JAMESTOWN — After years of talking about how to deal with deer in the city, it looks like City Council members see the topic of chickens on the council’s agenda.

Zoning Board of Appeals members declined to take up a requested variance for Tim Smart of 209 Harding Avenue. Smart had chickens penned on his city property until a neighbor’s complaint prompted their removal. It is against city code to have livestock in the city. Smart’s chickens are now in Panama.

Smith had asked Zoning Board of Appeals members to allow the chickens. The area where the chickens were kept is bordered by neighboring garages and double lots.

“It’s literally the garages, the backs of my neighbors’ garages and shed and on the side the other neighbor’s garage,” Smart said.

Several of Smart’s neighbors attended Wednesday’s meeting, with none opposing his request to bring the chickens back home to their roost on Harding Avenue.

Several Zoning Board of Appeals members, however, said the request is one they can’t take up because the city code is clear that livestock aren’t allowed in the city. They suggested Smart take his case to the City Council to begin with and then to advocate for a change in the city code as the city begins a new comprehensive planning process and zoning code update.

“You’re dealing with the application of the law as it exists,” said Larry Scalise, city chief zoning code enforcement officer and building inspector. “Whatever the council decides and how they wish to go forward with the issue that certainly would change the scenario. His property, which I’ve been to numerous times, is in good shape. It’s well kept. I think that is an appropriate route to talk to your own representative and have them bring it to the council. It may take some time to do that. It may not be something that happens overnight. That puts them in a position where they have to at least have a discussion about it.”

Earlier this year, city Development Department officials issued a reminder via the department’s Facebook page that Jamestown residents can’t keep chickens, pigs or other barnyard animals in their homes or backyards after complaints from south side residents about neighbors keeping chickens in their yards as well as someone who owns a pig that has been seen being walked out in public, much like a canine.

City Code section 300-305R-1 states single-family residential districts specifically restrict keeping specific animals as pets and livestock within city limits. Animals such as pigs and chickens are included in the regulation.

“Continuation of agricultural operations in existence at the time of the passage of this chapter, provided that no odor or dust-producing operations be conducted within 100 feet of any adjacent property line. New agricultural operations other than the cultivation of crops shall be prohibited as shall the housing of barn animals, including but not limited to cows, horses, pigs, goats, sheep, chickens, ostriches and other similar livestock,” reads the regulation.