Millinocket planners say no to goats, ducks

MILLINOCKET – The owners of a small Medway Road campground were considering on Monday moving their business in response to a planning board decision last week denying permission to keep ducks and goats on their property.

Michael “Skip” Mohoff and his wife, Nicole, said they had to give their two Nubian goats and seven Indian Runner ducks to a farm in Kingman to comply with zoning regulations that don’t allow such animals in town limits.

“We’re already looking to move the cabins to another place north of Patten where there are more reasonable zoning regulations,” Mohoff said Monday. “If you call 10 towns’ zoning enforcement officers they will tell you that they have more reasonable zoning rules than this. It’s very disappointing.”

The Mohoffs like fresh goat’s milk, goat cheeses, fresh duck egg omelets and quiches and wanted to share them with their customers at Katahdin Cabins at 169 Medway Road.

They sought to keep them on their own property and a 14-acre plot adjoining their parcel and promised that they would never keep roosters, swine or other animals that would be a nuisance or pose a health threat to neighbors – especially not roosters.

But the board voted 4-0 to reject recommending to the Town Council changing the zoning ordinance. Board members believed the animal noise would prove irritating to neighbors and also expressed concerns that repealing the ordinance would set a bad precedent that would lead to residents keeping backyard chicken coops and other potential health and noise threats, member Avern Danforth said.

“There isn’t enough room there to get the animals far enough away from a residential setting to where the noise wouldn’t make any difference,” board Chairman Anthony Filauro said Monday.

“He said he wanted to do a little farm stand and sell cut flowers, vegetables, duck eggs and cheese and we looked at our matrix and we agreed that he could do that,” Danforth said. “He wanted to keep goats and ducks there and the ordinance states he can’t do that.”

Besides the troubling precedent, a strong neighborhood turnout three years ago, against a proposed dog kennel at the same location but under a different owner, indicated that the Mohoffs’ neighbors opposed keeping animals in their neighborhood, Danforth and Filauro said.

Mohoff found it ironic that in an area teeming with wild animals, tame animals would be found so objectionable, especially since, he said, his neighbors have never had problems with his having animals there.

“They said the noise bothers neighbors, but the town allows ATVs and snowmobiles to ride right through town that are louder than those goats ever were,” Mohoff said.

The Mohoffs could keep their animals on a parcel outside town limits, Danforth said. That would be inconvenient for them, Danforth realized, “but you don’t change a 25-year ordinance on inconvenience.

“I was reluctant to do this, because I want to see this town grow economically, but there is an ordinance here that we can’t change,” he added.

The idea is not dead, however. Town Councilor Bruce McLean, who is president of a regional economic development organization, said he is considering taking the matter before the council for further study, Danforth said.