Commissioners eying livestock rules

By JoAn Bjarko
North Forty News

Larimer County Commissioners may have squelched the most recent revision of the county livestock rules, but they did not end their drive to implement changes.

At an April 24 work session, the three elected officials told the county planning staff that status quo is not acceptable, and they directed the planners to come up with a game plan to try again. Otherwise, there was little accord on what to do next.

Twice in seven years commissioners have backed away from changing the current livestock code after drawing hundreds of protestors to public hearings. During the intervening years, commissioners, planners and several volunteer advisory boards weighed in on the subject before having the latest round of public hearings earlier this year.

"Given the fact it's been seven years, we may need focus groups to see what is the problem we're trying to solve," said Commissioner Kathay Rennels, who requested the work session. She noted that many livestock groups have offered to help.

Generally, the county is trying to respond to complaints about noise, dust and odors from some livestock operations, including small acreages, and it is trying to provide guidelines for livestock never even contemplated more than a decade ago - such as emu, alpacas, llamas and miniature horses. Current livestock regulations don't even mention them.

Some of the county's livestock rules date back to 1963, when the county adopted zoning laws. Current rules, for example, allow two horses per acre of rural property. The recently scrapped proposal would have allowed one horse per available acre, cutting the number in half. Most of the protests to the recently proposed changes came from horse owners and the businesses that serve them.

"Are we agreed we leave the horses alone?" Commission chairman Glenn Gibson asked Rennels and Commissioner Karen Wagner.

No, they were not agreed.

"I still think there are issues that need to be resolved," Wagner said.

Rennels said she would "not be predisposed to changing the numbers on horses [per acre]."

That raised another question from county manager Frank Lancaster. "Do we start doing code compliance on more than two horse per acre?" he asked.

"To have a regulation and ignore it is not good policy," Lancaster said after the meeting, noting that the county has been especially lax with horse boarding facilities. "People have been complaining, and we've been putting them off" while drafting the recent livestock revisions to the land-use code.

Gibson told his fellow commissioners he thinks nontraditional livestock not included in the code needs to be the priority in their next attempt to amend the code.

Another question is whether the land-use code should deal just with commercial livestock operations and not hobby owners.

Doug Ryan, environmental planner with the health department, noted that state regulations for dust and odor control exempt livestock feeding operations and most agricultural uses. Water quality regulations require best management practices for manure management and groundwater protection, and are intended to be self-implementing, he said.

Ernie Marx, agricultural extension agent, said county extension already provides education for small acreage owners, but many don't take advantage of it.

Planning director Larry Timm said he hopes to schedule another work session with the commissioners at the end of May. At that time he plans to have a list of key livestock issues that the county should consider and some ideas for how to proceed. Citizen forums are a likely option. Timm said the commissioners would also have to reallocate planning staff job priorities if it is to continue work on livestock regulations.