For the purposes of this Title, certain terms and words are hereby defined as follows:
ACCESSORY BUILDING AND USE: A subordinate building or portion of the main building, the use of which is incidental to that of the main building or to the main use of the premises. An accessory use is one which is incidental to the main use of the premises.
ALLEY: A public or private thoroughfare which affords only a secondary means of access to property abutting thereon.
APARTMENT: A room or suite of rooms in a multiple dwelling or in a building in which more than one living unit is established above or on the same floor as a residence by one family and which includes culinary accommodations.
APARTMENT HOUSE: A building or portion thereof used or designed as a residence for three (3) or more families living independently of each other and doing their own cooking in said building, including apartments and hotels.
BED AND BREAKFAST FACILITY: An owner-occupied private home which offers lodging for paying guests, and which serves meals only to those guests. One paved off-street parking space per available room shall be required.
BOARDING HOUSE: A building other than a hotel where, for compensation and by prearrangement for definite periods, meals or lodging and meals are provided for three (3) or more persons but not exceeding twenty (20) persons.
BUILDING: Any structure built on the property designed or intended for the support, enclosure, shelter or protection of persons, animals, chattels or property.
CLINIC: Any office or group of offices for one or more physicians, surgeons or dentists engaged in treating the sick or injured.
COMMERCIAL CORRIDOR - RESTRICTED USE: The properties having front and/or corner street frontage to commercial corridors of the City of Alamo. Texas; said corridors are the following major streets and thoroughfares: Interstate 2 (U.S. Expressway 83), SH 495, U.S. Business High 83, Alamo Road (F.M. 907), Tower Road, Cesar Chavez Road. It is prohibited to have any car wash operation (of any varying level), or any mobile food vendor/mobile food court or even a retail 'Dollar' type store along the commercial corridor as described herein' however, any such businesses that may currently exist may continue to do so but shall not be permitted to expand or be replaced. Furthermore, this restriction may not apply to temporary mobile food vendors that are part of civic or charitable event(s).
CONDOMINIUM: A single dwelling unit within the structural boundaries of a larger building that has adjoining similar dwelling units; where said units may be conveyed fee simple title to different individual parties, with an individual interest in the building’s common elements, to include but not be limited to, the property upon which said structure is built on, off-street parking spaces, stairways, elevators, recreational amenities and other such common areas. Such a condominium regime is a private entity, and will have private covenants, conditions and restrictions (CCRs) recorded in the County’s deed records.
DISTRICT: A section or sections of the City of Alamo, Texas, for which regulations governing the use of buildings and premises, the height of buildings, the size of yards and the intensity of use are uniform.
DWELLING: Any building or portion thereof which is designed and used exclusively for residential purposes.
DWELLING, MULTIPLE: A building having accommodations for and occupied by more than two (2) families and living independently of each other.
DWELLING, SINGLE-FAMILY: A building having accommodations for and occupied exclusively by one family.
DWELLING, TWO-FAMILY OR DUPLEX: A building having accommodations for and occupied by two (2) families and living independently of each other.
FAMILY: One or more persons occupying a premises and living as a single housekeeping unit, as distinguished from a group occupying a "boarding house", "lodging house" or "hotel" as herein defined.
FILLING STATION OR SERVICE STATION: Any building or premises used for the dispensing, sale or offering for sale at retail of any automobile fuels or oils. When the dispensing, selling or offering for sale is incidental to the conduct of a public garage or retail store.
FRONTAGE: All the property on one side of a street between two (2) intersecting streets (crossing or terminated), measured along the line of the street, or if the street is dead ended, then all the property abutting on one side between an intersecting street and the dead end of the street.
GARAGE, PRIVATE: An accessory building or portion of the main used building, designated for or used for the housing of motor driven vehicles which are the property of and for the private use of the occupants of the lot on which the private garage is located. Not more than one of the vehicles may be a commercial vehicle and of not more than two (2) tons' capacity.
GARAGE, PUBLIC: A building or portion thereof, other than a private garage, designed or used for equipping, repairing, hiring, servicing, selling or storing motor driven vehicles.
HOME OCCUPATION: A non-residential/commercial use, whereby a resident member of the immediate family conducts the approved activity, and that must meet the controlling and monitoring provisions of Title 10, Chapter 13 - Conditional Use Permits, 10-13-8 (A) (1) (a thru j).
HOTEL: A building in which lodging or board and lodging are provided and offered to the public for compensation and in which ingress and egress to and from all rooms is made through an inside lobby or office supervised by a person in charge at all hours. As such, it is open to the public in contradistinction to a "boarding house", a "lodging house" or an "apartment" which are herein defined.
