Certain words and phrases used in this regulation are defined for the purpose thereof as follows: Words used in the present tense include the future; the singular number includes the plural, and the plural includes the singular; "person" includes a corporation as well as an individual; "lot" includes "plot"; "building" includes "structure"; "occupied" includes "designed" or "intended to be occupied"; "used" includes "arranged", "designed", or "intended to be used"; "shall" is mandatory and not directory. Wherever the term "regulation" appears or shall appear, it shall be interpreted to mean and to refer to the Zoning Ordinance/resolution of the City of Clarksdale, Mississippi, inclusive of all amendments and supplemental sections which have been or may be added thereto.

Accessory use of structure: A use of a structure subordinate to the principal use of a building or use on the same lot and serving a purpose customary and incidental to the use of the principal building or use.

Adult entertainment: An establishment providing nude dancing or other live or recorded performances that depict, describe, or relate to specified sexual activities: human genitals in a state of sexual stimulation or arousal; acts of human masturbation, sexual intercourse, oral copulation, or sodomy; fondling or other erotic touching of human genitals (pubic region), buttocks, or female breasts; or specified anatomical areas.

Adult oriented business: means adult arcades, adult bookstores or adult video stores, cabarets, adult live entertainment establishments, adult motion picture theaters, adult theaters, massage establishments that offer adult service or nude model studios.

Alterations, structural: Any change in the supporting members of a building such as walls, floors, columns, beams or girders.

Apartment: Two (2) or more rooms, designed for, arranged for, intended for, or occupied as a residence by one family.

Apartment house: Any building housing three (3) or more apartment units, providing said units are the principal use of the building.

Bar and night club: A place which has a Beer Permit and Privilege License and/or an on premises consumption permit for the sale of alcoholic beverages, including native wines, issued by the Mississippi State Tax Commission which does not meet the definition of Restaurant.

Board of mayor and commissioners: The Governing Authority of the City of Clarksdale.

Boarding house, rooming house, lodging house or dormitory: A building or part thereof, other than a hotel or restaurant, where meals and/or lodging are provided for compensation, for three (3) or more persons, and where no cooking or dining facilities are provided in individual rooms.

Building: Any structure having a roof supported by columns or walls, used or intended to be used for the shelter or enclosure of persons, animals or property.

Building, height of: The vertical distance from the average contact ground level at the front wall of the building to the highest point of the coping of a flat roof or to the deck line of a mansard roof or to the ridge for gable, hip or gambrel roofs.

City: The City of Clarksdale, Mississippi.

Child care facility: A place which provides shelter and personal care for more than twelve (12) children who are not related within the third degree computed according to the civil law to the operator and who are under thirteen (13) years of age, for any part of the twenty-four hour day, whether such place be organized or operated for profit or not. The term "child care facility" includes day nurseries, day care centers, child care centers, preschool programs, and any other facility that fall within the scope of the definition set forth above.

County: Coahoma County, Mississippi.

Dwelling: Any building or portion thereof designed or used as the residence of one or more persons, but not including a tent, cabin, trailer or trailer coach, Manufactured Home or a room in a hotel or motel.

Dwelling, single-family: A building designed for or used for residence purposes by one family or housekeeping unit.

Dwelling, two-family: A building designed for or used for two (2) families or housekeeping units.

Dwelling, multifamily: A building or portion thereof designed for or used by three (3) or more families or housekeeping units.

Dwelling, rear: A building designed for or used as the residence or sleeping place or one or more persons, located in the rear portion of a lot occupied by an existing structure.

Dwelling unit: One room or a suite of two (2) or more rooms designed for or used by one family for living and sleeping purposes and having only one kitchen or kitchenette.

Family: One or more persons living as a single housekeeping unit in a dwelling unit, as distinguished from a group occupying a boarding house, lodging house, dormitory, motel or hotel.

Family day care home: A place which provides shelter and personal care for twelve or fewer children who are not related within the third degree computed according to the civil law to the operator and who are under 13 years of age, for any part of the twenty-four hour day, whether such place be organized or operated for profit or not. The term "child care facility" includes day nurseries, day care centers, child care centers, preschool programs, and any other facility that fall within the scope of the definition set forth above.

