“It’s about reducing our environmental impact,” said Alissa Manfre, co-founder of grass roots group Cary Chickens, who says she wants to own chickens for their ability to control pests and provide fertilizer for their vegetable garden.

On Thursday, Manfre will take the issue into Town Hall — the latest chapter in a bureaucratic saga. A year ago, Manfre asked the Cary Town Council to consider relaxing the town’s laws governing livestock ownership.

Cary currently allows livestock only in residential zones on lots of approximately one acre or larger. “Typically, those lots are more out on the fringes” of town, said Jeff Ulma, the town’s planning director.

Manfre, however, lives on a .83-acre lot on Doylan Drive. She is fighting for others who want chickens in their own, less-than-an-acre backyards.

Her request last year for a study of the issue was denied by the council in a 4-3 vote. But she didn’t give up. “We’re just asking them to allow us to form an advisory group that could bring back a recommendation to the council,” Manfre said.

Manfre isn’t the first to wage a battle for the legalization of chickens — specifically hens — within city limits. Supporters of the chicken movement have won the right to keep fowl in Durham and Sanford within the past year. Raleigh and Chapel Hill already allowed chickens.

Manfre said Cary and Garner now stand alone as the only two Triangle towns resisting the change.

She said her own research has shown that concerns opponents raise about noise and smell, among others, are largely unfounded when hens receive proper care.

Mike Martin, a poultry specialist at N.C. State University, backed up Manfre’s assessment. “The legitimate concerns [about pet ownership] would be the ones that would pertain to ownership of any pet that spends significant time outside,” Martin said.

On the issue of odor, for example, Martin said that the degree to which a resident might notice a stench in their neighborhood would depend on how well the chickens are managed. “It’s the same as with a dog and someone who might not clean up after it,” he said.

Martin also said that most towns that allow chickens control noise by disallowing roosters. But he said there is some merit to the concerns.

“A hen within a flock of all female birds could take on male characteristics,” he said. “Also, when people get chickens, whether from a feed store or from a school project where eggs are being hatched, people can end up with male birds even when they thought didn’t have them.”

Mayor Harold Weinbrecht said he’s not any more eager to change Cary’s policy now than he was last year. But he’s willing to listen on Thursday.

“I’m assuming that they must have new information now,” he said. “Because it wouldn’t make sense to bring back the same thing we voted down once.

“I haven’t changed my mind.”