By ALESHA CAPONE
A PROPOSAL to house 120 racing pigeons in a Delahey residential area has been rejected by Brimbank City Council.
At last week’s council meeting, the three council administrators considered – and turned down – a planning application to build two bird coops at 22 Shakespeare Dve on a vacant residential allotment.
The proposal said the pigeons would be let out once a day for 30 minutes to be trained.
It also said food at the site would be stored in ‘vermin proof’ drums, the coops would be cleaned daily, baiting stations would be installed to avoid pest control issues and a 1.8 metre fence would surround the property.
But the council received 22 objections on the proposal, relating to dust and noise, pigeon-related diseases, maintenance of coops, bird droppings, property devaluation, vermin, attracting other birds and cats, pigeon feathers and visual amenity.
A council report on the potential pigeon site said the proposal was “considered to pose numerous amenity based impacts, particularly with noise, dust and odour disturbances”.
“Given there are likely to be noise emissions during the leaving and returning from training, fluttering and also ‘cooing’ whilst in the lofts it is considered contrary to a reasonable level of amenity expected in a quiet residential area,” the report said.
The report also said there was “no scope for noise to be restricted in certain hours” at the coops because “you cannot ‘ask’ the pigeons to be quite or control how much noise they make”.
The council evaluation also expressed concerns about younger birds defecating on nearby rooftops.