Filling station: Any building used for the supply of gasoline, oil or other fuel for motor vehicle propulsion which may also include space and facilities for washing, polishing, greasing and servicing motor vehicles.

Garage, private: A detached accessory building or a portion of the principal building used only for the storage of vehicles and incidental personal property.

Garage, public: A building or portion thereof, other than a private garage or filling station, used for equipping, servicing, repairing, hiring, selling or storing vehicles or similar equipment.

Guest house: An existing structure where for compensation and only by prearrangement for definite periods, lodging and meals for transients are provided. Such uses are limited to ten (10) rooming units excluding resident manager quarters.

Group home: A residential structure that is licensed to provide room, board, and supervised care, but not continuous nursing care, for unrelated adults over the age of seventeen (17).

Half way home: A place where persons are aided in readjusting to society following a period of imprisonment, hospitalization, or institutionalized treatment.

Home occupation: An occupation conducted in a dwelling unit, provided that:

a.

No person other than members of the family residing on the premises shall be engaged in such occupation;

b.

The use of the dwelling unit for the home occupation shall be clearly incidental and subordinate to its use for residential purposes by its occupants, and not more than twenty-five (25) per cent of the floor area of the dwelling unit shall be used in the conduct of the home occupation;

c.

There shall be no group instruction in connection with the home occupation;

d.

There shall be no change in the outside appearance of the building or premises, or other visible evidence of the conduct;

e.

Any sign shall be no more than one (1) square foot in area, non-illuminated and mounted flat against the wall of the principal building;

f.

The home occupation shall be conducted entirely within the principal residential building or in a private garage accessory thereto; home occupation shall be conducted in any accessory building;

g.

No traffic shall be generated by such home occupation in greater volumes than would normally be accepted in a residential neighborhood and any need for parking generated by the conduct of such home occupation shall be set off the street and other than in a required front yard;

h.

No equipment or process shall be used in such home occupation which creates noise, vibration, glare, fumes, odors or electrical interference detectable off the lot to the normal senses;

i.

No equipment or process shall be used which creates visual or audible interference in any radio or television receivers off the premises or causes fluctuations in line voltage off the premises;

j.

No wholesale or retail establishment shall be permitted unless it is conducted entirely by mail or telephone and does not involve the receipt, sale, shipment, delivery or storage of merchandise on or from the premises, provided, however, that articles produced by members of the immediate family residing on the premises may be stored upon the premises;

k.

There shall be no storage outside a principal building or accessory structure of equipment or materials used in the home occupation;

Hotel: A building occupied primarily as the temporary abiding place of individuals who are lodged with or without meals, and in which there are more than twelve (12) sleeping rooms or apartments.

Junk yard: A place where wastes, discarded or salvaged materials are bought, sold, exchanged, baled, packed, disassembled or handled, including auto-wrecking yards house-wrecking yards, used lumber yards and places or yards for storage of salvaged house-wrecking and structural steel materials and equipment; but not including such places where such uses are conducted entirely within a completely enclosed building, and not including pawn shops and establishments for the sale, purchase or storage of used furniture and household equipment, used cars in operable condition, or salvaged materials incidental to manufacturing operations.

Kennel: An establishment where dogs or cats are boarded for compensation or where dogs or cats are bred or raised for sale purposes.

Livestock: Any animal customarily kept by humans for the purpose of providing food, clothing, or work, including but not limited to equine, bovine, ovine, caprine, porcine, and fowl, but excluding bees.

Lot: A piece, parcel or tract of land occupied or intended to be occupied by a principal building or a group of such buildings and accessory buildings or utilized for a principal use and uses accessory thereto, together with such open spaces as required by this Ordinance and having frontage on a public street.

a.

Lot, corner: A lot at the juncture of and fronting on two (2) or more intersecting streets.

b.

Lot, area: The computed area contained within the lot line.

c.

Lot depth: The mean horizontal distance between the front and the rear lot lines.

d.

Lot lines: The property lines bounding the lot.

e.

Lot line, front: The property line separating the lot from a street right-of-way.

f.

