By Juliana A. Torres
Staff Writer

The St. Cloud City Council May 20 decided to adopt a policy that allows some residents to keep up to two pigs on their property.
The city's prohibition against all pigs, adopted in 2004, was recently altered to create an exception for potbellied pigs, a breed usually kept as pets. That exception sparked discussion about agricultural uses of property within the city and on the potential annexation of unincorporated areas zoned agricultural.
Under the proposed policy, which mirrors Osceola County’s, two pigs of any kind would be allowed as long as enclosures for the animals are on at least 5-acre lots and the pens or fences are at least 100 feet from the property line.

According to a staff report on the issue, only about seven properties in the city would fit the specifications for keeping pigs under the proposed ordinance.
“We're an agricultural community. That's just my opinion,” Councilman Jay Polachek said. “We're talking less than 15 pigs in the whole city.”
Tracy Clements, a resident in the unincorporated area, said many agricultural parcels that could be annexed in the future were originally 5 acres but then were split and are now only 2.5 acres, with some residents keeping pigs on those smaller parcels.
Clements’ 9-year-old daughter also spoke and said that as a 4-H participant, showing and selling hogs helps children her age put money away for college.
The council in the end agreed to provide conditional uses for property being used for student or 4-H projects, also suggesting also that the city should waive fees for property owners requesting the conditional use.

Website redesign
During the May 20 workshop, council members also finalized their intentions for updating the city's website, which was first built in 2003. After initially deciding that local entities should be invited to submit proposals for the project, the extra expense involved eventually discouraged the council from that course of action.
The city's current Web host, CivicPlus, had already offered to redesign and implement the new site for $11,000. If the city chose to hire another agency to design the site, CivicPlus would charge the same amount to implement the outside design.
Polachek said he only proposed a different, possibly local, Web designer because he felt the new site should be unique and reflect St. Cloud. Most of the CivicPlus government websites he had visited looked the same, he said.
However, city staff involved in outlining the expectations for the new site showed the council several unique designs CivicPlus hosted, explaining that the company could work with the city to implement any design the city envisioned.
The council responded more enthusiastically to the different designs presented, as well as a mock-up of what a new St. Cloud website could look like. The council decided to forgo looking for another Web designer, especially given that a company for the redesign could charge an extra $20,000 to $30,000 on top of the $11,000 implementation cost from CivicPlus.