For the purpose of this chapter, the following definitions shall apply unless the context clearly indicates or requires a different meaning.
AGRICULTURE. The growing of soil crops in the customary manner on open tracts of land; the raising of animals or poultry. The term shall include incidental retail selling by the producer of the products raised on the premises; provided, that customer parking space is furnished off of the public right-of-way.
ALLEY. A public or private right-of-way less than 30 feet in width which affords secondary means of access to abutting property.
APARTMENTS. A room or suite of rooms designed for, intended for, or used as a residence for one family or individual and equipped with cooking facilities.
APARTMENT BUILDING. Three or more dwelling units grouped in one building.
BLOCK. A tract of land bounded by streets or a combination of streets and public parks, cemeteries, railroad rights-of-way, shorelines, unsubdivided acreage, or boundary line of the corporate limits of the city.
BOARDING HOUSE. Any dwelling other than a hotel or motel where meals or lodging and means for compensation are provided for five or more persons pursuant to previous arrangements.
BUILDING. Any structure for the shelter, support, or enclosure of persons, animals, chattel, or property of any kind; and when separated by bearing walls without openings, each portion of such building so separated shall be deemed a separate BUILDING.
BUILDING, ACCESSORY. A subordinate building, the use of which is incidental to that of the main building on the same lot.
BUILDING HEIGHT. The vertical distance from the average of the lowest and the highest point of the portion of the lot covered by the building to the highest point of the roof, to the deck line of mansard roofs, and to the mean height between eaves and ridge for gable, hip, and gambrel roofs.
BUSINESS. Any occupation, employment, or enterprise wherein merchandise is exhibited or sold, or which occupies time, attention, labor, and materials, or where services are offered for compensation.
CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT. Main concentration of uses devoted to the retailing of goods and services for a profit.
COMMERCIAL - C-1 DISTRICT. would consist of other business locations, such as highway serving uses and that which deal more in convenience goods and services.
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.
DWELLING, SINGLE-FAMILY. A detached residential dwelling unit other than a mobile home, designed for and occupied by one family only.
DWELLING, TWO-FAMILY. A detached residential building containing two dwelling units, designed for occupancy by not more than two families.
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 room or dwelling units which may be in the same structure, and containing independent cooking and sleeping facilities.
FAMILY. Any number of individuals living together on the premises as a single nonprofit housekeeping unit (except for necessary servants) as distinguished from a group occupying a boarding house, lodging house, hotel, club, fraternity, or sorority house.
FLOOR AREA. The sum of the gross horizontal areas of the several floors of a building, measured from the exterior walls, including basements and attached accessory buildings.
GARAGE, PRIVATE. An accessory building for storage of self-propelled vehicles and tools and equipment maintained as incidental to a conforming use of the premises.
GARAGE, PUBLIC. Any premises except those defined as a private garage used for storage or care of self-propelled vehicles and/or where any such vehicles are equipped for operating, repair, or are kept for remuneration, hire, or sale.
HOME OCCUPATION. Any use customarily conducted entirely within a dwelling and carried on by members of a family residing therein, which use is clearly incidental and secondary to the use of the dwelling for dwelling purposes and does not change the character thereof. Clinics, hospitals, barber shops, mortuaries, beauty parlors, motor vehicle repairing for hire, welding, animal hospitals, and the maintenance of animals, except as provided in § 152.26, shall not be deemed to be HOME OCCUPATIONS.
INDUSTRIAL, HEAVY I-2 DISTRICT. All manufacture, compounding, processing, packaging, treatment, or assembly of products and materials which due to their size and nature, would not conform in the I-1 District.
INDUSTRIAL, LIGHT I-1 DISTRICT. All uses which include the compounding, processing, packaging, treatment, or assembly of products and materials provided such use will not generate offensive odors, glare, smoke, dust, noise, vibrations, or other objectionable influences that extend beyond the lot on which the use is located.
HOTEL. Any building or portion thereof where lodging is offered to transient guests for compensation and in which there are more than five sleeping rooms, with no cooking facilities in individual dwelling units.
JUNK YARD. Land or buildings where waste, discarded, salvaged materials are bought, sold, exchanged, stored, cleaned, packed, disassembled, or handled, including, but not limited to, scrap metal, rags, paper, rubber products, glass products, lumber products, and products resulting from the wrecking of automobiles or other machinery.
LOADING AREA. Any area where trucks are parked, maneuvered, or loaded or unloaded of materials or equipment.
LOT. One unit of a recorded plat or subdivision, which unit has frontage on a public street and is occupied, or to be occupied, by a building and its accessory buildings, and including as a minimum, such open spaces as are required under this chapter.
