Sec. 2. Terms and words defined.
For the purpose of this chapter,[3]
certain terms and words are
hereby defined. Words used in the present tense shall include the
future; the singular number shall include the plural, and the
plural the singular; the word "building" shall include the word
"structure"; the word "lot" shall include the word "plot"; and
the word "shall" is mandatory and not directory.
1. Accessory building. A building or use subordinate to the
main building or use on the same lot and serving a purpose
naturally and normally incidental to said main building or use,
provided any such subordinate building is erected at the same
time or after the construction of the main building. Where an
accessory building is attached to the main building in a
substantial manner by a wall or roof, it shall be considered part
of the main building.
2. Alley. A thoroughfare which affords only a secondary means
of access to abutting property.
3. Apartment house. See "Dwelling, multiple."
4. Auditorium. A building or part of a building used as a place
of assembly for an audience.
5. Basement. A story having part but not more than one half of
its height below grade. A basement is counted as a story for the
purpose of height regulations if subdivided and used for business
or dwelling purposes by others than janitorial or household
personnel employed on the premises.
6. Boardinghouse. A building other than a hotel, where for
compensation and by prearrangement for definite periods, meals
or lodging and meals are provided for three (3) or more persons; a
boardinghouse shall not be deemed a home occupation.
7. Building. Any structure for the shelter, support or enclosure
of persons, animals or property.
8. Building, height of. The vertical distance from the grade to
the highest point of the coping of a flat roof or to the deck line of a
mansard roof, or to the average height of the highest gable of a
pitch or hip roof.
9. Cellar. A story having more than one half its height below
grade.
10. Clinic. An establishment where patients, who are not
lodged overnight, are admitted for examination and treatment by
a group of physicians or dentists practicing medicine or dentistry
together.
11. Club. A building or portion thereof or premises owned or
operated by a corporation, association, person or persons for a
social, educational or recreational purpose, but not primarily for
profit or to render a service which is customarily carried on as a
business.
12. District. Any section of the City of Charlottesville for which
the regulations governing the use of buildings and premises, or
the height and area of buildings are uniform.
13. Dwelling. Any building or portion thereof which is designed
or used exclusively for residential purposes.
14. Dwelling district or residential district. Any R-1, R-2 or R3
zoning district.
15. Dwelling, single-family, detached and attached.
(a) Single-family detached dwelling. A building designed for
occupancy by one family which has no connection by a common
party wall to another building or structure similarly designed.
(b) Single-family attached dwelling. A building or portion
thereof, designed for ownership and occupancy by one family
which is connected on one side only to another structure similarly
designed by a common party wall constructed to meet minimum
fire wall specifications set forth in article VI, section 19 of the
zoning ordinance (regulations pertaining to town houses).
16. Dwelling, two-family. A building designed for occupancy
by two families.
17. Dwelling, multiple. A building or portion thereof designed
for occupancy by three or more families.
18. Family. One or more persons occupying a dwelling and
living as a single housekeeping unit as distinguished from a
group occupying a boardinghouse, lodginghouse, fraternity or
sorority house, club or hotel as herein defined.
19. Filling station. Any building, structure, or land used
for the dispensing, sale or offering for sale at retail of any
automobile fuels, oils, accessories or lubrication of automobiles
and replacement or installation of minor parts and accessories,
but not including major repair work, such as motor
replacement, body and fender repair or spray painting.
20. Frontage. 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 of the property abutting on one side between
an intersecting street and the dead end of the street.
21. Funeral home. A building used for the preparation of
a corpse for burial or for cremation (cremation not permitted)
which may also be used for funeral services.
22. Garage, private. An accessory building designed or
used for the storage only of not more than four motor-driven
vehicles owned and used by the occupants of the building to
which it is accessory.
23. Garage, public. A building or portion thereof, other
than a private or storage garage, designed or used for equipping,
servicing, repairing, hiring, selling or storing motor-driven
vehicles.
24. Garage, storage or parking. A building or portion
thereof designed or used exclusively for storage of motor-driven
vehicles, and within which motor fuels and oils may
be sold, but no motor-driven vehicles are equipped, repaired,
hired or sold.
25. Grade.
(a) For buildings having walls adjoining one street only,
the elevation of the sidewalk at the center of the wall adjoining
the street.
(b) For buildings having walls adjoining more than one
street, the average of the elevation of the sidewalk at the centers
of all walls adjoining the streets.
(c) For buildings having no walls adjoining the street,
the average level of the finished surface of the ground adjacent
to the exterior walls of the buildings.
Any wall approximately parallel to and not more than fifteen
(15) feet from a street line is to be considered as adjoining
the street. Where sidewalks do not exist, the grade
shall be as established by the office of the city engineer.
26. Home occupation. Any occupation or activity which is
clearly incidental and secondary to use of the premises for
dwelling and which is carried on wholly within a main building
or accessory building by a member of a family, residing
on the premises, in connection with which there is no group
instruction, no advertising other than an identification sign
of not more than one square foot in area, and no other display
or storage of materials or exterior indication of the home
occupation or variation from the residential character of the
main building or accessory building; there is no commodity
sold upon the premises; no person is employed for these purposes
other than a member of the immediate family residing
on the premises; no mechanical equipment is used except that
which is normally used for purely domestic or household purposes;
no exterior lighting is used except that which is normally
used in connection with a dwelling; and, that not over
one fourth of the building area shall be used for such purposes.
In particular, a home occupation includes, but is not
limited to the following:
(a) Art studio.
