Chapter 12
ZONING
Article 1. Definitions
§12-101 WORDS AND PHRASES DEFINED. For the purposes of this Chapter, the following terms, phrases, words and their derivations shall have the meaning given herein. When not inconsistent with the context, words used in the present tense include the future, words in the plural number include the singular number, and words in the singular number include the plural number. The word “shall” is always mandatory and not merely directory.
1. Accessory Use or Structure: A use or structure on the same lot with, and of a nature customarily incidental and subordinate to, the principal use or structure.
2. Alley: A public or private thoroughfare which affords only a secondary means of access to property abutting thereon.
3. Alteration, as applied to a building or structure, is a change or rearrangement in the structural parts or in the exit facilities, or an enlargement whether extending on a side or by increasing in height, or the moving from one location or position to another.
4. Apartment: A room or suite of rooms in a multiple dwelling, or where more than one living unit is established above nonresidential uses, intended or designed for use as a residence by a single family including culinary accommodations.
5. Basement: A story having part but not more than one-half its height below grade. A basement is counted as a story for the purpose of height regulations if subdivided and used for dwelling purposes other than by a janitor employed on the premises.
6. Bed and Breakfast: a dwelling that is used for the purpose of offering overnight lodging and meals to travelers for a fee which dwelling has unique structural and/or site characteristics which create the appearance of an Inn type setting. Such dwelling shall have a maximum of six guest rooms available for travelers’ lodging and no more than twelve guests may stay at any time. Guests who stay at the bed and breakfast shall not remain for a period of more than 30 consecutive days.
7. Boarding House: A building other than a hotel or motel, where, for compensation and by prearrangement for definite periods, meals, or lodging and meals, are provided for three or more persons, but not exceeding twenty persons including nursing homes with less than twenty-one patients, and tourist homes accommodating not more than twenty persons.
8. Buildable Area: The portion of a lot remaining after required yards have been provided.
9. Building: Any structure designed or intended for the support, enclosure, shelter or protection of persons, animals, chattels, or property.
10. Dwelling, Single-Family: A detached residential dwelling unit other than a mobile home, designed for and occupied by one family only.
11. Dwelling, Two-Family: A building having accommodations for and occupied exclusively by two families.
12. Dwelling, Multiple-Family: A residential building designed for or occupied by three or more families, with the number of families in residence not exceeding the number of dwelling units provided.
13. Dwelling, Mobile Home: A detached residential dwelling unit designed for transportation, after fabrication, on streets or highways on its own wheels, or on flatbed or other trailers, and arriving at the site where it is to be occcupied as a dwelling complete and ready for occupancy except for minor and incidental unpacking and assembly operations, location on jacks or other temporary or permanent foundations, connections to utilities and the like.
14. Dwelling, Ranch and Farm: Residential dwellings including mobile home dwellings appurtenant to agricultural operations including living quarters for persons employed on the premises (but not including labor camps or dwellings for transient labor), guest houses not rented or otherwise conducted as a business, and private garages, stables and barns.
15. Dwelling Unit: One room, or rooms connected together, constituting a separate, independent housekeeping establishment for owner occupancy, or rental or lease on a weekly, monthly, or longer basis, and physically separated from any other rooms or dwelling units which may be in the same structure, and containing independent cooking and sleeping facilities.
16. Family: One or more persons occupying a single dwelling unit, provided that unless all members are related by blood or marriage, no such family shall contain over five persons, but further provided that domestic servants employed on the premises may be housed on the premises without being counted as a family or families.
17. Farming: The growing of the usual farm products, such as grain, and their storage, as well as the raising of the usual farm poultry and farm animals, and the operation of a dairy farm. Farming shall not include the operation of stockyards or of a commercial feed lot.
18. Farmstead: An area of twenty (20) acres or more on which is located at least one dwelling unit and on which farm products of a value of one thousand dollars ($1,000.00) or more are normally produced each year.
19. Feed Lot: Location of the confined feeding of food, fur or pleasure animals in buildings, lots, pens, pools, or ponds, which normally are not used for the raising of crops or for grazing animals.