Lot line rear: The lot line opposite and most distant from the front lot line.

g.

Lot line, side: Any lot line other than a front or rear lot line. A side lot line separating a lot from a street is called a side street lot line. A side lot line separating a lot from another lot or lots is called an interior side lot line.

h.

Lot width: The width of the lot measured at the building setback line.

Manufactured home: A structure defined by, and constructed in accordance with, the National Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974, as amended, and manufactured after June 14, 1976.

Mobile home: means a structure manufactured before June 15, 1976, that is not constructed in accordance with the National Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974, as amended. It is a structure that is transportable in one or more sections, that, in traveling mode, is eight (8) body feet or more in width and thirty two (32) body feet of more in length, or when erected on site, is two hundred fifty-six (256) or more square feet, and that is built on a permanent chassis and designed to be used as a dwelling with or without permanent foundation when connected to the required utilities , and includes any plumbing, heating, and air conditioning and electrical systems contained therein. Any Mobile Home in the City of Clarksdale as of the date of this Ordinance shall be considered a non-conforming use.

Modular home: A factory-built structure which is manufactured or constructed to be used as a place for human habitation, but which is not constructed or equipped with a permanent hitch or other device allowing it to be attached or towed behind a motor vehicle, and which does not have permanently attached to its body or frame any wheels or axles.

Motel or tourist court: A building, or group of buildings, comprising individual sleeping or living units for the accommodation of transient guests and not containing individual cooking or kitchen facilities.

Nonconforming use: A building, structure or premises legally existing or used at the time of adoption of this Ordinance which do not conform with the use or area regulations prescribed by this Ordinance for the district in which they are located.

Parking space: The area required for parking one automobile, not less than eight (8) feet wide and eighteen (18) feet long, either within a structure or in the open, exclusive of driveways or access drives.

Planning commission: The Clarksdale-Coahoma County Planning Commission as appointed by the governing bodies of the City of Clarksdale and Coahoma County, Mississippi.

Restaurant: The term "restaurant" means a place which is regularly and in a bona fide manner used and kept open for the serving of meals to guests for compensation, which has suitable seating facilities for guests, and which has suitable kitchen facilities connected therewith for cooking an assortment of foods and meals commonly ordered at various hours of the day. No place shall qualify as a restaurant which has a Beer Permit and Privilege License and/or an on premises retailer's permit for the sale of alcoholic beverages, including native wines, issued by the Mississippi State Tax Commission, unless twenty-five percent (25%) or more of the revenue derived from such place shall be from the preparation, cooking and serving of meals and not from the sale of beverages.

Setback line: The closest point at which a building may be constructed in relation to the lot line.

Story: The portion of a building 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.

Structure: Anything constructed, the use of which requires permanent location on the ground or attachment to something having a permanent location on the ground.

Tourist home: A building or part thereof, other than a hotel, boarding house, lodging house or motel, where lodging is provided by a resident family in its home for compensation, mainly for transients.

Tourist court: See "motel."

Utility facility: - All lines and facilities related to the provision, distribution, collection, transmission, or disposal of water, storm and sanitary sewage, oil, gas, power, information, telecommunication and telephone cable, and includes facilities for the generation of electricity.

Yard: An open space at grade between the edges of a building and the adjoining lot lines, unoccupied and unobstructed by any portion of a structure from the ground upward, except as otherwise provided herein.

a.

Yard, front: An open space extending the full width of the lot between the edge of a building and the front lot line, unoccupied and unobstructed from the ground upward except as otherwise provided herein.

b.

Yard, rear: An open space extending the full width of the lot between the edge of a building and the rear lot line, unoccupied and unobstructed from the ground upward except as otherwise provided herein.

c.

Yard, side: An open space extending from the front yard to the rear yard between the edge of a building and the nearest side lot line, unoccupied and unobstructed from the ground upward except as otherwise provided

Zoning administrator: The person authorized to issue building permits and to enforce the zoning regulations of the City of Clarksdale, Mississippi.

Zoning map: The map or maps that are a part of this zoning code and that delineate the boundaries of all mapped zoning districts within the physical boundary of the City.