GRANVILLE, ND ( KXNET ) — After months of back and forth, owning chickens is now allowed in one small town, but with some regulations.

In the recent Granville special city council meeting, members were making some tweaks to their newly adopted chicken ordinance.

After a close vote in June, folks in Granville can now keep up to six chickens in their backyard with a permit. The new chicken ordinance passed with a vote of 39 to 31.

All chickens must be in a coop and the chicken coops must have a six-foot privacy fence around them.

Before applying for a permit you need to let all your neighbors within 75 feet of you know.

But that’s not all, you also have to get letters of acceptance from them and have a scaled diagram of the application of where your chicken coop will be.

Before passing this new ordinance, the city did not have one in place and city leaders are hoping this brings some structure to the debate.

“Some people have had chickens and so they figured they had to come with an ordinance what the regulations are. So that way you can put a fine if they had them and they weren’t supposed to,” said Joni Anderson, a Granville City Council member.

Having chickens, without a permit, is an infraction and will cost you up to $200 in fines, which must be paid within seven days.

Plus you’d also have to have the chickens removed.

The City Council also reserves the right to suspend permits for violations.

If you’re interested and live in Granville the permit applications are available at the city auditor’s office.

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