Buffer areas are required along all lot lines and street lines which separate a nonresidential use from either an existing residential use or residential zoning district. Buffer areas shall be developed in an aesthetic manner for the primary purposes of screening views and reducing noise perception beyond the lot. Buffer widths shall be measured horizontally and perpendicularly to lot and streetlines. No structure, activity, storage of materials, or parking of vehicles shall be permitted in a buffer area. The standards for the location and design of buffer areas are intended to provide flexibility in order to provide effective buffers. The location and design of buffers shall consider the use of the portion of the property being screened, the distance between the use and the adjoining property line, differences in elevations, the type of buffer such as dense planting, existing woods, a wall or fence, buffer height, buffer width, and other combinations of manmade and natural features. The buffer shall be designed, planted, graded, landscaped and developed with the general guideline that the closer a use or activity is to a property line, or the more intense the use, the more effective the buffer area must be in obscuring light and vision and reducing noise beyond the lot.

A minimum of 1/2 of the periphery that requires a buffer shall have a buffer at least 10 feet wide which shall be designed, planted, graded, landscaped, and developed to obscure the activities of the site from view. In addition, the periphery that requires a buffer may consist of the following: (1) fencing or walls in a landscaped area not less than 10 feet wide; (2) a landscaped area with at least five feet high growth.

All buffer areas shall be planted and maintained with either grass of ground cover together with a screen of live shrubs or scattered planting live trees, shrubs, or other plant material meeting the following requirements: (1) the preservation of all natural wooded tracts shall be an integral part of all site plans and may be calculated as part of the required buffer area provided the growth is of a density and the area has sufficient width to serve the purpose of a buffer. Where additional plantings are necessary to establish an appropriate tone for an effective buffer, the plantings may be required; (2) plant materials used in screen planting shall be at least three feet in height when planted and be of such density as will obscure, throughout the full course of the year, the glare of automobile headlights emitted from the premises; (3) the screen planting shall be so placed that at maturity it will not be closer than three feet from any street or property line; (4) trees shall be at least five feet in height when planted and be of species common to the area, be of balled and burlapped nursery stock, and be free of insect and disease; (5) any plant material which does not live shall be replaced within one year or one growing season; (6) screen plantings and landscaping shall be broken at points of vehicular and pedestrian ingress and egress to assure a clear sight triangle at all street and driveway intersections.

No more than 10 automobiles or other motor vehicles, whether or not they are in operating condition, shall be stored on any lot unless such motor vehicles are adequately screened from adjacent residential uses. All vehicles not in operating condition shall be stored only if the gasoline tanks of such vehicles are drained.

Above-ground generating facilities, switching complexes, pumping stations, and substations shall be screened with vegetation from adjacent uses.