Chapter 18.10
DEFINITIONS
Sections:
18.10.010 Definitions.
For the purposes of this title, the following definitions shall be used. Words used in the present tense include the future; the singular number includes the plural number; and the plural number includes the singular number. The word “shall” is mandatory, the word “should” is advisory and the word “may” is permissive. Any words not defined in this section shall be presumed to have the customary dictionary definitions.
“Accessory use or structure” means a use or detached structure subordinate to the principal use of a structure, land or water and located on the same lot or parcel serving a purpose customarily incidental to the principal use or the principal structure.
“Alley” means a special public right-of-way affording only secondary access to abutting properties.
“Animal units” shall be consistent with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources administrative rule NR243, and other such rules promulgated under Wisconsin State Statutes.
“Arterial street” means a public street or highway used or intended to be used primarily for fast or heavy through traffic. Arterial streets and highways shall include freeways and expressways as well as arterial streets, highways, and parkways.
“Basement” means that portion of any structure located partly below the average adjoining lot grade.
“Bed and breakfast establishments” provided such establishments (a) meet all requirements and hold all licenses as provided by the Wisconsin Statutes and the Wisconsin Administrative Code and (b) comply with requirements of the Wisconsin Administrative Code applicable to multiple-family residences with respect to smoke alarms, fire extinguishers and fire escapes and (c) comply with all other applicable provisions of this zoning ordinance.
“Building” means any structure having a roof supported by columns or walls used or intended to be used for the shelter or enclosure of persons, animals, equipment, machinery or materials.
“Building area” means the total living area bounded by the exterior walls of a building at the floor levels, but not including basement, utility rooms, garages, porches, breezeways, and unfinished attics.
“Building height” means the vertical distance measured from the mean elevation of the finished lot grade along the street yard face of the structure to the highest point of the roof.
“Charitable or nonprofit institutions and facilities” means a use that provides essential goods or services, such as food, housing, clothing, counseling, aid, or assistance to those in need, for no fee or compensation or at a fee recognized as being significantly less than that charged by profit-making organizations. Also, churches and fraternal organizations consisting of a group of people formally organized for a common interest, usually cultural, religious, or entertainment, with regular meetings, rituals and formal written membership requirements.
Classes of Notice. References in this title to Class 1 and Class 2 notices refer to Chapter 985, Wis. Stats.
“Clothing repair shops” means shops where clothing is repaired, such as shoe repair shops, seamstresses, tailor shops, shoe shine shops, clothes pressing shops, but none employing over five persons.
“Clothing stores” means retail stores where clothing is sold, such as department stores, dry goods and shoe stores, dress, hosiery, and millinery shops.
“Commercial livestock operation” means an animal confinement facility used or designed for the feeding or holding of more than one animal unit for each acre of land available for crop or forage production for seven days or more.
“Commercial poultry operation” means a confinement facility used or designed for the raising of more than 10 animal units for egg or meat production.
“Conditional uses” means uses of a special nature as to make impractical their predetermination as a principal use in a district.
“Directional sign” means a sign which has the primary purpose of directing persons to a remotely located place of business by means of written directions or graphic display. The sign may also contain a brief written and/or graphic description of the services or goods offered. Such signs may not exceed 32 square feet in surface area and may only be located on properties abutting town roads.
“Dwelling” means a detached building designed or used exclusively as a residence or sleeping place, but does not include boarding or lodging houses, motels, hotels, tents, cabins, or mobile homes.
“Dwelling, multiple-family” means a residential building designed for or occupied by three or more families, with the number of families in residence not to exceed the number of dwelling units provided.
“Efficiency” means a dwelling unit consisting of one principal room with no separate sleeping room.
“Essential services” means services provided by public and private utilities, necessary for the exercise of the principal use or service of the principal structure. These services include underground, surface, or overhead gas, electrical, steam, water, sanitary sewerage, storm water drainage, and communication systems and accessories thereto, such as poles, towers, wires, mains, drains, vaults, culverts, laterals, sewers, pipes, catch basins, water storage tanks, conduits, cables, fire alarm boxes, police call boxes, traffic signals, pumps, lift stations, and hydrants, but not including buildings.
“Family” means any number of persons related by blood, adoption, or marriage, or not to exceed four persons not so related, living together in one dwelling as a single housekeeping entity.
“Fence” means a barrier of any material other than plants intended to prevent escape or intrusion or to mark a boundary. Fences may be located on or off a property line.
“Floor space” means that part of any structure thereon utilized for the permitted use or uses of the lot but excluding staircases, restrooms and areas not open to the general public.
“Food processing and packaging” means all foods.
“Frontage” means the smallest dimension of a lot abutting a public street measured along the street line.
“Government uses” includes all public uses of the village, town, county, state and school district facilities including parks, but not U.S. Post Offices.
“Household occupation” means any occupation for gain or support conducted entirely within buildings by resident occupants which is customarily incidental to the principal use of the premises, does not exceed 25 percent of the area of any floor, uses only household equipment, and no stock in trade is kept or sold except that made on the premises. A household occupation includes uses such as baby-sitting, millinery, dressmaking, canning, laundering, and crafts, but does not include the display of any goods nor such occupations as barbering, beauty shops, dance schools, real estate brokerage, or photographic studios. The warehousing of a product or products for subsequent distribution or sale to a person, firm, business or dealer is not a permitted household or home occupation.
“Loading area” means a completely off-street space or berth on the same lot for the loading or unloading of freight carriers, having adequate ingress and egress to a public street or alley.