LODGING HOUSE: A building or place where lodging is provided (or which is equipped to provide lodging regularly) by prearrangement for definite periods for compensation, for three (3) or more persons in contradistinction to hotels open to transients.
LOT: A parcel of land occupied or intended for occupancy by a use permitted in this title and having its principal frontage upon a street or upon an officially approved place.
LOT, CORNER: A lot abutting upon two (2) or more streets at their intersection.
LOT, DEPTH OF: The mean horizontal distance between the front and rear lot lines.
NONCONFORMING USE: Any building or land lawfully occupied by a use, at the effective date hereof or amendment hereto, which does not conform with the use regulations of the district in which it is situated.
PARKING SPACE: An area enclosed or unenclosed containing not less than one hundred eighty (180) square feet inclusive of the driveways connecting said space with a street or alley. Said parking space and connecting driveway shall be durably surfaced and so arranged to permit satisfactory ingress and egress of an automobile.
PERSONAL WIRELESS SERVICE FACILITY: A structure for the provision of personal wireless services, excluding ham radios, such as antennas, towers, poles and equipment buildings.
STORY: That portion of a building, other than a basement, included between the surface of any floor and the surface of the floor next above it or if there be no floor above it, then the space between the floor and the ceiling next above it.
STREET: A public thoroughfare which affords the principal means of access to abutting property.
STRUCTURE: Anything constructed or erected, the use of which requires permanent location on the ground, including, but without limiting the general inclusiveness of the foregoing, advertising signs, billboards, posterboards and pergolas.
STRUCTURE ALTERATIONS: Any change in the supporting members of a building such as bearing walls or partitions, columns, beams or girders or any complete rebuilding of the roof or the exterior walls.
TOURIST CAMP (AUTO COURTS, MOTELS OR MOTOR LODGES): A group of attached, semidetached buildings containing individual sleeping or living units, designed for or used temporarily by automobile tourists or transients, with garages attached for parking space conveniently located to each unit and offering the public daily, as well as other longer term, rental rates and maintaining a register of guests and/or their vehicles.
TOWNHOUSE: A single-family dwelling unit constructed in a series, or a group of units having common (fire-rated) walls, but each unit to be on a distinct and separately recorded ‘Lot’; thus, the dwelling unit and real property can be separately conveyed fee simple title to different parties.
TOWNHOUSE CONDOMINIUM: A single dwelling unit, meeting the townhouse construction requirements within which designated dwelling units are separately conveyed fee simple title to different parties, with an individual interest in a buildings’ common areas, off-street parking spaces, and/or the land upon which the building is constructed on.
TRAILER: Any structure used for living, sleeping, business or storage purposes having no foundation other than wheels, blocks, skids, jacks, horses or skirtings and which is, has been or reasonably may be equipped with wheels or other devices for transporting the structure from place to place, whether by motive power or other means. The term "trailer" shall include camp car and house car. For the purposes of this title, a trailer is not a single-family dwelling.
TRAILER OR MOBILE HOME CAMP, TRAILER COACH OR MOBILE HOME PARK 1 : A lot or tract of land where facilities and accommodations are provided by the day, week, month or for a longer period of time for or without compensation for one or more trailers when such trailers or mobile homes are being used for human habitation.
YARD: An open space on the same lot with a building unoccupied and unobstructed by any portion of a structure 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 distance between the lot line and the main building shall be used.
YARD, FRONT: A yard extending across the front of a lot between the side yard lines and being the minimum horizontal distance between the street line and the main building or any projections thereof other than the projection of the usual steps, unenclosed balconies or open porch.
YARD, REAR: A yard extending across the rear of a lot, measured between the side of a lot's lines and being the minimum horizontal distance between the rear lot line and the rear of the main building or any projections other than steps, unenclosed balconies or unenclosed porches. On corner lots, the rear yards generally shall be considered as parallel to the street upon which the lot has its least dimension.
YARD, SIDE: A yard between the main building and the side line of the lot and extending from the front lot line to the rear yard line.
(Ord. 95-04-04, 4-4-1995; amd. Ord. 5-16-00, 5-16-2000; Ord. 04-01-21, 1-19-2021; Ord. 22-04-23, 4-4-2023; Ord. 63-11-2023, 11-6-2023; Ord. 73-1-24, 1-2-2024)
Notes
| 1 | 1. See also title 9, chapter 5 of this code. |