Editor's note: This story is updated from its originial version.

Wilmington City Council approved a resolution Tuesday night that might ultimately give developers and builders a new tool when it comes to using infill for residential projects.

While a cottage housing ordinance would be new to Wilmington, the concept has been around for a while, builders said. Cottage housing is generally defined, according to numerous online planning documents, as a group of small, detached, single-family homes clustered around a common open space.

“It gives developers and builders more options in terms of infill and gives our residents more options,” said city councilman Neil Anderson, who requested the resolution.

The resolution the council approved at its latest meeting asks city staff members to prepare an amendment to the Land Development Code to create a zoning ordinance for cottage housing developments. The amendment would then be brought before the city’s Planning Commission before it could be officially adopted by the City Council.

David Benford, a broker with Landmark Sotheby’s International Realty in Wilmington, said the ordinance could apply to a potential Wrightsville Avenue project with which he's involved. Preliminary plans call for 28 homes, between 1,200 and 1,300 square feet each, on five acres of land that’s currently under contract, Benford said.

One of the major differences between an ordinance that allows for cottage housing development and existing ordinances would be that cottage housing wouldn’t require parking at each house, Benford said. 

For example, the cottage housing development option in Brunswick County's Unified Development Ordinance says, "Parking shall be clustered having no more than 7 adjoining spaces or shall be shared parking accessed by a shared driveway."

“People always think that any type of development ordinance is going to increase density, increase traffic, increase noise,” Benford said. “This type of zoning does not really increase square footage per acre. It doesn’t really increase the population per acre because it’s just one or two people living in these smaller cottages.”

Benford said the ordinance could be beneficial to Wilmington regardless of whether the Wrightsville Avenue project comes to fruition, especially in light of the fact that municipalities can no longer annex unincorporated areas involuntarily.

“One of the things that cities need to do is look at their infill land and decide how to create higher values and better density and so that’s why I think the timing’s right in the city” for a cottage housing development ordinance, Benford said.

There’s definitely a niche for this type of building, said Cameron Moore, executive officer for the Wilmington-Cape Fear Home Builders Association.

“It comes down to the market and what the market’s dictating and the perspective of the consumer,” Moore said. “Some folks want to live on a large lot and some folks do not.”