By Amanda Estes
Staff Writer
      How many pigs constitute a piggery? That is the question Scarborough's ordinance committee and later the town council must answer as at least two local farms, including Broadturn Farm, have expressed an interest in raising pigs.
     As a result, town officials have been given the task of revising a zoning ordinance that predates many of their tenures and by most estimates dates back to the days when the Maine Mall area consisted of several pig farms. The ordinance committee discussed the issue briefly at their regular meeting last week and is expected to take it up again in late June.
      David Green, who owns 20 acres on Beech Ridge Road, said the issue arose when he went to Town Hall to get a building permit for a pig house. He said code enforcement inquired about the number of pigs he intended to raise. When he answered seven, he was told seven was the maximum amount and he could not turn around and sell them.
      "I knew piggeries were not allowed, but there are no definitions of piggeries," he said on Monday. "Seven pigs do not constitute a piggery."
      Green expected the seven pigs to be delivered on Friday. He said raising the pigs has been a “community effort” and they raise the animals for their own consumption. Currently, Green also has chickens and turkeys.
      Stacy Brenner and John Bliss, resident farmers of the 434-acre Broadturn Farm, are interested in raising rare heritage breeds of pigs for meat and educational purposes. Last Friday, Brenner said raising pigs in a sustainable way was always part of their business plan, but they had no idea there was an ordinance against piggeries.
      Currently piggeries are not allowed under the town's zoning ordinance for a rural residence and farming district or RF district as permitted uses are "general purpose farming including retail sales of farm produce located on the same premises and kennels, but exclusive of abattoirs and piggeries." The problem lies in that the ordinance does not define what a piggery is.
      "Ideally we would love to have a few sows and a boar," Brenner said. She said a piggery conjures up the image of 50 pigs corralled on a cement slab indoors. Heritage breeds are becoming extinct because they do not grow at the rate the industrial market is looking for, she said. She said allowing the pigs to roam in the fields and the woods, reduces the risk of disease and cuts down on waste buildup.
      Code Enforcement Officer Dave Grysk said he turned to a dictionary to find a definition, but even that proved problematic as each one offered a different definition. He said the various dictionaries defined a piggery as a place where pigs are kept and another defined it as a farm that raises and sells pigs, while another had no definition. He said there are people in town who currently have one or two pigs and although under some definitions that could constitute a piggery, he did not consider the keeping of one or two pigs a business. When residents start talking about raising eight to 10 pigs, however, he said that “puts a little different light on it.”
      Town Manager Ron Owens said he doesn’t think there is a problem with people raising several pigs for their own needs, or even selling them. He said for years farming seemed to be on the decline, but with community efforts like Broadturn, the town will probably have to look at other ordinances and how they relate to farming.
      Ordinance Chair Sylvia Most said the staff seemed to have no problem with considering a change in the current laws. The town has few active farms and Most said there is an attitude that an effort should be made to help those farms.
      Green said Scarborough has several ordinances that don’t “jive” with the farms and open space they wish to preserve. He hopes the town will use foresight when defining a piggery.
      “My problem comes with...if I had one sow and had 15 piglets, I’d be violating the ordinance,” he said. Green said he wouldn’t want his neighbor to have 150 pigs, but he said he didn’t see why people couldn’t have 10, 20, or 30 pigs.
      Grysk recalled the era when the Maine Mall area consisted of pig farms and he said there was “always a foul, foul smell.” Even after the construction of the turnpike, he said the area had a foul odor.
      “That particular area was what I’d call a piggery,” he said.
      Kathryn DiPhilippo, historian for the South Portland Historical Society, said there were a number of pig farms in the Maine Mall area as well as one on outer Highland Avenue. DiPhilippo tried to do some research on who the farmers were and how long they were there, but said there is little information available.
 In 1965, South Portland owned 40 acres and at some point the board of industry acquired an additional 150 acres, DiPhilippo said. She estimated that was the time the pig farms were sold off. By 1967, a developer started to purchase the land and in 1971, the mall officially opened, she said.
 “People remember it,” she said. “Its safe to say there had been pig farms there in the fifties and sixties.” She said people likely wouldn’t have had a reason to visit the farms at that time.