Buffer areas are for the primary purposes of screening views and reducing noise perception and glare from direct or reflected light from the subject lot. Buffer or screen plantings having a minimum width of 50 feet shall be provided adjoining the property line of commercial and other nonresidential property where said property adjoins residential zones. The screen planting shall be provided within the commercial or other nonresidential property and shall be included in the minimum yard dimensions given. No structure, activity, storage of materials, drainage basins, or parking of vehicles shall be permitted in the buffer area, except that underground utilities may be installed. The location and design of buffers shall consider the use being screened; the distance between the use and the property line; differences in elevations; the types of buffers, such as dense planting, existing woods, a wall or fence; buffer height and 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 screen-planting strip shall be provided and maintained by the owner of the commercial or nonresidential property. Suggested evergreen trees and their required minimum planting distances on center with a minimum initial height of six feet at the time of planting, balled and burlapped as necessary for screen planting are as follows:

In all residential zones, that portion of the development abutting a freeway or arterial or collector street right-of-way and nonresidential use including agriculture shall either be provided with a minimum fifty-foot buffer between the development and the right-of-way or, where the topography permits, earthen berms may be created at a sufficient height to establish a buffer between the development and the right-of-way. Berms shall not be less than four feet in height, and they shall be stabilized by ground cover to prevent soil erosion and shall be planted with evergreen and deciduous trees according to an approved landscaping plan.

All buffer areas shall be planted and maintained with either grass or ground cover, together with a screen of shrubs or scattered plantings of trees, shrubs or other plant material, meeting the following requirements: