The following words, terms, and phrases, when used in this chapter, shall have the meanings ascribed to them in this section, except where the context clearly indicates a different meaning:

Abutting means lying adjacent or contiguous along a common border.

Accessory building and use means a subordinate building or a portion of the main building, the use of which is incidental to that of the main building or to the main use of the premises.

Alley means a public or private thoroughfare which affords only a secondary means of access to property abutting thereon.

Apartment means a room or suite of rooms in a multiple dwelling, or in a building in which more than one living unit is established above or on the same floor as nonresidential uses, which room or suite is intended or designed for use as a residence by one family and which includes culinary accommodations.

Apartment house means a building or portion thereof used or designed as a residence for three or more families living independently of each other, and doing their own cooking in said building, including apartments and apartment hotels.

Assisted living facility means a facility that provides room and board and provides 24-hour care for elderly and handicapped individuals and has the appropriate license from the state.

Bar/Lounge means an establishment where alcoholic beverages are sold for on-premises consumption. (Note: an establishment that can prove it produces more than 50 percent of its gross income in sales of food items may be classified as a restaurant rather than a bar/lounge.)

Bed and breakfast(homestay) means a private owners occupied residence with one to four guestrooms. The bed and breakfast is subordinate and incidental to the main residential use of the building.

Bed and Breakfast (inn) means a privately owned residence operated primarily as a business with five to twenty guestrooms, where the owner may live on the premises.

Bed and Breakfast (short term rental) means a privately owned rental of a residential dwelling unit for periods of less than 31 consecutive days.

Boardinghouse means a building, other than a hotel, where, for compensation or by prearrangement for definite periods, meals or lodging and meals are provided for three or more persons, but not exceeding 20 persons.

Building means any structure designed or intended for the support, enclosure, shelter or protection of persons, animals, chattels, or property.

Clinic means an office or group of offices for one or more physicians, surgeons, or dentists engaged in treating the sick or injured, but not including rooms for the abiding of patients.

Day care center means a child care facility, as defined by the Texas Administrative Code, Title 40, Part 19, which provides care for more than 12 children for less than 24 hours per day.

District means a section of the city for which regulations governing the use of buildings and premises, the height of buildings, the size of yards, and the intensity of use are uniform.

Dwelling means any building or portion thereof which is designed and used exclusively for residential purposes.

Dwelling, multiple, means a building having accommodations for and occupied exclusively by more than two families.

Dwelling, single-family, means a building having accommodations for and occupied exclusively by one family.

Dwelling, two-family or duplex, means a building having accommodations for and occupied exclusively by two families.

Family means one or more persons occupying a premise and living as a single housekeeping unit as distinguished from a group occupying a boardinghouse, lodging house, or hotel.

Filling or service station means any building or premises used for the dispensing, sale, or offering for sale at retail of any automobile fuels or oils. When the dispensing, sale, or offering for sale is incidental to the conduct of a public garage or retail store, the premises are classified as a public garage or retail store.

Frontage means all the property on one side of a street between two intersecting streets (crossing or terminating), measured along the line of the street, or, if the street is dead-ended, then all the property abutting on one side between an intersecting street and the dead-end of the street.

Garage, private, means an accessory building or portion of the main use building, designed for or used for the housing of motor-driven vehicles which are the property of and for the private use of the occupants of the lot on which the private garage is located. Not more than one of the vehicles may be a commercial vehicle and of more than 1 ½ ton capacity.

Garage, public, means a building or portion thereof, other than a private garage, designed or used for equipping, repairing, hiring, servicing, selling, or storing motor-driven vehicles.

Grade means the following:

(1)

For buildings having walls adjoining one street only, the elevation of the sidewalk at the center of the wall adjoining the street.

(2)

For buildings having walls adjoining more than one street, the average of the elevation of the sidewalk at the center of all walls adjoining the streets.

(3)

For buildings having no wall adjoining the street, the average level of the finished surface of the ground adjacent to the exterior walls of the building.

Any wall approximately parallel to and not more than five feet from the street line shall be considered as adjoining the street. Where no sidewalk exists, the grade shall be established by the city building inspector.

