The News & Observer - Raleigh finally OKs rules for backyard cottages. Sorta.

Read the full News and Observer article by Anna Johnson here.

After years of debate, Raleigh leaders finally voted to allow backyard cottages throughout the city.

Or so they thought. Though the City Council voted 5-to-2 to allow backyard cottages through a special, overlay-district process Tuesday night, city leaders will have to vote again, possibly in two weeks. State law requires a two-thirds majority of Raleigh’s eight-person board (six people from among the council and the mayor) to vote in favor of an ordinance change on an initial vote.

About a dozen people spoke against the overlay district but all said they wanted backyard cottages. Few will be built under Raleigh’s list of rules, they said.

Neighbors, council members and the public shouldn’t have to know why a grandmother wants to live with her family or why a family wants to have an in-home nanny, Jenn Peeler Truman said during the public hearing.

“It is a political popularity contest in the making,” Truman said.