Blue Springs residents celebrate long-awaited approval for backyard hens
Residents of Blue Springs are celebrating a major shift in city policy after the City Council voted to allow backyard hens, a decision years in the making.
The council approved the ordinance with a 5-2 vote, marking a significant victory for advocates who had pushed for change for nearly two years.
Sign up for our Newsletters“We have met some elderly people in this community who actually started crying because they remember when chickens were legal,” said Jen Cline, a member of Citizens of Blue Springs for Backyard Hens. “Freedom. This stopped being about backyard hens a long time ago, and it started being about with the people.”
The grassroots campaign began more than 22 months ago. Cline noted that the process dragged on far longer than in neighboring communities, Pleasant Hill, for example, passed a similar ordinance in just four months.
“That’s kind of when we decided we might need to just make changes to the council to get it done,” she said, referencing council language added about seven years ago that specifically blocked hens from being kept as pets.
Cline, a Blue Springs resident, said the election cycle played a role.
“Do I think we made a difference in the outcome of those elections? I do,” she said.
Despite some pushback, the movement gained wide community support.
“From what I know, there's 5 or 6 really loud people that have been fighting it this whole time,” Cline said.
Advocates collected 4,000 signatures and spent months educating residents and city leaders on responsible hen ownership.
Now, the city has until Sept. 16 to finalize the permit process, though that could happen sooner.
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