An educated estimate of how many single family residences (SFR’s) in Glen Ellyn might apply for and receive a chicken coop permit if a hen ordinance were passed.
Process:
The villages of Lombard, Lisle, Woodridge, and Western Springs provided concrete data (or reasonable estimates, in the case of Western Springs) of how many permits for chicken coops have been issued. These numbers were compared to total SFR’s in the respective village.
- Lombard: 86 coops / 9,992 SFR = .86% or 8-9 coops per 1000 houses
- Lisle: 14 coops / 4,840 SFR = .28% or 2-3 coops per 1000 houses
- Woodridge: 15 coops / 6,811 SFR = .22% or 2 coops per 1000 houses
- Western Springs: 19 coops (est) / 4,147 SFR = .45% or 4-5 coops per 1000 houses
Estimate:
Based on the number of permits issued in surrounding towns with chicken ordinances, we can reasonably expect that under 1% of all single family residences in Glen Ellyn would apply for and be granted a permit. For the purpose of this estimate, we assume that a Glen Ellyn hen ordinance would have roughly similar permit requirements as the other towns surveyed.
Glen Ellyn has 7,182 single-family residences. Based on the lower (.22%) and upper (.86%) ranges of chicken permits from surrounding towns, we can estimate that Glen Ellyn might have anywhere from 16-62 total coops, or 2-9 coops per 1000 single family residences if an ordinance is passed.
Notes:
Within 3-5 years after a permit for a chicken coop is issued, some households inevitably decide to stop keeping chickens. None of the surveyed villages keeps track of whether any given household that has been issued a coop permit continues to keep chickens over time. For that reason, numbers listed here are conservative in nature (that is, actual hen keeping rates may be far lower than the number of permits issued over time).