We were cruising through Northern Liberties last week, daydreaming of warmer weather, when a zoning notice caught our eye from a distance. There's a small vacant lot at 231 W. Wildey St. which is surrounded by a wooden fence decorated by images of flowers that look like roses to us. This lot has been sitting empty for many years, though the mural on the fence was only added in 2011.

Looking west on Wildey St.

Closer look at the corner

Seeing the zoning notice, we casually assumed that another in the shrinking list of vacant lots on the neighborhood would soon be getting redeveloped and we figured that developers would be building a pair of new homes here. Looking at public record, we saw that the same owner has owned this property since 2007, but we assumed that it would just be a matter of time before public record reflected a sale to developers. And then we looked at the L&I Map to find out about the zoning application and we realized that all our assumptions were wildly off base. Here, we'll cut and paste the text of the zoning application or you might not believe us. And we'll do it in two parts for dramatic effect.

PERMIT FOR LEGALIZATION OF A 10FT. HIGH FENCE WITH MURAL LOCATED ON WILDEY & BODINE STREETS (SIZE AND LOCATION AS SHOWN IN SUBMITTED PLAN)…

Okay, this makes sense so far. Didn't expect they'd be keeping the fence, but since they are, it's cool they're getting it legalized.

…AND THE LEGALIZATION OF A CHICKEN COOP WITH CHICKENS.

Wait, what?!?! There's an illegal chicken coop at the corner of Wildey & Bodine? That's just half a block south of Liberties Walk and across the street from Liberty Lands Park, by the way. And it's less than half a block to the west of a major new mixed-use project now under construction on 2nd Street. So yeah… chickens.

Does anyone know anything about this chicken coop? For people that live nearby, is this a big surprise or does everyone in the area know about it? Would someone be kind enough to report on what happens when this gets presented at an upcoming NLNA meeting?