Other than gardening, chicken keeping for egg production is the simplest, easiest way for urbanites to supply themselves with fresh, healthy, organic food whose source is unquestioned. For many, backyard chicken keeping is a reaction to, and a rejection of, factory farming and its associated food safety and animal welfare problems.

In addition to providing a healthy, low-cost food source, chickens offer other benefits: they remove bugs, weeds, and weed seeds from the landscape; consume table scraps that could otherwise end up in the waste stream; and provide what is considered one the best organic fertilizers available.

Chickens are no more of a threat or nuisance to urban life than a dog or cat, and offer a benefit that legal pets do not: eggs - a healthy, sustainable food source. By allowing residents to keep a limited number of hens, the city will encourage stewardship of the environment and food production on a sustainable, household scale.