’re dealing with in South Orleans,” Culik said. “People are taking it into their own hands.” He didn’t provide specifics on which neighbors were vandalizing the local farmers or how.
While the poultry owner got rid of two roosters, Culik admitted, he kept the third. That one is a favorite of the farmer’s children, according to Culik, who said the noise has continued.
Last month, several residents from the Hopkins Lane area complained to the agricultural council about two roosters at 39 Hopkins that they say awaken them at four o’clock in the morning every day with their crowing.
While a former member of the council met with the homesteader to offer tips on preventing the early-morning crowing, a neighbor at the Aug. 12 meeting said the wake-up calls have continued.
One Hopkins Lane resident said he was bewildered by the town’s allowing “a menagerie of animals” in a densely settled neighborhood. “It seems to me there’s no balance of quality of life and fairness,” he said.
Messier explained that the town’s 2013 adoption of the state’s “right to farm” law presents a dilemma. The bylaw, which includes the right to fish, allows farming and fishing activities on holidays, weekdays, and weekends, during the daytime and at night, “and shall include the attendant incidental noise, odors, dust and fumes associated with normally accepted agricultural practices.”
The bylaw doesn’t include any specific standards that could guide both town departments and amateur farmers.
“If the health department gets a formal complaint about farm noises, we say ‘right to farm,’ ” Messier said. They will do an inspection, however, if the complaint is related to rats. “If we walk out and it looks clean, we really can’t do anything,” she said. “That’s the end of the complaint.”
The town can address the lack of guidance in the generalized right to farm bylaw in a formal way, though modifications would require a town meeting vote, Messier said. Or the town could choose a “lower level” option, creating policies and regulations, but it would be important to first find out what’s important to the community, she said.
“Do we want to say how many of each kind of animal you can have?” Messier asked. “Do we want to define setbacks?” The town could also create a policy related to structures like barns and coops.
Discussion of adding requirements through a bylaw modification or a new set of policies rankled council member Matthew Milan, who is also a commercial farmer.
Milan had little sympathy for residents’ complaints about roosters, saying that roosters are a necessary part of a poultry operation. If he complained to police over noise caused by a leaf blower at eight in the morning, he said, the police would tell him the activity is allowed. The same thing applies to roosters, Milan said. It’s allowed noise.
“The point of the right to farm bylaw is so people farming are not overburdened: the town and the select board have decided what needs permitting,” Milan said. “If you want a whole bunch of permits, you should go to the selectmen and say, ‘We don’t want people to have the right to farm.’ ”
But council member Heather Bailey supported the adoption of some policies and definitions. “The right to farm is very vague, and everyone has their own interpretation,” she said. Bailey added the health agent had offered “to put some language in about best practices.”
Bailey and council member Rand Burkert agreed to draft policies to help clarify the rules for farmers and their neighbors, which they will present to their colleagues for approval at the committee’s September meeting.
