By RICKY BOURGEOIS

A Maryland couple who acquired permits to build two poultry houses on their 23.8-acre Pondtown farm have had to put plans on hold while the Queen Anne’s County Board of Appeals considers the arguments of 12 residents who oppose the construction.
The board will hear appeals against the county planning department’s decision to permit Thomas and Jennifer Kunes to build two poultry houses, each 500-by-67 feet in size, at 1136 Dudley Corners Road, which sits in a district zoned for agriculture. The hearing will begin at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Queen Anne’s County Planning and Zoning building, 160 Coursevall Drive in Centreville.
“We don’t get these appeals to permitted uses very often,” said Faith Elliot-Rossing, who heads the Land Use and Development division of the Queen Anne’s County Commission. “The Board of Appeals could indicate that the permits were issued appropriately, or that they were not.” Rossing said depending on how many people attend the hearing Thursday night and the amount of public comment the board hears, the board may decide to extend the hearing.
“Hopefully it’ll be cleared up from there,” Jennifer Kunes said. “I was really shocked that was the avenue that was taken.”
The Kuneses’ neighbors who are appealing the permits are citing health risks and strong odors. One nearby resident, Robbin Clark, told the Easton, Md., Star-Democrat that she will lose boarders at her horse stables and will have to close her business.
A half-page advertisement appearing in the Kent County Times last week, sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States, says the proposed poultry facility would constitute a CAFO, or concentrated animal feeding operation, housing 140,000 birds at a time.
However, Rossing said the Kuneses permit states the combined capacity of the planned buildings at 86,600 birds. Jennifer Kunes said they planned to raise about 70,000 birds per growout in the two houses. Federal law stipulates that a broiler farm housing 125,000 or more birds at one time would be considered a CAFO.
“We do meet the county requirements, otherwise they wouldn’t have issued the permits,” Jennifer Kunes said.
The newspaper advertisement says the facility will produce almost 1 million birds in a year. At 86,600 — the legal combined capacity for the two houses — produced seven times in a year, the facility would produce 606,200 birds.
The ad also says the proposed poultry construction would be located within 300 feet of neighboring residents’ houses. Queen Anne’s County zoning ordinance states that a poultry facility must be at least 300 feet away from a property border when a neighbor’s house is within 300 feet of the shared border. Rossing said the Kuneses’ permits verify that construction plans are in accord with the ordinance. Thomas Kunes said the plans include an 80-by-40-foot manure storage facility.
“I think our neighbors don’t really have all the facts,” Jennifer Kunes said. “They haven’t taken the time to come and talk to us. It would have been lot simpler if people would have come and talked with us.”
The Kuneses bought the Dudley Corners Road property last October, intending to operate a small farm. Jennifer Kunes said her husband had known other growers and became interested in the poultry business. She said that she and her husband thought it would be a good way to maintain a second income while allowing her to be at home with their 15-month-old daughter. The couple hold a grower contract with Mountaire Farms.

By JEFF MORELAND

They don’t want to keep anybody from working, they just want to protect their home.
That’s how Charles and Betty Schelts describe the petition they started to prevent the construction of two chicken houses near their home in Queen Anne’s County.
Thomas and Jennifer Kunes, their neighbors, plan to build two chicken houses just up the road from the Schelts’ home. The land where the Kunes live and plan to build the houses once belonged to Charles Schelts’ parents. Charles and Betty Schelts, along with their son and nephew, live within a half mile of the site where the chicken houses are planned, and say the chicken houses will ruin their property.
“We’ve been here for 26 years, and my father-in-law had this land before that,” Betty said. “It’s a known fact that our property is going to be worth nothing, absolutely nothing.”
The Schelts family has shown its opposition to the chicken houses by speaking with local government officials, neighbors, the Kunes family and even the Humane Society of the United States, a Washington, D.C.-based animal protection agency. The Humane Society has placed advertisements in area newspapers that speak out against the houses, and the group even shipped 96 commercially printed signs to the Scheltses to be placed along the roadside in the neighborhood.
“I contacted the Humane Society. They found out that this was a problem out here and they got immediately involved,” Betty Schelts said. “Obviously they’re opposed to it from the animal side, and I am, too. There’s such inhumane treatment to those chickens it’s just unbelievable. They keep the lights on 24 hours a day. They deprive them of sleep because they have to eat 23 hours a day in order to get fat enough to be sold in six or seven weeks. My husband and I are both from farm families, and both of us have a lot of relatives in Kent County that still have big farms, so we know what a farm is, and a chicken factory, a commercial business in a back yard, is not a farm.”
In addition to talking about the houses, both sides have also recently traded opinions via letters to the editor of their community newspapers.
“His wife (Jennifer Kunes) said in the Queen Anne’s County Record-Observer on Sept. 10 that they bought it because they wanted to run a small farm,” Betty Schelts said. “They also said they didn’t want to spite the neighbors, they just wanted to live their lives. But that’s all we’re asking, too; to continue to live like we have for 26 years. All of these people in these houses, they had no idea that a chicken factory was coming when they bought that property. It’s not fair to them, and I don’t think it’s fair to have anyone impose health problems on me; breathing, lung conditions, I just don’t think it’s fair.”
Schelts said she and her family are not the only ones upset by the chicken houses, and 86 people have reportedly signed a petition to keep the houses out of the area. At least one of the petition signers has since changed his mind.
Bob Rhodes, who lives across the road from the Kunes farm, said he signed the petition, but has since rethought his stance.
“It don’t bother me,” Rhodes said. “The lady stopped up here and I signed the petition. The more I thought about it, I guess I wish I didn’t sign. He’s in agriculture, and he’s free to do what he wants to do. Everybody’s got their own opinion, but it’s not bothering me.”
Rhodes added that he will likely attend the public hearing scheduled Thursday evening where local officials, neighbors and others will have a chance to speak out on the issue.
Ed Lockwood had another point of view. Although he is not in favor of the chicken houses, Lockwood said there is not much that can be done.
“You’re not going to stop him,” Lockwood said. “Even though you go down there and fight it, you’re not going to stop him because he’s zoned agriculture. They can fight it all they want, but it’s not going to stop it.”
Schelts said after speaking to local zoning officials and others in local government she doesn’t feel she is being treated fairly. She said her son once tried to purchase the property where the Kunes family lives and plans to build the chicken houses, but was told by officials that he would not be able to build anything on the property except a residence on a small part of the farm. He was told the rest of the property, including where the chicken houses are planned, was listed as open space and could never be built upon.
“The zoning people say ‘Well, I don’t know. We can’t do anything for you because this was the law at the time he got his permit, and any changes we make are not going to help you.’ That’s not acceptable to me,” Schelts said. “If they think that’s the last word they’ve heard from me they’re crazy.”
The public meeting for appeal has cost the Scheltses $1,000. Betty Schelts said she wrote a check herself to pay for the appeal, and even if that does not solve the problem, she and her husband are prepared to go even farther to resolve the issue.
“There are legal options. We’ll probably sue either the county or him for the loss of value of our property,” Schelts said. “We’re going to lose thousands of dollars, and nobody wants that. We can either live here with the pollution, the noise and the dirt, and the pollution’s what I’m worried about. Or we can sell this and get half of what it’s worth and go out and live in a trailer. That’s basically our choices.”