(a) Unless the context specifically indicates otherwise, the meaning of terms used in this chapter shall be as follows:
(1) "Adjustment" means a modification in a non-single family stormwater user fee for certain activities that impact stormwater runoff or impacts the City's costs of providing stormwater management.
(2) "Agricultural Property" means land designated by the Fairfield County Auditor as a Commercial Agricultural Use Valuation for tax reduction purposes.
(3) "Apartment/Condominium Property" means a non-single family lot or parcel on which is situated three or more dwelling units.
(4) "Approved plans" means plans approved according to permits and plan review which will govern all stormwater improvements, required or not, made within the City or changes or alterations to existing stormwater facilities.
(5) "Best Management Practices (BMP)" means those practices recognized by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and Ohio Environmental Protection Agency which provide the best available and reasonable physical, structural, managerial, or behavioral activity to reduce or eliminate pollutant loads and/or concentrations leaving the site.
(6) "Brownfield" means typically a former industrial or commercial site that is considered to be contaminated to varying extents, and certified as such by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
(7) "Buffer" means a designated area adjacent to or part of a stream or wetland that is an integral part of the stream or wetland ecosystem. The critical function of riparian buffers including shading, input of organic debris and coarse sediments, stabilization of banks, overflow during high water events and for maintenance of wildlife habitat.
(8) "Credits" means an on-going reduction in a customer's stormwater user charge given for certain qualifying activities that either reduce the impact of increased stormwater runoff or reduce the City's costs of providing stormwater management.
(9) "Debt service costs" means the average annual principal and interest payments on all outstanding bonds or other comparable long-term capital obligations.
(10) "Duplex Property" means a lot or parcel of real estate on which is situated a building containing two (2) single-family dwelling units.
(11) "Equivalent Residential Unit (ERU)" means a value, equivalent to 2,600 square feet of measured impervious area and is equal to the average amount of impervious area of single-family properties within the City of Lancaster.
(12) "Facilities" means various stormwater and drainage works that may include inlets, pipes, pumping stations, conduits, manholes, energy dissipation structures, channels, outlets, retention/detention basins, and other structural components.
(13) "Impervious area" means areas that have been paved and/or covered with buildings and materials, which include, but are not limited to, concrete, asphalt, rooftop, blacktop and gravel.
(14) "Non-single family property" means all property not encompassed by the definition of Single-Family Property or Duplex Property.
(15) "NPDES" means the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit program as administered by the USEPA or the State of Ohio.
(16) "NPDES permit" means the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit setting forth conditions for the discharge of any pollutant or combination of pollutants to the navigable waters of the United States pursuant to Section 402 of PL 92-500.
(17) "Operation and maintenance" means those functions that result in expenditures during the useful life of the treatment works for materials, labor, utilities and other items which are necessary for managing and operating the stormwater system in a manner for which such works were designed and constructed. The term "operation and maintenance" includes replacement.
(18) "Operation and maintenance costs" include all costs, direct and indirect, necessary to provide adequate stormwater management on a continuing basis and to produce discharges to receiving waters that conform with all related Federal, State and local requirements including replacement costs.
(19) "Other service charges" means tap charges, connection charges, area charges and other identifiable charges, other than user charges, and debt service charges.
(20) "Owner" means any and all persons, natural or artificial, including any individual, firm, company, municipal or private corporation, partnership, co-partnership, joint stock company, trust, estate, association, society, institution, enterprise, governmental agency, State of Ohio, the United States of America or other legal entity, or their legal representatives, agents or assigns. The masculine gender includes the feminine, and the singular includes the plural where indicated by context.
(21) "Private stormwater facilities" mean various stormwater and drainage works not under the control and/or ownership of the City, County, State and/or Federal government which may include inlets, conduits, pipes, pumping stations, manholes, structures, channels, outlets, retention or detention basins, other structural components and equipment designed to transport, move or regulate stormwater.
(22) "Public stormwater facilities" mean various stormwater and drainage works under the control and/or ownership of the City, County, State, or Federal government which may include inlets, conduits, pipes, pumping stations, manholes, structures, channels, outlets, retention or detention basins, other structural components and equipment designed to transport, move or regulate stormwater.
(23) "Public stormwater open channel" means all open channels, which convey in part or in whole, stormwater and 1) are owned, operated, or maintained by the City or 2) a stormwater open channel which has a permanent drainage/stormwater easement owned by the City and drains an area which includes City owned property or right-of-way. A public stormwater open channel does not include roadside ditches, which convey only immediate right-of-way drainage.
(24) "Replacement costs" means the expenditures for obtaining and installing equipment, accessories or appurtenances which are necessary during the service life of the treatment works to maintain the capacity and performance for which such works were designed and constructed.
(25) "Shall" is mandatory and "may" is permissive.
(26) "Single-Family Property" means all single-family residential properties located within the City of Lancaster regardless of the size of the building lot or the square footage of the buildings.
(27) "Square footage of impervious area" means, for the purpose of assigning an appropriate number of ERUs to a parcel or real property, the square footage of all impervious area using the outside boundary dimensions of the impervious area to include the total enclosed square footage, without regard for topographic features of the enclosed surface.
(28) "Stormwater" means stormwater runoff, snowmelt runoff, and surface runoff and drainage.
(29) "Storm sewer" means a sewer, which carries stormwater, surface runoff, street wash waters, and drainage, but which excludes sanitary sewage and industrial wastes, other than unpolluted cooling water.
(30) "Stormwater service charge" means a charge assessed to users of the City's stormwater system.
(31) "Stormwater system" means all man-made facilities, structures, and natural watercourses owned by the City of Lancaster, used for collection and conducting stormwater to, through, and from drainage areas to the points of final outlet including, but not limited to, any and all of the following: conduits and appurtenant features, canals, creeks, catch basins, ditches, streams, gulches, gullies, flumes, culverts, siphons, streets, curbs, gutters, dams, floodwalls, levels, and pumping stations.
(Ord. 23-03. Passed 6-23-03.)