Maybe you missed this.
Maybe it has absolutely no impact on real-estate sales in Duval County.
Maybe it helps.
Maybe it hurts.
But, if you haven't weighed in yet, chances are you might want to put your own cluck into the discussion now happening in City Hall about amending the City zoning code to permit small flocks of hens on property zoned Residential Low Density.
That's estimated to be about 130,000 freestanding single-family homes in Duval County — all over town.
Currently, poultry is restricted to property zoned agricultural or for rural residential use.
Right now, there aren't any hens living in Arlington, Argyle Forest or San Jose backyards — at least not legally — but that could change.
As a real estate agent, will it help or hurt if backyard poultry is permitted when you are showing a property? Would buyers flock to your listings?
Case No. 1: A couple relocating to Jacksonville from Bandera, Texas, with their four small children want you to help them find a new home.
You take them to a house for sale where the neighbors on both sides have chicken coops in the backyards.
The couple is thrilled.
Case No. 2: A couple moving to Jacksonville from Los Angeles wants a nice place on the St. Johns River.
The only house you show them that they really like has neighbors with chickens.
The couple is not impressed.
The two City Council members who seem to be in front of this "movement" are Doyle Carter, who represents the more rural Westside, and Don Redman, who represents Downtown and part of Southside.
The force behind allowing backyard chickens is Lauren Trad, who told Council members she first became intrigued with backyard poultry when visiting a dairy farm in Costa Rica.
When she returned to her urban home in San Jose, she set up a coop behind her house and bought some hens off the Internet. The hens quickly started producing eggs.
When she learned she was violating the law, Trad moved her chickens out of San Jose, and then began a backyard poultry "movement" that could make her San Jose hens safe from the sheriff.
What Trad has started really can qualify as a "movement" at this point.
Trad had about 50 hen-hugging believers pack the Council meeting. Four members of the Council were there in addition to Carter and Redman.
Not only that, but there is a website called hensinjax.com that has collected more than 2,000 names on a petition.
Now, don't get me wrong, I like chickens.
I have chickens, but they are on a farm in rural Clay County, along with horses, ducks and goats.
They aren't in my San Jose backyard, although that would be cute.
I'd love to just walk out the back door and pick up fresh eggs laid by the hens next to my swimming pool.
But, I'm not sure my wife would like that and I'm pretty sure my neighbors would object.
Frankly, I'm not sure I'd be crazy about having hens running around my neighbor's property.
Now, I'm not trying to say folks in the real estate industry should take a side on this issue. Like I said in the beginning, maybe it does not matter.
But then again, maybe it does.
As individual Realtors, and perhaps as an association, you might want to form an opinion and take a position with the City Council.
Before the chickens do come home to roost.
— Jim Bailey is publisher of Realty/Builder Connection and president of Bailey Publishing & Communications Inc. He can be reached at [email protected].