(a) Terms or words used herein, unless otherwise expressly stated, shall have the following meaning:
(1) "Access drive" means a paved surface, other than a public street or way, which provides vehicular access from a street or way to a lot.
(2) "Active play area" means an area designated and constructed for outdoor recreational amenities, as a part of usable open space and equipped with playground apparatus.
(3) "Block" means a tract of land, a lot or groups of lots, bounded by streets, public parks, railroad rights-of-way, watercourses, municipal boundary lines, unsubdivided land or by any combination of the above.
(4) "Building" means any combination of materials forming any structure which is designed, intended or arranged for the housing, sheltering, enclosure, or structural support of persons, animals, or property of any kind.
(5) "Building setback line" means the line within a property defining the required minimum distance between any enclosed structure and the adjacent right-of-way.
(6) "Cartway" means the improved surface of a street right-of-way which is available for vehicular traffic, including parking lanes but excluding shoulders or drainage swales.
(7) "Clear sight distance" means a line of unobstructed vision from a given point above the center line of a street to a point on the same center line.
(8) "Clear sight triangle" means an area of unobstructed vision at a street intersection defined by lines of sight between points at a given distance from the intersection of the street center lines.
(9) "Commission or Planning Commission" means the Planning and Zoning Commission of the City of Steubenville.
(10) "Common or usable open space" means a parcel or parcels of land or an area of water, or a combination of land and water within a subdivision site and designed and intended for the use or enjoyment of residents of the particular subdivision, not including streets, off-street parking areas and areas set aside for public facilities. Common or usable open space shall be substantially free of structures but may contain such improvements as are in the plat as finally approved and as are appropriate for the recreation of residents.
(11) "Council or City Council" means the governing body of the City of Steubenville.
(12) "Cul-de-sac" means a street intersecting another street at one end and terminating at the other in a vehicular turnaround.
(13) "Cut" means any artificial or mechanical act by which earth, sand, gravel, rock or any other material is removed during excavation and includes the conditions resulting therefrom; the difference in elevation between a point on the original ground and a designated point of lower elevation on the final grade; the material removed during excavation.
(14) "Developer" means any landowner, agent of such landowner or tenant with the permission of such landowner, who makes or causes to be made a subdivision or development of land.
(15) "Development" means any man-made change to improved or unimproved real estate, including but not limited to buildings or other structures, streets and other paving, utilities, cutting or filling, grading, excavating and the subdivision of land.
(16) "Drainage" means the flow of water or sewage and the methods of directing such flow.
(17) "Driveway" means a private means of vehicular access from a public or private street to a single lot.
(18) "Easement" means a right granted for the use of private land for certain public or semi-public purposes, such as utilities, drainage, access or other purposes, and also the land to which such right pertains.
(19) "Engineer, City" means a professional engineer employed by the City or any consultant designated by City Council to perform the duties of City Engineer.
(20) "Engineering Geologist" means a full member in good standing of the Association of Engineering Geologists or the American Institute of Professional Geologists.
(21) "Engineer, Professional" means a person duly licensed as a professional engineer by the State of Ohio.
(22) "Excavation" means any artificial or mechanical act by which earth, sand, gravel, rock or any other material is dug into, cut, quarried, uncovered, removed, displaced, relocated or bulldozed and includes the condition resulting therefrom.
(23) "Fill" means any artificial or mechanical act by which earth, sand, gravel, rock or any other material is placed, pushed, dumped, pulled, transported or moved to a new location above the natural surface of the ground or on top of the stripped surface and includes the conditions resulting therefrom; the difference in elevation between a point on the original ground and a designated point of higher elevation on the final grade; the material used to make a fill.
(24) "Governing body" means the City Council of the City of Steubenville.
(25) "Gross residential density" means the number of dwelling units per acre or fraction thereof computed by dividing the site area, exclusive of public rights-of-way and common open space, into the total number of proposed dwelling units.
A. "High density" means a residential subdivision in which the gross residential density is equal to or greater one (1) dwelling unit per 7,499 square feet.
B. "Medium density" means a residential subdivision in which the gross residential density is between 7,500 and 9,999 square feet per dwelling unit.
C. "Low density" means a residential subdivision in which the gross residential density is equal to or less than one (1) dwelling unit per 10,000 square feet.
(26) "Health Department" means the agency designated by the governing body to administer health regulations.
(27) "Improvements" means those physical additions and changes to the land and any structures that may be necessary to produce usable and desirable lots.
(28) "Landowner" means the legal or beneficial owner or owners of land including the holder of an option or contract to purchase (whether or not such option or contract is subject to any conditions), a lessee having a remaining term of not less than forty (40) years, or other person having a proprietary interest in land, shall be deemed to be a landowner for the purposes of these Subdivision Regulations.
(29) "Lot" means a plot, parcel, tract or other area of land which is, or in the future may be offered for sale, conveyance, transfer, use or improvement, regardless of the method or methods in which title or other right to use is conveyed. (Ord. 1992-19. Passed 4-21-92.)
(30) "Lot area" means the total area contained within the property lines of a lot, excluding space within any public right-of-way, but including the area of any easement.
(31) "Lot modification" means the change of lot lines between two (2) existing lots of record for the sole purpose of increasing lot size, or correcting errors in a deed or description where no additional building sites are created.