“Lot” means a parcel of land having frontage on a public street, occupied or intended to be occupied by a principal structure or use and sufficient in size to meet the lot width, lot frontage, lot area, yard, parking area, and other open space provisions of this title.
“Lot lines and area” means the peripheral boundaries of a parcel of land and the total area lying within such boundaries.
“Lot width” means the width of a parcel of land measured at the rear of the specified street yard.
“Maintenance and normal upgrade repairs” or “repairs” means repair to a structure that does not constitute a renovation or restoration. Normal repairs are such things as painting, glass and sewer replacement, leaky faucets, refastening of loose items, door latch replacement, electric switch replacements, etc.
“Minor structure” means any small, movable accessory erection or construction such as birdhouses; tool houses; pet houses; play equipment; arbors; and walls and fences under four feet in height.
“Motel” means a series of attached, semi-attached, or detached sleeping units for the accommodation of transient guests.
New. In the context of zoning designations, “new” is meant to be assigned to designations that meet the minimum criteria of desirable development.
“Nonconforming use or structure” means any structure, land, or water lawfully used, occupied, or erected at the time of the effective date of the ordinance codified in this title or amendments thereto which does not conform to the regulations of this title or amendments thereto. Any such structure conforming in respect to use but not in respect to frontage, width, height, area, yard, parking, loading, or distance requirements shall be considered a nonconforming structure and not a nonconforming use.
“Normal maintenance and repairs” includes, but is not limited to, the replacement of siding or roofing material when of a similar material and color, and the replacement of windows when the dimensions of the window area are substantially the same.
“Parking lot” means a premises containing 10 or more parking spaces open to the public and not located on a public street or right-of-way.
“Parking space” means a graded and surfaced area of not less than 180 square feet in area either enclosed or open for the parking of a motor vehicle, having adequate ingress and egress to a public street or alley.
“Parties in interest” includes all abutting property owners, all property owners within 300 feet, and all property owners of opposite frontages outside of a design district.
“Professional home offices” means residences of doctors of medicine, practitioners, dentists, clergymen, architects, landscape architects, professional engineers, real estate offices, registered land surveyors, lawyers, artists, teachers, authors, musicians, or other recognized professions used to conduct their professions where the office does not exceed one-half the area of only one floor of the residence and only one nonresident person is employed.
“Rear yard” means a yard extending across the full width of the lot, and depth of which shall be the minimum horizontal distance between the rear lot line and a line parallel thereto through the nearest point of the principal structure. This yard shall be opposite the street yard or opposite of the principal street yard address on a corner lot.
“Remodeling” means to alter the structure; to make considerable change in structure or design.
“Renovation” means a general upgrading of the buildings’ interior and/or exterior appearance. Exterior improvements will include cleaning and painting within a design district and will often involve a substantial change to a shop front and sign. Interior rehabilitation can include the upgrading of electrical, mechanical or structural elements and new interior design.
“Restoration” means the reinstatement of original architectural integrity of structural form to quality buildings of the past, but does not necessarily extend to a reinstatement of the past use of the building.
“Side yard” means a yard extending from the street yard to the rear yard of the lot, the width of which shall be the minimum horizontal distance between the side lot line and a line parallel thereto through the nearest point of the principal structure.
“Sign” shall include anything that promotes, calls attention or invites patronage (or anything similar to the aforementioned) to a business, location or product. This includes any words, letters, figures, numerals, phrases, sentences, emblems, devices, designs, trade names, or trademarks by which anything is made known and which are used to advertise or promote an individual, firm, association, corporation, profession, business, commodity or product and which is visible from any public street or highway.
Small Livestock and Poultry. For purposes of this title small livestock shall be limited to animals weighing less than 20 pounds. Poultry includes any poultry.
“Street” means a public right-of-way not less than 50 feet wide providing primary access to abutting properties.
“Street yard” means a yard extending across the full width of the lot, the depth of which shall be the minimum horizontal distance between the existing or proposed street or highway line and a line parallel thereto through the nearest point of the principal structure. Corner lots shall have two such yards.
“Structural alteration” means any change in the supporting members of a structure, such as foundations, bearing walls, columns, beams, or girders.
“Structure” means any erection or construction, such as buildings, towers, masts, poles, booms, signs, decorations, carports, fences, cages, parking lot, parking space, machinery, and equipment.
“Temporary sign” means a sign approved by the plan commission of the joint extraterritorial zoning committee for a period of no more than three calendar months.
“U.S. Post Office” means a building owned or leased by the U.S. Postal Service to collect, send and distribute U.S. mail.
“Utilities” means public and private facilities such as water wells, water and sewage pumping stations, water storage tanks, power and communication transmission lines, electrical power substations, static transformer stations, telephone and telephone exchanges, microwave radio relays, and gas regulation stations, but not including sewage disposal plants, municipal incinerators, warehouses, shops, and storage yards.
“Wireless communication tower” means a tower used for wireless communication services as defined in the Federal Telecommunication Act of 1996, including FCC licensed commercial wireless telecommunications services such as cellular, personal communication services (PCS), specialized mobile radio (SMR), enhanced specialized mobile radio (ESMR), global system or mobile communication (GSM), paging, television broadcast or commercial radio facilities and similar services that currently exist or may be developed.
“Yard” means an open space on the same lot with a structure, unoccupied and unobstructed from the ground upward except for vegetation. The street and rear yards extend the full width of the lot. [Ord. dated 3/6/12 §§ 104 – 106; Res. 18-04. Prior code Ch. 10-1, Art. N].