Except as specifically defined herein, all words used in this ordinance have their customary dictionary definitions. For the purposes of this ordinance certain words or terms are defined as follows:

Words used in the present tense include the future tense. Words used in the singular include the plural, and words used in the plural include the singular.

The words "shall," "will," "is to," and "must" are always mandatory and never discretionary.

The word "person" includes a firm, association, organization, partnership, trust, company or corporation as well as an individual.

The word "lot" includes the word "lot," or "parcel," or "tract."

The word "building" includes the word "structure"; a structure is a type of building.

The word "used" or "occupied," as applied to any land or building, shall be construed to include the words "intended, or arranged, or designed to be used or occupied."

The word "map" or "zoning map" refers to the "Official Zoning Map" of the City of Lyons, Georgia.

The word "such as" is intended to introduce one or more examples in illustration of a requirement or point, and is intended to mean "including, but not limited, to the following."

The word "include" or "including," when used to introduce a list of items, is not intended to be exclusive only to the items on the list, but is intended to mean "including, but not limited to, the following."

The verbs "zone" and "rezone" have the same meaning and refer to the act of amending the official zoning map through the process established by this ordinance.

The nouns "zone," "zoning district," and "district" have the same meaning and refer to the zoning districts established under this ordinance.

Accessory use or building: A use or building customarily incidental and subordinate to the principal use or building and located on the same lot with such principal use or building.

Apartment: A multifamily dwelling in which a dwelling unit may be located above another.

Boarding or rooming house: Any dwelling in which bedrooms may be rented to nonhousehold members and which include the provision of meals or a communal kitchen facility. This term does not include hotels, motels, or other facilities with guest rooms that are rented to the general public as transient lodging for fewer than 30 days.

Buffer strip, planted: A strip of land along a property line reserved for screening purposes from adjoining properties or public rights-of-way and planted with trees and/or shrubs in such a manner as to provide such screening.

Building: Any structure attached to the ground and intended for shelter, housing or enclosure of persons, animals or chattels.

Business sign: An attached or freestanding structure placed on a business- or industrial-zoned property that is used to advertise, identify, direct or attract attention to a business, institution, organization, person, idea, product, service, event, or location by any means, including words, letters, figures, design characteristics, symbols, logos, fixtures, colors, movement, or illumination.

Centerline of street: The centerline of a street is the line surveyed and monumented by the governing body as such or, if a centerline has not been surveyed and monumented, it shall be that line running midway between the outside curbs or ditches of the streets.

Dwelling: A building designed or used for permanent living quarters for one or more families.

Dwelling, single-family: One dwelling unit that is not attached to any other dwelling unit. See also dwelling, site-built single-family, modular home, manufactured home, and mobile home.

Dwelling, multifamily: A dwelling designed for and occupied exclusively by three or more families living independently of each other in separate dwelling units within the same building. The term includes apartments but excludes townhouses.

Dwelling, site-built single-family: A single-family dwelling constructed on the building site from basic materials delivered to the site (as opposed to a prefabricated industrialized building), and which is constructed in accordance with all requirements of applicable state minimum standard codes.

Dwelling, two-family (duplex): A dwelling designed for and occupied exclusively by two families living independently of each other in separate dwelling units within the same building.

Dwelling unit: A dwelling or portion thereof providing cooking, sleeping and sanitary facilities designed for and limited to use as living quarters for one family.

Family: One or more persons occupying a dwelling unit and living as a single housekeeping unit.

Front yard: An open, unoccupied space on the same lot with a principal building, extending the full width of the lot and located between the street line and the front line of the building projected to the sidelines of the lot.

House trailer: A mobile home, as defined in this article.

Industrialized building: Any structure or component thereof which is designed and constructed in compliance with the official Georgia State Construction Codes and is wholly or in substantial part made, fabricated, formed, or assembled in manufacturing facilities for installation or assembly and installation on a building site and has been manufactured in such a manner that all parts or processes cannot be inspected at the installation site without disassembly, damage to, or destruction thereof.

Lot: A parcel of land devoted to a common use or occupied or capable of being occupied by one or more buildings devoted to a common use, together with the accessory buildings or uses customarily incidental to it, including such open spaces as are required by this ordinance.

Lot of record: A lot whose existence, location and dimensions have been recorded in the Office of the Clerk of the Superior Court of Toombs County at the time of adoption or amendment of this ordinance.

Lot width: The distance between the side boundaries of the lot measured at the front building line.

