As used in this chapter, the following definitions shall apply:
(a) “Abatement” means any action taken to remedy, correct, or eliminate a condition within, associated with, or impacting a drainage system.
(b) “Adjustment” means a modification in a nonresidential customer's storm water service fee for certain activities that impact storm water runoff or impacts the City's costs of providing storm water management.
(c) “Agricultural property” is considered to be a residential property and assigned one ERU for billing purposes unless it is determined by the Wood County Auditor's office that the property is designated as a Commercial Agricultural Use Valuation designation for tax reduction purposes, which will then be treated as a nonresidential property.
(d) “Apartment/condominium property” is considered to be a lot or parcel of real estate on which is situated a building containing three or more single-family dwelling units.
(e) “Approved plans” shall mean plans approved according to a permits and plan review, which will govern all improvements made within the City that require storm water facilities or changes, or alterations to existing storm water facilities.
(f) “Code” means the Codified Ordinances of the City of Northwood.
(g) “Combined sewer” is a pipe or conduit primarily designed to convey sanitary sewage and secondarily intended to convey storm water.
(h) “Detention” is described as the temporary storage of storm water runoff in a basin, pond, or other structure to control the peak discharge rates by holding the storm water for a lengthened period of time, and which provides some gravity settling of particulate.
(i) “Detention facility” means a facility by means of a single control point which provides temporary storage of storm water runoff in ponds, parking lots, depressed areas, rooftops, buried underground vaults or tanks, etc. for future release, and is used to relay and attenuate flow.
(j) “Director” means the City Administrator.
(k) “Equivalent Residential Unit (ERU)” is a value, equal to 2,500 square feet of measured impervious area, and is equal to the average amount of impervious area of residential properties within the City.
(l) “Facilities” mean various storm water and drainage works that may include inlets, pipes, pumping stations, conduits, manholes, energy dissipation structures, channels, outlets, retention/detention basins, and other structural components.
(m) “Impervious area” means areas that have been paved and/or covered with buildings and materials that do not allow natural infiltration, which include, but are not limited to, concrete, asphalt, rooftop and blacktop.
(n) “Infiltration” is defined as a complex process of allowing runoff to penetrate the ground surface and flow through the upper soil surface.
(o) “Nonresidential properties” are all properties not encompassed by the definition of “residential property” as defined in this section, and shall be defined as nonresidential. Nonresidential properties will include:
(1) Agricultural property with Commercial Agricultural Use Valuation designation;
(2) Apartment and condominium properties;
(3) Mobile Home Parks;
(4) Commercial property;
(5) Industrial property;
(6) Institutional property;
(7) Governmental property;
(8) Churches;
(9) Schools;
(10) Federal, State and local properties; and
(11) Any other property not mentioned in this or the list of residential properties below.
(p) “Owner.” The owner of a property shall be defined as the person who holds actual, not merely equitable, title to the property. Executors, administrators of estates, and persons who hold property in trust shall be considered owners.
(q) “NPDES” means National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System.
(r) “NPDES permit” means a permit issued to the City pursuant to Section 402 of the Clean Water Act.
(s) “Peak discharge” or the “peak flow” is the maximum rate of flow of water passing a given point during or after a rainfall event.
(t) “Private storm water facilities” are defined as various storm water and drainage works not under the control 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 storm water.
(u) “Public storm water facilities” are defined as various storm water 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 storm water.
(v) “Public storm water open channel” means all open channels which convey, in part or in whole, storm water, and: (1) are owned, operated, or maintained by the City Division other than the Division of Sewers and Drains; or (2) a storm water open channel which has a permanent drainage/storm water easement owned by the City and drains an area which includes City-owned property or right-of-way. A public storm water open channel does not include roadside ditches, which convey only immediate right-of-way drainage.
(w) “Residential property” means all single-family properties and duplexes within the City.
(x) “Retention” is defined as the holding of storm water runoff in a constructed basin or pond or in a natural body of water without release except by means of evaporation, infiltration, or emergency bypass.
(y) “Retention facility” means a facility which provides storage of storm water runoff and is designed to eliminate subsequent surface discharges.
(z) “Square footage of impervious area” means, for the purpose of assigning an appropriate number of ERUs to a parcel of 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.
(aa) “Storm sewer” means a sewer which carries storm water, surface runoff, street wash waters, and drainage, but which excludes sanitary sewage and industrial wastes other than unpolluted cooling water.
(bb) “Storm water” means storm water runoff, snow melt runoff, and surface runoff and drainage.
(cc) “Storm water service charge” is defined as a charge billed to users of the City's storm water collection, impounding and transportation system.
(dd) “Storm water system” means all man-made facilities, structures, and natural watercourses owned by the City, used for collection and conducting of storm water 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, levees, and pumping stations.
(Ord. 2001-3. Passed 11-19-01.)