20. Garage, Private: An accessory building designed or used for the storage of not more than four vehicles owned and used by the occupants of the building to which it is accessory.
21. Garage, Public: A building or portion thereof, other than a private or storage garage, designed or used for equipment, repairing, hiring, servicing, selling or storing vehicles.
22. Garage, Storage: A building or portion thereof designed and used exclusively for housing more than four vehicles.
23. Gift Shop: a retail shop which offers gifts and novelties for sale located within a bed and breakfast or in a dwelling that has unique structural and /or characteristics, which create the appearance of an Inn type setting.
24. Home Occupation: An occupation conducted in a dwelling unit, provided that:
a. No person other than members of the family residing on the premises shall be engaged in such occupation.
b. The use of the dwelling unit for the home occupation shall be clearly incidental and subordinate to its use for residential purposes by its occupants, and not more than 25 percent of the floor area of the dwelling unit shall be used in the conduct of the home occupation;
c. There shall be no change in the outside appearance of the building or premises, or other visible evidence of the conduct of such home occupation other than one sign, not exceeding one square-foot in area, non-illuminated, and mounted flat against the wall of the principal building;
d. No home occupation shall be conducted in an accessory building;
e. There shall be no sales in connection with such home occupation.
f. No traffic shall be generated by such home occupation in greater volumes than would normally be expected in a residential neighborhood, and any need for parking generated by the conduct of such home occupation shall be met off the street and other than a required front yard.
g. No equipment or process shall be used in such home occupation which creates noise, vibration, glare, fumes, odors, or electrical interference detectable to the normal senses off the lot, if the occupation is conducted in a single-family residence, or outside the dwelling unit if conducted in other than a single-family residence. In the case of electrical interference, no equipment or process shall be used which creates visual or audible interference in any radio or television receivers off the premises, or causes fluctuations in line voltage off the premises.
h. Home occupation shall include the use of premise by a physician, surgeon, dentist, lawyer, clergyman or other professional person for consultation or emergency treatment, but not for the general practice of his profession, and the use by a cosmetologist of a dwelling on the premises occupied by such cosmetologist as his or her home when no other person is employed to assist in the conduct of such business.
23. Loading Space, Off-Street: Space logically and conveniently located for bulk pickups and deliveries, sealed to delivery vehicles expected to be used, and accessible to such vehicles when required off-street parking spaces are filled.
Required off-street loading space is not to be included as off-street parking space in computation of required off-street parking space.
24. Lot: A parcel of land occupied or intended for occupancy by a use permitted in this Chapter, including one main building together with its accessory buildings, the open spaces and parking spaces required by this Chapter, and fronting upon a street.
25. Lot Frontage: The front of a lot shall be construed to be the portion nearest the street. For the purposes of determining yard requirements or corner lots and through lots, all sides of a lot adjacent to streets shall be considered frontage, and yards shall be provided as indicated under Yards in this section
26. Lot Measurements:
a. Depth of a lot: The average horizontal distance between the front and rear lines.
b. Width of a lot: The distance between straight lines connecting front and rear lot lines at each side of the lot, measured across the rear of the required front yard, provided, however, that width between side lot lines at their foremost points (where they intersect with the street line) shall not be less than 80 percent of the required lot width except in the case of lots on the turning circle of cul-de-sacs, where the 80 percent requirement shall not apply.
27. Lot of Record: A lot which is part of a subdivision recorded in the office of the County Clerk, or a lot or parcel described by metes and bounds, the description of which has been so recorded.
28. Mobile Home: A mobile home is a year-round, single family structure for permanent (more than 30 days) living quarters, more than eight (8) feet wide and thirty-two (32) feet in length, and designed and built to be towed on its own chassis.
29. Motel: A dwelling not consisting of living units and occupied by more than twenty persons, in which there is no central lobby to reach individual living accommodations.
30. Non-conforming Use: A building, structure or use of land existing at the time of the enactment of this Chapter and which does not conform to the regulations of the district in which it is located.
31. Non-Farm Building: All buildings except those utilized for agricultural purposes on a farmstead of twenty acres or more which produces one thousand dollars or more of farm products each year.