Major street: A street designated as a major street on the zoning districts map of the City of Lyons, Georgia.

Manufactured home: A structure, transportable in one or more sections, which, in the traveling mode, is eight body feet or more in width or 40 body feet or more in length, or when erected on site, is 320 or more square feet and which is built on a permanent chassis and designed to be used as a dwelling with or without a permanent foundation when connected to the required utilities and includes the plumbing, heating, air-conditioning, and electrical systems contained therein; except that such term shall include any structure which meets all the requirements of this paragraph except the size requirements and with respect to which the manufacturer voluntarily files a certification required by the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and complies with the standards established under the National Mobile Home Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974. A manufactured home is not a modular home or a mobile home. A manufactured home does not include recreational vehicles.

Manufactured home park: Property designed to accommodate two or more manufactured homes and spaces or lots set aside and offered for use for manufactured homes. Includes the term trailer park.

Manufactured home park expansion: The preparation of additional sites by the construction of facilities for servicing the lots on which the manufactured homes are to be affixed, including the installation of utilities, the construction of streets, and the installation of a permanent foundation.

Mobile home: A structure, transportable in one or more sections, which, in the traveling mode, is eight body feet or more in width or 40 body feet or more in length or, when erected on site, is 320 or more square feet and which is built on a permanent chassis and designed to be used as a dwelling with or without a permanent foundation when connected to the required utilities and includes the plumbing, heating, air-conditioning, and electrical systems contained therein and manufactured prior to June 15, 1976. A mobile home is not a modular home or a manufactured home. A mobile home does not include recreational vehicles.

Modular home: An industrialized building that is a dwelling unit designed and constructed in compliance with the Georgia State Minimum Standard One and Two Family Dwelling Code which is wholly or in substantial part, made, fabricated, formed, or assembled in a manufacturing facility and cannot be inspected at the installation site without disassembly, damage to, or destruction thereof. Any such structure shall not contain a permanent metal chassis and shall be affixed to permanent load-bearing foundation. A modular home is not a manufactured home or a mobile home.

Nonconforming lot: A lot of record whose area, frontage, width or other dimensions, or location were lawful prior to the adoption or amendment of this ordinance, and which, by reason of such adoption or amendment, no longer meets or exceeds one or more such requirements of the applicable zoning district.

Nonconforming use: A use or activity that was lawfully established prior to the adoption or amendment of this ordinance, but which, by reason of such adoption or amendment, is no longer a use or activity permitted by right or no longer meets or conforms to the requirements of this ordinance.

Nonconforming structure: A structure or building whose size, dimensions, location on a property or other features were lawful prior to the adoption or amendment of this ordinance, but which, by reason of such adoption or amendment, no longer meets or conforms to one or more such requirements of this ordinance.

Outdoor advertising sign: An attached or freestanding structure conveying some information, knowledge or idea to the public.

Patio home: A single-family dwelling with setbacks on only three sides due to one of the building's sides resting on a lot line.

Principal use or building: The primary purpose for which land or a building is used.

Recreational vehicle: A self-propelled vehicle, towed vehicle or portable mounted unit designed and/or maintained for use as a temporary dwelling living quarters for travel or recreational uses exclusively, having no foundation other than wheels or jacks. Recreational vehicles include vehicles built and certified in accordance with NFPA 1192 (travel trailers, fifth wheel trailers, motorhomes, truck campers, and folding camping trailers) or ANSI A119.5 (park model recreational vehicles).

Secondary street: A street or highway designated as a secondary street on the zoning districts map of the City of Lyons, Georgia.

Side yard: An open, unoccupied space on the same lot with a principal building located between the side of the building and the sideline of the lot and extending from the rear line of the front yard to the front line of the rear yard.

Stand, manufactured home: That area of a manufactured home site which has been reserved for placement of a manufactured home.

Structure: Anything constructed or erected on the ground or attached to something located on the ground.

Tiny house: An industrialized building that is a dwelling unit with 400 square feet or less in floor area excluding lofts.

Townhouse: A dwelling unit in a row of at least three such units in which each unit has its own front and rear access to the outside, no unit is located over another unit, and each unit is separated from any other unit by one or more vertical common walls.

Trailer park: A manufactured home park.

(Ord. No. 2115, § I, 5-6-2025)

Editor's note— Ord. No. 2115, § I, adopted May 6, 2025, repealed the former § 30, and enacted a new § 30 as set out herein. The former § 30 pertained to enumeration and derived from an ordinance April 3, 1984.