(Ord. 2011-71. Passed 10-11-11.)
(32) "Open space" means the unoccupied space open to the sky on the same lot with a building, not including any parking lots.
(33) "Person" means an individual, partnership, public or private association or corporation, firm, trust, estate, governmental entity, public utility or any other legal entity whatsoever which is recognized by law as the subject of rights and duties.
(34) "Plan, Sketch" means an informal plan, not necessarily to exact scale, indicating salient existing features of a tract and its surroundings and the general layout of a proposed subdivision.
(35) "Plat" means a map or plan of a subdivision, whether preliminary or final.
(36) "Plat, Final" means a complete and exact plat (including all required supplemental data) prepared for official recording as required by statute, to define property rights and proposed streets and other improvements, prepared by a Professional Surveyor.
(37) "Plat, Preliminary" means a tentative plat (including all required supplemental data), in a lesser detail than the Final Plat, showing the approximate proposed street and lot layout as a basis for consideration prior to preparation of a Final Plat, prepared by a Professional Surveyor.
(38) "Plat of Record" means the Final Plat recorded in the Office of the Jefferson County Recorder of Deeds.
(39) "Right-of-way" means the total width of any land reserved or dedicated as a street, alley, or for other public or semi-public purposes, including, but not limited to, the area reserved for cartway, shoulders, sidewalks, drainage and easements.
(40) "Screening" means a well maintained solid fence, masonry wall, evergreen hedge or other sight obscuring vegetation, at least six (6) feet in height and of a density and height necessary to conceal from the view of property owners in adjoining residences or residential districts the structures and uses on the premises on which the screening is located.
(41) "Site" means any tract, lot or parcel of land or any contiguous tracts, lots or parcels of land proposed to be subdivided or developed, whether immediate or future.
(42) "Soil Erosion and Sedimentation Control Plan" means the plan required to be provided as a prerequisite to the receipt of an earth disturbance permit pursuant to the provisions of the City Building Code.
(43) "Staff" means the City Planner or his designee.
(44) "Storm Water Management Plan" means the required plan providing for the control of runoff to allow precipitation falling on a given site to be absorbed or retained on site to the extent that after development, the peak rate of discharge leaving the site is not significantly different than if the site had remained undeveloped.
(45) "Street" means a strip of land, including the entire right-of-way, intended for use as a means of vehicular and pedestrian circulation (for additional definitions see below).
A. "Alley" means a permanent public service way which affords only a secondary means of access to abutting property and not intended for general traffic circulation.
B. "Arterial street, primary" means a street which is designed and intended primarily to carry through traffic and secondarily to provide access to and from such major attractors as central business districts, shopping centers, schools and hospitals, parks, major industrial areas, and similar traffic generators within the governmental unit.
C. "Arterial street, secondary" means a street which is designed and intended to carry traffic in a manner similar to primary arterials, except that these streets serve minor attractors and carry traffic from collector streets to primary arterial streets.
D. "Collector street" means a street which is designed and intended to carry traffic from local streets to arterial streets or to major facilities or developments.
E. "Freeway" or "expressway" means a street which is designed and intended to carry large volumes of high speed traffic, and which is used primarily to connect communities.
F. "Local street" means a street designed and intended to provide access to abutting properties.
G. "Marginal access street" means a street which is parallel and adjacent to arterial or limited access streets and which are intended to provide access to abutting properties.
H. "Partial or half street" means a street which is parallel to a property line having a lesser right- of-way width than required for improvement and dedication of the street.
I. "Private or non-public street" means a street which is not public, including but not limited to streets maintained by private agreements, by private owners or for which no public maintenance responsibility has been established; and including all private driveway access easements or rights-of-way for access.
J. "Public street" means a street which has been ordained or maintained or dedicated and accepted by the City, the County, the State or the Federal Government, and open to public use.
(46) "Structure" means any combination of materials to include anything constructed or erected on ground or attached to the ground.
(47) "Subdivider" means the person, corporation, partnership, joint ventures, associations or other group which makes or causes to be made a subdivision of land. The term "subdivider" shall include developer and landowner.
(48) "Subdivision" means (a) The division of any parcel of land shown as a unit or as contiguous units on the last preceding tax roll, into two (2) or more parcels, sites or lots, any one of which is less than five (5) acres for the purpose, whether immediate or future, of transfer of ownership, provided, however, that the division or partition of land into parcels of more than five (5) acres not involving any new streets or easements of access, and the sale or exchange of parcels between adjoining lot owners, where such sale or exchange does not create additional building sites, shall be exempted; or (b) The improvement of (1) or more parcels of land for residential, commercial, or industrial structures or groups of structures involving the division or allocation of land for the opening, widening or extension of any street or streets, except private streets serving industrial structures; the division or allocation of land as open spaces for common use by owners, occupants or lease holders or as easements for the extension and maintenance of public sewer, water, storm drainage or other public facilities.
(49) "Subdivision, Major" means any subdivision which contains six (6) or more lots for which Preliminary and Final Plats are required.
(50) "Subdivision, Minor" means any subdivision which contains no more than five (5) lots, not including any new streets or easements of access and not requiring the extension of public water or sanitary sewer lines.
(51) "Surveyor, Professional" means a person duly licensed as a professional land surveyor by the State of Ohio.
(52) "Tract" means a parcel of land or a lot.