The purpose of the Geothermal Overlay Zone is to supply the prudent conservation and management of the City's geothermal resources, in such a manner as to be environmentally sound and economically beneficial for the community.

The provisions of this article (Geothermal Overlay Zone), shall apply to all land within the City limits. All land annexed to the City shall concurrently be included in the Geothermal Overlay Zone.

All uses permitted outright in the base zone are permitted without further restriction by the Geothermal Overlay Zone.

When a proposed use is directly and primarily related to and dependent on a specific utilization of geothermal resources or thermal ground water, and the use is not otherwise conditionally permitted in the base zone, then such use may be conditionally permitted. Such conditional uses shall be processed in accordance with Chapter 11, Article 4 (Conditional Use Permit), except that the Council shall act in place of the Director and only after receiving a recommendation from the Commission. The Commission and the Council shall each conduct and provide notice for a public hearing in accordance with Sections 10.605 to 10.615 (Notification Requirements).

All accessory uses permitted in the base zone, and such other uses as may be determined by the Council to be directly accessory to geothermal resource or thermal ground water utilization, are permitted.

In addition to the criteria in Section 11.105 (Required findings), conditional uses under Section 12.515 shall be allowed only after the Council finds the following criteria are met:

Under a conditional use permitted under Section 12.515, the Council shall establish minimum lot size, minimum setbacks, lot coverage limitations and structure height limitations for each proposed use during proceedings under Chapter 11, Article 4 (Conditional Use Permit), based upon requirements for similar uses in Chapters 10 to 14. All conditional uses permitted under this article shall conform to the provisions of Chapter 14.

Any other hearing required by Chapters 10 to 14 may be combined with the hearings required under this article.

The City geothermal heating service or an equivalent thermal ground water heating service and all land uses conducted by it, shall be exempt from the provisions of this article.