By Adrian Florido
Pity the goat with hopes of feasting on a tidy backyard lawn. City planners have given them the hoof, for now.
After county health officials said they were concerned about the safety of consuming unpasteurized or improperly pasteurized milk from goats, planners said they needed to do more research before recommending changing city rules to allow San Diego residents to keep the animals as backyard pets.
Planners had originally included backyard goats on a list of several proposed rule changes intended to promote food production in local neighborhoods. But at a council committee meeting on Wednesday, they said they would remove goats from the list of proposed rule changes.
Planners will move forward with finalizing several other rule changes in the hopes of having them approved by the City Council by the end of January. They include more lenient rules for backyard chickens, allowing produce stands on private commercial property, and allowing a new kind of farm-based neighborhood business — a retail farm where owners can grow produce and sell it on site or let customers pick it themselves.
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