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By Miranda Startare

Carroll Twp. Board of Supervisors heard from two township families at the April 5 monthly meeting asking the Board to consider allowing them to keep their pets. The pets in question are a pot-bellied pig and three pygmy goats.

Resident Jamie Kray asked the Board for permission to keep her family’s trained pet – a pot-bellied pig – of which the township has received complaints. Kray explained that the pet lives mostly indoors and uses a leash when outdoors. Chairman Thomas Rapp cited the township’s ordinance against farm animals, which would include pet pot-bellied pigs.

Another resident in attendance at the meeting, Edward Molnar, also addressed the Board after having received neighbor complaints of his intention to keep three pygmy goats as pets. Molnar’s property consists of two acres of land on Garden Avenue and includes a recently fenced acre for the animals. Molnar has owned goats at other times in the 22 years his family has resided on the property but has not received complaints until constructing the fence, which blocks access to neighbors who regularly walk their dogs through his property, according to Molnar.

Molnar also cited zoning laws which he believes should accommodate having the goats as pets, stating that an “agricultural animal means you eat it or make money from it,” neither of which applies to his goats.

Some of Molnar’s neighbors also attended the meeting giving their approval of the pet goats.

Zoning Officer Dennis Butler explained that the ordinance doesn’t permit the goats, and Molnar would have to request a variance from the township Variance Board at a cost of $600, who would determine if the goats would be permissible.

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