32. Office Building: A building designed for or used as the offices of professional, commercial, industrial, religious, institutional, public or semi-public persons or organizations, provided no goods, wares or merchandise shall be prepared or sold on any premises except that a portion of an office building may be occupied and used as a drug store, barber shop, cosmetologist shop, cigar stand or news stand, when such uses are located entirely within the building with no entrance from the street nor visible from any sidewalk and having no sign or display visible from the outside of the building indicating the existence of such use.
33. Outdoor Advertising Business: The provision of outdoor displays or display space on a lease or rental basis and in conformity with the outdoor advertising standards as set forth in this Chapter.
34. Parking Lot: An area consisting of one or more parking spaces for the storage of automobiles, together with a driveway connecting the parking area with a street or alley and permitting ingress and egress of an automobile, provided that there shall be no storage of automobiles for the purpose of sale or resale in any dwelling district, and provided further, that in any dwelling district in said parking area there shall be permitted only the parking of automobiles of customers, employees and guests of the person having the parking lot. There shall be no parking of motor vehicles or of vehicles at any place in a front yard where the erection of a building is prohibited by this Chapter.
35. Sign: Any device designed to inform or attract the attention of persons not on the premises on which the sign is located, provided however, that the following shall not be included in the application of the regulations herein:
a. Signs not exceeding one square foot in area and bearing only property numbers, post box number, names of occupants or premises, or other identification of premises not having commercial connotations;
b. Flags and insignia of any government except when displayed in connection with commercial promotion.
c. Legal Notices; identification, informational, or directional signs erected or required by governmental bodies.
d. Integral decorative or architectural features of buildings, except letters, trademarks, moving parts, or moving lights.
e. Signs directing and guiding traffic and parking on private property, and bearing no advertising matter.
36. Sign, On-Site: A sign relating in its subject matter to the premises on which it is located, or to products, accommodations, services, or activities on the premises, and conforming to the on-site sign standards contained in this Chapter. On site signs do not include signs erected by the outdoor advertising industry in the conduct of the outdoor advertising business.
37. Special Exception: A special exception is a use that would not be appropriate generally or without restriction throughout the zoning division or district but which, if controlled as to number, area, location, or relation to the neighborhood, would promote the public health, safety, welfare, morals, order, comfort, convenience, appearance, prosperity, or general welfare.
38. Street Line: The right-of-way line of a street.
39. Structure: Anything constructed or erected with a fixed location on the ground, or attached to something having a fixed location on the ground. Among other things, structures include buildings, mobile homes, walls, fences, billboards, and poster panels.
40. Tea Room: a room where meals are served to guests of a bed and breakfast or to the public which is contained in a bed and braskfast or in a dwelling. A tea room shall serve no more than 30 patrons at any time. If the tea room is not located within a bed and breakfast, it shall be located in a dwelling that has unique structural and/or site characteristics to give the appearance of an Inn type setting.
41. Travel Trailer/Camping Trailer: A vehicular, portable structure built on a chassis, designed to be used as a temporary dwelling for travel and recreational purposes, having a body width not exceeding eight feet.
42. Variance: Relief from or variation of the provisions of these regulations, other than Use Regulations, as applied to a specific piece of property, as distinct from rezoning, as further set out hereinafter in Powers and Duties of the Board of Adjustment.
43. Yard: A required open space on the same lot with a building, unoccupied and unobstructed from the ground upward, except as otherwise provided herein. In measuring a yard for the purpose of determining the width of a side yard, the depth of a front yard or the depth of a rear yard the minimum horizontal distance measured between the designated points shall be used. All yard measurements to the building shall measure to the furthest outside point of the building to include all eaves and egress windows and all other permanent attachments to such building.
44. Yard, Front: A yard across the full width of the lot extending from the front line of the building to the back of the curb line.
45. Yard, Side: A yard between the building and the adjacent side line of the lot, and extending entirely from a front yard to the rear yard.
46. Yard, Rear: A yard across the full width of the lot between the back line of the building and the back line of the lot.