(b) Dressmaking.
(c) Teaching, with musical instructions limited to a
single pupil during an instruction period.
However, a home occupation shall not be interpreted to include
barbershops, beauty parlors, convalescent and nursing
homes, tourist homes and restaurants.
27. Hotel. A building in which lodging or boarding and
lodging are provided and offered to the public for compensation,
and in which ingress and egress to and from all rooms
are made through an inside lobby or office supervised by a
person in charge at all hours. A hotel is open to the public
in contradistinction to a boardinghouse, a rooming house, or
an apartment, which are herein separately defined.
28. Institution. A nonprofit corporation or a nonprofit
establishment for public benefit.
29. Loading space. A space within the main building or
on the same lot therewith, providing for the standing, loading
or unloading of trucks, and having a minimum dimension
of 12 × 35 feet, and a vertical clearance of at least fourteen
(14) feet.
30. Lot. A parcel of land occupied or intended for occupancy
by a use permitted in this ordinance,[4]
including one
main building together with its accessory buildings, and the
yards and parking spaces required herein, and having its
principal frontage upon a street or upon an officially approved
place.
31. Lot, corner. A lot abutting upon two or more streets
at their intersection.
32. Lot, depth of. The mean horizontal distance between
the front and rear lot line.
33. Lot, double frontage. A lot having a frontage on two
nonintersecting streets as distinguished from a corner lot.
34. Lot of record. A lot which is part of a subdivision, the
map of which has been recorded in the office of the clerk of
the court where deeds are admitted to record, or a lot describd
by metes and bounds, the description of which has
been recorded in the office of the clerk of the court where
deeds are admitted to record.
35. Lot width. The mean horizontal distance measured at
right angles to the depth.
36. Motel or motor court-tourist court. A building or group
of buildings used for the temporary residence of motorists or
travelers.
37. Nonconforming use. Any building or land lawfully occupied
by a use at the time of passage of this ordinance or
amendment thereto which does not conform after the passage
of this ordinance or amendment thereto with the use regulations
of the district in which it is situated.
38. Nursing home. A home for the aged, chronically ill or
incurable persons in which three or more persons not of the
immediate family are received, kept or provided with food and
shelter or care for compensation; but not including hospitals,
clinics or similar institutions devoted primarily to the diagnosis
and treatment of the sick or injured.
39. Place. An open, unoccupied space or thoroughfare
other than a street or alley permanently reserved as a principal
means of access to abutting property.
40. Rooming house. A building other than a hotel where
lodging for three (3) or more persons is provided for definite
periods for compensation pursuant to previous arrangement.
41. Story. That portion of a building, other than a cellar,
included between the surface of any floor and the surface of
the floor next above it, or, if there be no floor above it, then
the space between the floor and the ceiling next above it.
42. Story, half. A space under a sloping roof which has
the line of intersection of roof decking and wall face not more
than three (3) feet above the top floor level, and in which
space, not more than two thirds of the floor area, is finished
off for use. A half story containing independent apartment
or living quarters shall be counted as a full story.
43. Street. A public or private thoroughfare which affords
the principal means of access to abutting property.
44. Street line. A dividing line between a lot, tract or
parcel of land and a contiguous street.
45. Structure. Anything constructed or erected, the use of
which requires a location on the ground, or attached to something
having a location on the ground, including but without
limiting the generality of the foregoing, advertising signs,
billboards, back stops for tennis courts, fences, pergolas or
swimming pools.
46. Structural alterations. 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.
47. Theatre. A building, or part thereof, which contains
an assembly hall with or without stage which may be equipped
with curtains and permanent stage scenery, or mechanical
equipment adaptable to the showing of plays, operas, motion
pictures, performances, spectacles and similar forms of entertainment.
48. Tourist court. See "Motel or motor court-tourist
court".
49. Tourist home. A building other than a hotel in which
overnight accommodations are provided or offered for one or
more transient guests for compensation.
49.1. Town house. A single-family dwelling unit being one
of a group of three or more such units attached or semidetached
with lots, utilities and other improvements being
designed to permit individual and separate ownership of such
lots and dwelling units.
50. Trailer. Any structure used for living, sleeping, business
or storage purposes, having no foundation other than wheels,
blocks, skids, jacks, horses or skirtings and which has been,
or reasonably may be, equipped with wheels or other devices
for transporting the structure from place to place whether by
motive power or other means. The term "trailer" shall include
camp car, house trailer and house car.
51. Trailer court. An area containing one or more structures
designed or intended to be used as temporary living
facilities of two or more families and intended primarily for
automobile transients; or providing spaces where two or more
tents or auto trailers can be parked.
52. Yard. An open space at grade between a building and
the adjoining lot lines, 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 minimum horizontal
distance between the lot line and the main building
shall be used.
53. Yard, front. A yard extending across the front of a lot
between the side yard lines and being the minimum horizontal
distance between the street line and the main building or any
projection thereof, other than steps, unenclosed balconies and
unenclosed porches.
54. Yard, rear. A yard extending across the rear of a lot
between side lot lines and being the minimum horizontal distance
between the rear lot lines and the rear of the main building
or any projection 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 the lot from
the front yard.
55. Yard, side. A yard between the building and the side
line of the lot and extending from the front lot line to the rear
yard line and being the minimum horizontal distance between
a side line and the side of the main building or any projections
thereof other than steps, unenclosed balconies, or unenclosed
porches. (2-17-58, § 33-2; 4-5-65; 7-20-70.)
