The city’s housing committee discussed possibly putting a limit on the amount of cats one could own in city limits. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

City officials are considering ways to potentially limit the amount of cats city residents can own, similar to city rules about dogs.

The issue was discussed during Monday’s City Council Housing Committee meeting following a Facebook post about owning chickens in the city.

Kasie Foulk, deputy development director, said during the meeting that she had seen the post on Facebook the night before with someone asking if owning chickens was legal in the city, which prompted a long thread of conversation on Facebook. Foulk emphasized that chickens or agricultural animals of any kind are not allowed in city limits.

The only animals city residents are allowed to own are cats and dogs. Councilman Daniel Gonzalez, D-At Large, asked if the city has a limit on the number of cats people can own, which the city currently does not.

“We have talked about upgrading our cat code in the past,” Foulk said. “We don’t have anyone to enforce it. That’s like a building inspector thing. The police department manages the dog part of the code and they have a dog control officer. We don’t have anyone that would be able to police the cat issue.”

Foulk agreed with Gonzalez that it would be nice to be able to have a limit, especially as some homes have up to 30 cats in them. She added people should spay and neuter their pets, and that there was a catch and release program a few years ago for that with funds from ARPA and done by the Humane Society. The cat code had been updated at the time to allow for that, but there is still no limit on cat ownership in the city, which Foulk said is only because there is no one to enforce it.

Councilman Brent Sheldon, R-Ward 1, noted that years ago the dog control officer used to be the animal control officer. He added the city used to have issues with rabid cats and other rabid animals as well. Foulk said she would be willing to draft something up for the code, but said it was more of a city thing rather than the Department of Development.

“That contributes so much to the condemnation of homes because they’re inside the homes,” Gonzalez said. “You see the floors in some of these places and it’s just cat feces. You cannot walk through.”

He added that there was a specific house that he remembers that was infested with bed bugs that had 30 cats in it, that was bad enough that one could smell it from across the street. It was also noted by committee members that living in conditions like that are also not fair to the cats.

Gonzalez said that he knew a lot of landlords would like to have a cat limit on the books, and so would others in the city, especially as those with cat allergies can also have problems with houses such as this.

“A lot of our issues too are just the stray cats that end up in vacant homes on the streets, in sheds and foundations,” Foulk said. “It is an expensive thing to handle too with rabies, shots, catch and release, spay and neuter. It’s very similar to the deer issue.”

Councilwoman Hannah Jarosynski, D-Ward 5 and chair of the Housing Committee, gave an example of her own cat that used to live on the streets and got sick enough that it lost one of their legs. Foulk said the city has a rule that houses and dwellings are limited to three dogs, but the city will only know if there are more than three if they receive a complaint, especially as not all dogs are registered. The same thing would happen with the cats, in that the city would only know there was a problem if they received a complaint. Another issue with that is that cats can be indoor/outdoor cats so it can be hard to know the exact number of cats that might be there.

“I know it’s going to be tricky to enforce it, but I think when there’s a will there’s a way,” Gonzalez said.

Enforcement may also be something that the police department could help with, committee members added.