After a year-long case of writer's block, Dallas City Hall is one step away from issuing rules that will regulate Little Free Libraries.

On Monday morning, a Dallas City Council committee signed off on a proposal that would limit the size and location of community book exchanges that have taken root in some two dozen Dallas residents' front yards. As far as city officials can tell, if the full council gives its blessing, Dallas will become one of the only cities in the country to specifically regulate the take-a-book, leave-a-book boxes, which, in the past, have been subject to building laws and zoning codes.

And those rules would be as follows: The libraries can stand no taller than five feet and can be no wider than 20 inches and no deeper than 18 inches. In addition, anyone wanting to plant a Little Free Library in their front yard has to stay 10 feet away from a neighbor's property line, and would be limited to a single structure per parcel.

But it's far from clear how the city would deal with libraries that are currently in noncompliance — including ones built in recent years by nonprofit bcWORKSHOP in conjunction with Big Thought and the Dallas Public Library. Two of its structures, including one in Mill City near Fair Park, are far too big, and there are two libraries in front of the Moorland Family YMCA not far from South Oak Cliff High School.

Stacy Holmes' Little Free Library in Lake Highlands, which sparked the city's attempt to write a rulebook. ((G.J. McCartthy / Staff photographer))

Council member Tiffini Young was the lone member of the council's Quality of Life Committee to vote against the City Plan Commission's proposed rules — because it's not yet clear how long they will be given to come into compliance. She's concerned the rules would close the book for good on the libraries in her district, which includes South Dallas.

"You're talking about a service being provided in some communities," she said, noting that those libraries are in low-income communities that "might not have resources to bring them into compliance."

Young was the lone committee member to vote against sending the proposal to council for a full vote.

The city's been wrestling with regulating libraries ever since April 2015, when someone called 311 to complain about a Little Free Library that Stacy Holmes built in front of her house near Plano Road and Walnut Hill Lane. Hers became something of a cause célèbre after she was ticketed for violating city code; Lake Highlands council member Adam McGough and Jo Giudice, the city's Director of Libraries, eventually stepped in to keep her from having to chop down the structure.

Almost a year and a half later, her library still stands. Holmes said Monday she hasn't heard anything about a complaint in a long while.

McGough said Monday he'd like to keep the city from regulating the libraries. As far as he's concerned, Little Free Libraries should be allowed by right.

"Give a process to the community that takes a critical mass to get rid of one," he said. "There's where I think this process works." He said that it should be "up to the community to get rid of one of these that may be a bad actor. Why can't we do that?"

For one, said committee chair Sandy Greyson, letting neighbors decide could tear apart a community.

"I think that would get uncomfortable for neighbors to weigh in against their neighbors," she said.

David Cossum, who heads the Sustainable Development department, said it's also a legal issue, and "the city doesn't want to make a judgment call."

McGough, though, was not convinced.

"I feel like the answer to all of this is having a way where the community gets to police it," he said. "I don't know how to do that yet."

It's not as though 311 or code compliance has been inundated with complaints about Little Free Libraries, which began springing up nationwide after a Wisconsin man planted the first one in 2009 to honor his late mother. Kris Sweckard, director of Code Compliance, said there'd been calls about "a couple of locations" in Dallas, but nothing overwhelming.

Joey Zapata, the assistant city manager over code, said the complaints are coming from "multiple people" for various reasons, among them size, appearance and proximity to the property line.

Last year Dallas joined the short (but, apparently, growing) list of cities where Little Free Libraries are endangered because of a few people who apparently don't like the idea of someone supporting reading and sharing.

White Rock Lake's council member Mark Clayton wondered why in the world someone would complain.

Asked Clayton, "Do they hate books or kids?"