Houston street corner has five chicken-to-go places across the street from one another

PHOTOS: Houston planning decisions that make you wonder

The intersection of Westpark and South Rice Ave. in Houston has five places to get chicken to go on one street corner.

See more odd planning and zoning decisions that make Houston such a unique place ... less PHOTOS: Houston planning decisions that make you wonder

The intersection of Westpark and South Rice Ave. in Houston has five places to get chicken to go on one street corner.

See more odd planning and zoning ... more Photo: John Boyd, Houston Chronicle Photo: John Boyd, Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 35 Caption Close Houston street corner has five chicken-to-go places across the street from one another 1 / 35 Back to Gallery

We love our city, but Houston has a long history of odd decisions when it comes to planning.

From the city's first founding ("hey, let's build a big giant metropolis on top of a bunch of swampy bayous!") all the way to today, some of the calls made by business owners and officials seem to make no sense at all.

Alas, that's what makes Houston such a unique and interesting place to live.

The latest example: the defacto Chicken-To-Go District taking over the corner of Westpark Drive and S. Rice Avenue in southwest Houston.

Immediately next door to where a newly-opened El Pollo Loco, and across the street from an also-newly-opened Raising Cane's, a brand new Chick-fil-A will be opening its doors for the first time Thursday.

Add in the Walmart and Sam's Club locations next door which also serve fresh fried chicken from their delis, that makes five spots to get chicken-to-go jammed into the space of about one football field.

We're guessing the workers at the nearby Micro Center aren't exactly writing letters to the KFC and Church's corporate offices begging for a new neighborhood franchise.

Sometimes putting similar establishments in a small area makes sense: isitors come precisely because there are a number of options to browse before having to make a final decision. That's the whole concept behind food truck parks or shopping malls, for example.

But when the establishments are too similar – like Houston's infamous Shepherd and Gray intersection: home to three different Starbucks cafes – it makes a Houstonian wonder who thought these decisions through.

Check out some of Houston's other curious planning decisions in the photos above.