Guesthouse means an accessory building designed for the temporary occupancy of guest of the primary dwelling for which there is no remuneration. "Maids' quarters" means a portion of a dwelling unit, within the same enclosure and not a separate accessory building attached to the primary building that may contain separate sanitary facilities and must have shared utility meters, which is designed for or used for residential occupancy by an employee/relative of the primary residence.

Height of building means the vertical distance from the grade to the highest point of the coping of a flat roof, to the deck line of a mansard roof, or the mean height level between the eaves and ridge for a gable, hip and gambrel roofs.

Home occupation means any occupation or profession engaged in by the occupants of a dwelling not involving the conduct of a retail business, and not including any occupation conducted in any building on the premises except the building which is used by the occupant as his private dwelling. Home occupations shall include, in general, personal services in an office environment such as furnished by an architect, lawyer, physician, dentist, musician, artist, and seamstress, when performed by the person occupying the building as his private dwelling, and not including a partnership or the employment of more than one assistant in the performance of such services.

Hospice facility means a facility that provides room and board and 24-hour care for terminally ill individuals and has the appropriate license from the state.

Hotel means a building in which lodging or board and lodging are provided and offered to the public for compensation and in which ingress and egress to and from all rooms is made through an inside lobby or office supervised by a person in charge at all hours. As such, it is open to the public in contradistinction to a boardinghouse or an apartment.

Improved Lots means a parcel of land that has been properly platted in accordance with City's Subdivision Ordinance and the Texas Local Government Code, the parcel of land also has access to certain basic required services (i.e. electricity, water, sanitary sewer or street access) necessary to utilize it for other purposes.

Lodging house means a building or place where lodging is provided (or which is equipped to provide lodging regularly) by prearrangement for definite periods, for compensation, for three or more persons in contradistinction to hotels open to transients.

Lot means a parcel of land occupied or intended for occupancy by a use permitted in this chapter, including one main building together with its accessory buildings, the open spaces and parking spaces required by this chapter, and having its principal frontage upon a street or upon an officially approved place.

Lot corner means a lot abutting upon two or more streets at their intersection.

Lot, depth of, means the mean horizontal distance between the front and rear lot lines.

Main building means the building or buildings on a lot which are occupied by the primary user.

Mobile home means a movable or portable dwelling constructed to be towed by a motor vehicle on its own chassis over state roads and highways under a special permit, or modular type units connected to utilities, and designed without a permanent foundation for year-round living. It may consist of one or more units that can be telescoped when towed and expanded later for additional capacity, or of two or more units separately towable but designed to be joined into one integral unit.

Mobile home subdivision means a unified development of single-family mobile home lots with or without units located on the lot for sale, lease or rental.

Nonconforming use means any building or land lawfully occupied by a use at the time of passage of the ordinance from which this article is derived or amendment thereto, which does not conform after the passage of the ordinance from which this article is derived or amendment thereto with the use regulations of the district in which it is situated. Any building or land will lose its nonconforming use if it has not been occupied for a period of six consecutive months or for 18 months during any three-year period as determined by the planning department based on utility consumption.

Parking space means an area enclosed or unenclosed containing not less than 160 square feet, exclusive of the driveways connecting said space with a street or alley. Said parking space and connecting driveway shall be durably surfaced and so arranged to permit satisfactory ingress and egress of an automobile.

Personal services establishment means any establishment which perform services on the premises such as: Repair shops (watches, radios, TV, shoes, etc.), tailor shops, professional offices, dry cleaners, beauty parlors or barber shops, photographic studio, massage salon, nail salon and self-service laundries; and similar uses but not including automotive repair services and armature repair services.

Recreational vehicle means any of the following, while in use as a residence:

(1)

Travel trailer. A vehicular, portable structure built on a chassis, designed to be used as a temporary dwelling for travel, recreational and vacation uses, permanently identified as a travel trailer by the manufacturer of the trailer and, when factory equipped for the road, it shall have a body width not exceeding state maximum.

