Part TWELVE. DEFINITIONS  

12.1 Words used in the present tense include the future. The singular number includes the plural and plural the singular. "Building" includes "structure", "Shall" and "Must" are mandatory.

12.2 Accessory Building —A separate building or a part of the main building devoted to an accessory use.

12.3 Accessory Use —A use subordinate to and incidental to the primary use of the main building or to the primary use of the premises.

12.4 Alley —Land devoted to secondary access to lots.

12.5 Basement —The part of a building from one floor to the next floor above which has part of, but less than one-half its height below grade. If a basement is subdivided and used for dwelling purposes, it is counted as a story; a cellar is not.

12.6 Build —To erect, convert, enlarge, reconstruct or structurally alter a building or structure.

12.7 Buildable Width —The width of a lot left to be built upon after the side yards are provided.

12.8 Building —Any structure built for use of persons or animals.

12.9 Cellar —The part of a building from one floor to the next above which has more than one-half its height below grade. If a basement is subdivided and used for dwelling purposes it is counted as a story; a cellar is not.

12.10 City —City of South Houston, Texas.

12.11 City Manager —The chief City Administrator.

12.12 Commission —City Plat Commission of South Houston, Texas.

12.13 Council —City Council of South Houston, Texas.

12.14 District —A part of the city wherein regulations of this ordinance are uniform.

12.15 Dwelling —A building used entirely for residential purposes.

12.16 Single-family dwelling —A building that contains only one living unit.

12.17 Two-family dwelling —A building that contains only two living units.

Editor's note— Ord. No. 977 (3-93) adopted March 16, 1993 provided that Council declares that it was the legislative intent and is the legislative intent that "two family dwellings" in a R-2 District as used in Sec. 1.202 and Sec. 12.17 of the Zoning Ordinance is a building that contains only two living units, and it means that the lot contains one building commonly called a "duplex."

12.18 Multiple dwelling —A building that contains more than two living units.

12.19 Family —One or more persons related by blood, marriage, or adoption occupying a living unit as an individual housekeeping organization. A family may include not more than four persons not related by blood, marriage, or adoption.

12.20 Floor area —The square feet of floor space within the outside line of walls and including the total of all space on all floors of a building. It does not include porches, garages, or space in a basement or cellar not used for dwelling purposes.

12.21 Home Occupation —An accessory use; an activity carried on only by a resident member of a family meeting these conditions:

(a)

Only one non-illuminated sign no larger than one square foot in area is used.

(b)

Nothing is done to make the building appear in any way as anything but a dwelling.

(c)

If some product is made as part of the activity, it and only it may be sold. Nothing else can be sold.

(d)

No one is employed from outside the resident family.

(e)

Mechanical equipment used is only that normally used in, or found in, a single-family dwelling.

12.22 Hotel —A dwelling not consisting of living units and occupied by more than twenty (20) persons. Apartment hotel is a multiple dwelling under resident supervision which maintains an inner lobby through which all tenants must pass to gain access to the apartments and which may furnish services ordinarily furnished by hotels, such as drugstore, barbershop, cosmetologist's shop, cigar stand or newsstand, when such uses are located entirely within a building with no entrance from the street nor visible from any sidewalk and having no sign or display visible from the outside of the building indicating the existence of such use.

12.23 Living unit —The room or rooms occupied by a family. The living unit must include a kitchen.

12.24 Lodging house —A dwelling consisting of not more than one living unit occupied by not more than 20 persons not related by blood, marriage, or adoption. This term includes rooming house, boarding house, tourist home, and nursing home.

12.25 Lot —A parcel of land adequate for occupancy by a use herein permitted, providing the yards, area, and off-street parking herein required and fronting directly upon a street.

12.26 Lot width —The width of a lot at the front yard line.

12.27 Main building —The building occupied by the primary use.

12.28 Motel —An inn or group of cabins designed for occupancy by paying guests.

12.29 Office building —A building designed for or used as the offices of professional, commercial, industrial, religious, public or semi-public persons or organizations provided that no goods, wares or merchandise shall be prepared or sold on the premises.

12.30 Parking space —An area on a lot sufficient in size to store one automobile (not less than nine feet wide and twenty feet long) connected to a public street or alley by a driveway not less than ten feet wide and so arranged as to permit ingress and egress of the automobile at all times without moving any other automobile parked adjacent to the parking space. The parking space and connecting driveways shall be a hard, level surface on which vegetation cannot grow.

12.31 Premises —Land together with any buildings or structures occupying it.

12.32 Private garages —An accessory building housing vehicles owned and used by occupants of the main building. Where vehicles used by persons other than occupants are housed, the building is a storage garage.

12.33 Separate tract —A parcel of land or a group of contiguous parcels of land under one ownership on the effective date of this ordinance.

12.34 Sign —Any outdoor advertising that is a structure or that is attached or painted on a building or that is leaned against a structure or displayed on a premises.

12.35 Street —Property dedicated for and accepted by the City for primary public access to lots.

12.36 Structure —Anything built that requires permanent location.

12.37 Structural alteration —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.

12.38 Trailer —A vehicle equipped for use as a dwelling and designed to be hauled along a highway.

12.39 Yard —An open space on the same lot as a building; except as provided herein it is unoccupied and unobstructed by a structure. Yard width or depth is the shortest horizontal distance from a lot to the main building.

12.40 Front yard —The area from one side lot line to the other side lot line and between the main building and the street on which the lot fronts. On corner lots (lots abutting on two or more streets at their intersections) the front yard shall face the shortest street dimension of the lot except that if the lot is square or almost square, i.e. has dimensions in a ratio of from 3:2 to 3:3, then the front yard may face either street.

12.41 Rear yard —The area from one side lot line to the other side lot line and from the main building to the rear lot line. The rear yard is always on the opposite end of the lot from the front yard.

12.42 Side yard —The area from the front yard line to the rear yard line and from the main building to a side lot line.