Winter Springs residents in single-family homes could keep a small flock of hens under an ordinance that goes to the City Commission for a first reading Monday, Oct. 12.
Ordinance 2026-08 would add a backyard chicken section to the city's zoning code. Commissioner Sarah Baker first brought the idea forward, pointing to rules adopted by Seminole County and other nearby governments, and city staff drafted the ordinance with her.
What the draft allows
Under the draft, flock size depends on lot size:
- Lots of 0.15 acre or less: no chickens
- 0.151 to 0.5 acre: up to 4
- 0.51 to 1 acre: up to 6
- 1.01 to 2 acres: up to 12
- More than 2 acres: up to 20
Only hens are allowed. Roosters, geese, turkeys, peafowl and pigeons are not. Birds must live in a covered, predator-proof coop with a fenced run, both in the backyard and screened from neighbors by an opaque fence or plantings.
The draft sets minimums of 4 square feet of coop and 10 square feet of run per bird, caps coops at 8 feet tall and 240 square feet, and requires a building permit for coops larger than 120 square feet.
Eggs, birds and manure could not be sold, and the draft bars breeding and slaughter on the property. Hens could leave the run only under their owner's direct supervision. The ordinance does not override homeowners' association rules, and violations could bring code enforcement or civil citations.
Where the planning board and the sponsor split
The Planning and Zoning Board held a hearing Oct. 1 and recommended approval with five changes: require, rather than recommend, a University of Florida IFAS chicken-keeping course; create a permit process so the city knows who keeps chickens in case of an avian flu emergency; add coop setbacks of 5 feet from side and rear lines and 20 feet from the nearest neighbor's home; spell out that all other fowl are excluded; and drop the ban on slaughtering.
In written comments included in the meeting packet, Baker pushed back on several of those. She wrote that the IFAS class is not offered in Seminole County or online, that a permit would cost staff time and would be "an overreach of government" for an activity the code itself allows, and that setbacks would raise questions about doghouses and other backyard structures.
She suggested limiting setbacks to coops large enough to need a building permit, and said the slaughter rule should bar processing birds for food while allowing humane euthanasia.
Baker also asked what would happen to residents in planned developments who already keep ducks or other animals, since the draft rewrites the city's general livestock rule.
The commission will decide which recommendations, if any, to fold in before a second reading, which the city's notice lists for Oct. 26. The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall, 1126 E. State Road 434.
Sources
winterspringsfl.granicus.com
d3n9y02raazwpg.cloudfront.net