LOT AREA. The land area within the lot lines.
LOT CORNER. A lot situated at the intersection of two or more streets.
LOT COVERAGE. The total allowable amount of lot area, expressed as a percentage, which may be covered by a principal use and its accessory structures.
LOT DEPTH. The average distance between the front and rear lot line (the greater frontage of a corner lot shall be deemed its depth and the lesser frontage its width).
LOT, DOUBLE-FRONTAGE. An interior lot having frontage on two streets.
LOT, INTERIOR. A lot other than a corner lot.
LOT WIDTH. The horizontal straight line distance between the side lot lines at the setback line.
NONCONFORMING USE. A use lawfully in existence on the effective date of this chapter and not conforming to the regulations for the district in which it is situated, except that such a use is not nonconforming if it would be authorized under a special use permit where located.
PREMISES. A lot or plot with the required front, side, and rear yards for a dwelling or other use as allowed under this chapter.
SETBACK. The shortest horizontal distance between the front lot line and the foundation wall of a building or the allowable building line as defined by the front yard regulations of this chapter.
SIGN. A name, identification, display, illustration, or device which is affixed to or represented directly or indirectly upon a building, structure, or land in view of the general public and which directs attention to a product, place, activity, purpose, institution, or business.
SIGN, BILLBOARD, OFF-PREMISE. A sign which directs attention to a business, commodity, service, activity, or entertainment not necessarily conducted, sold, or offered upon the premises where such a sign is located.
SIGN, BUSINESS. A sign which directs attention to a business or profession of a commodity, service, or entertainment sold or offered upon the premises where such a sign is located.
SIGN, FLASHING. Any illuminated sign on which such illumination is not kept stationary or constant in intensity and color at all times when such sign is in use.
SIGN, ILLUMINATED. Any sign which has characters, letters, figures, designs, or outlines illuminated by electric lights or luminous tubes as a part of the sign.
SIGN, NAMEPLATE. Any sign which states the name or address or both of the business or occupant of the lot where the sign is placed.
SIGN, ROTATING. A sign which revolves or rotates on its axis by mechanical means.
SIGN, SURFACE AREA OF. The entire area within a single continuous perimeter enclosing the extreme limits of the actual sign surface, not including any structural elements outside the limits of such sign and not forming an integral part of the display. Only one side of a double-face or V-type sign structure shall be used in computing total surface area.
STORY. The portion of the building included between the surface of any floor and the surface of the next floor above it, or, if there is no floor above it, the space between the floor and the ceiling next above it.
STORY, HALF. A story with at least two opposite exterior sides meeting a sloping roof not more than two feet above the floor of such story.
STREET LINE. The right-of-way line of a street.
STRUCTURAL ALTERATION. Any change or addition to the supporting members of a building such as bearing walls, columns, beams, or girders.
STRUCTURE. Anything constructed or erected, the use of which requires location on the ground or attachment to something having a location on the ground.
SUBDIVISION. A described tract of land which is to be or has been divided into two or more lots or parcels, any of which resultant parcels is less than two and one-half acres in area and 150 feet in width, for the purpose of transfer of ownership or building development, or if a new street is involved, any division of a parcel of land. The term includes RESUBDIVISION, and, where it is appropriate to the context, relates either to the process of SUBDIVISION or to the land subdivided.
TRAILER HOUSE or MOBILE HOME. A detached dwelling structure used for living purposes that is transportable in one or more sections and is less than 24 feet wide, with or without a permanent foundation.
USE. The purpose for which land or premises or a building thereon is designated, arranged, or intended, or for which it is or may be occupied or maintained.
USE, ACCESSORY. A use clearly incidental or accessory to the principal use of a lot or a building located on the same lot as the accessory use.
VARIANCE. A modification or variation of the provisions of this chapter, as applied to a specific piece of property, except that modification in the allowable uses within a district shall not be considered a variance.
YARD. Any space in the same lot with a building open and unobstructed from the ground to the sky, except for fences five feet or less in height, and trees and shrubs.
YARD, FRONT. A yard extending across the front of the lot between the side yard lines and lying between the front street right-of-way of the road or highway and the nearest line of the building.
YARD, REAR. An open space unoccupied except for accessory buildings on the same lot with a building between the rear lines of the building and the rear line of the lot, for the full width of the lot.
YARD, SIDE. An open, unoccupied space on the lot with a building between the building and the side line of the lot.
(2006 Code, § 11.02) (Ord. 130, passed 12-24-1971; Ord. 26, 3rd Series, passed 7-29-1982; Ord. 147, 3rd Series, passed 12-20-2002)