(2)

Pick-up coach. A structure designed to be mounted on a truck chassis for use as a temporary dwelling for travel, recreation and vacation purposes.

(3)

Motor home. A portable, temporary dwelling to be used for travel, recreation and vacation purposes, constructed as an integral part of a self-propelled vehicle.

(4)

Dependent trailer. A trailer which is dependent upon a service building for toilet and lavatory facilities.

(5)

Self-contained trailer. A trailer which can operate independently of connections to sewer, water and electrical systems and containing a water flush toilet, lavatory, shower, and kitchen sink, all of which are connected to water storage and/or sewage holding tanks located within the trailer.

Recreational vehicle and/or mobile home park means a unified development of recreational vehicle and/or mobile home spaces arranged on a tract of land for the purpose of renting or leasing lots with or without units located on the space.

Residential one family/narrow lot means an area for development of single-family units of lots no smaller than 5,000 square feet or greater than 5,500 square feet.

Setback means the distance between the property lot line and the outermost building wall or post/ column.

Story means that portion of a building, other than a basement, included between the surface of any floor and the surface of the floor next above it, or if there is no floor above it, then the space between the floor and the ceiling next above it.

Street means a public thoroughfare which affords the principal means of access to abutting property.

Structural alteration means any change in the supporting members of a building, such as bearing walls or partitions, columns, beams or girders, or any complete rebuilding of the roof or the exterior walls.

Structure means anything constructed or erected, the use of which requires permanent location on the ground or attachment to something having a permanent location on the ground, including, but not limited to, advertising signs, billboards, poster boards, and pergolas.

Temporary child housing means a shelter, emergency or transitional housing which provides temporary living accommodations for children. Temporary housing for children shall apply to children under the age of 13, unless they are disabled. Disabled children must be under the age of 18. The facility must be licensed, certified, or registered with the state. The facility must provide assessment, care, training, education, custody, treatment, or supervision of the children, for all or part of the 24-hour day, whether or not the facility is operated for profit or charges for the services it offers.

Tourist court, auto court motel, or motor lodge means a group of attached, semidetached, or detached buildings containing individual sleeping or living units, designed for or used temporarily by automobile tourists or transients, with garage attached or parking space conveniently located to each unit and offering to the public daily as well as other longer term rental rates, and maintaining a register of guests and/or their vehicles.

Townhouse means a single-family dwelling unit constructed in a series, or a group of units having common walls, each on a separate lot.

Townhouse condominium means a single dwelling unit, meeting townhouse construction requirements, within which designated dwelling units are conveyed fee simple title, with an undivided interest in the building's common elements, to include, but not be limited to, parking spaces, common areas, and the land upon which the building is constructed.

Unimproved lot means a parcel of land that has not been properly platted in accordance with City's Subdivision Ordinance and the Texas Local Government Code, the parcel of land does not have certain basic required services (i.e. electricity, water, sanitary sewer or street access) necessary to utilize it for other purposes.

Yard means an open space on the same lot with a building, unoccupied and unobstructed by any portion of a structure from the ground upward, except as otherwise provided herein. In measuring a yard for the purpose of determining the width of a side yard, the depth of a front yard, or the depth of a rear yard, the horizontal distance between the property lot line and the main building shall be used.

Yard, front, means a yard extending across the front of a lot between the side yard lines, and being the minimum horizontal distance between the property lot line and the main building or any projections thereof other than the projection of the usual steps, unenclosed balconies, or open porch.

Yard, rear, means a yard extending across the rear of a lot, measured between the side lot lines, and being the minimum horizontal distance between the rear property lot line and the rear of the main building or any projections other than steps, unenclosed balconies or unenclosed porches. On corner lots, the rear yard shall be considered as parallel to the street upon which the lot has its least dimension. On both corner lots and interior lots the rear yard shall in all cases be at the opposite end of a lot from the front yard.

Yard, side, means a yard between the main building and the side property lot line of the lot, and extending from the front lot line to the rear yard line.

(Ord. No. 2018-02, § II, 2-6-2018; Ord. No. 2021-52, § II, 1-4-2022)