[Amended 1-20-1976 by Ord. No. 2]
Unless otherwise expressly stated, the following words shall,
for the purpose of this chapter, have the meanings herein indicated:
A.
Words used in the present tense include the future tense.
B.
The singular includes the plural.
C.
The word "person" shall include any person, firm, partnership, association,
or corporation.
D.
The word "lot" includes the word "plot" or "parcel."
E.
The term "shall" is always mandatory.
F.
The word "used" or "occupied" as applied to any land or building
shall be construed to include the words "intended, arranged, or designed
to be used or occupied."
[Amended 3-2-1992 by Ord. No. 1; 3-3-1997 by Ord. No. 3-4-B; 4-7-1997 by Ord. No. 4-1]
As used in this chapter, the following terms shall have the
meanings indicated:
A use customarily incidental and subordinate to the principal
use or building and located on the same lot with such principal use
or building.
An establishment having any income derived from the sale
of books, magazines and other periodicals, including, but not limited
to, movies, videotapes, and/or movie viewing machines, the content
thereof that would constitute a criminal offense according to the
Crimes Code, 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 5903, and/or pertains to the
derivation of income from the sale or display of the same which would
be considered obscene pursuant to the definition contained herein.
An establishment having any income derived from exhibition
of motion pictures which would be considered obscene pursuant to the
definition contained herein or would constitute a criminal offense
according to the Crimes Code, 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 5903.
A public thoroughfare which affords only a secondary means
of access to abutting property and not intended for general traffic
circulation.
As applied to a building or structure, means a change or
rearrangement in the structural parts or in the exit facilities, or
an enlargement, whether by extending on a side or by increasing in
height, or the moving from one location or position to another.
Any change in the supporting members of a building, such
as bearing walls, columns, beams or girders.
A building used for the treatment, housing or boarding of
small domestic animals such as dogs, cats, rabbits, and birds or fowl
by a veterinarian.
A building arranged, intended or designed to be occupied
by three or more families living independently of each other.
The total of areas taken on a horizontal plane at the main
grade level of the principal building and all accessory buildings,
exclusive of uncovered porches, terraces and steps.
The total area within the lot lines.
Any structure or any building or part thereof that is used
for the repair or painting of bodies and fenders of motor vehicles.
A building or group of buildings, whether detached or in
connected units, used as individual sleeping or dwelling units designed
primarily for transient automobile travelers and providing for accessory
off-street parking facilities. The term "auto court" includes buildings
designated as tourist courts, motor lodges, motels and similar appellations.
A story partly underground but having at least 1/2 of its
height above the average level of the adjoining ground. A basement
shall be counted as a story for the purposes of height measurement
if the vertical distance between the ceiling and the average level
of the adjoining ground is more than five feet or if used for business
or dwelling purposes, other than a game or recreation room.
Any dwelling in which more than three persons either individually
or as families are housed or lodged for hire with or without meals.
A rooming house or a furnished-room house shall be deemed a boardinghouse.
Any structure having a roof supported by walls and intended
for the shelter, housing or enclosure of persons, animals or chattel.
A subordinate building or a portion of the main building
on a lot, the use of which is customarily incidental to that of the
main or principal building.
A building surrounded by open spaces on the same lot.
The line of that face of the building nearest the front line
of the lot. This face includes sun parlors and covered porches, whether
enclosed or unenclosed, but does not include steps.
The vertical distance measured from the average elevation
of the proposed finished grade at the front of the building to the
highest point of the roof for flat roofs, to the deckline of mansard
roofs, and to the mean height between eaves and ridge for gable, hip
and gambrel roofs.
A building in which is conducted the principal use of the
lot on which it is located.
Any one or more of the following, other than a hospital,
place of detention or school offering general instruction:
Any area of land or water on which are located two or more cabins,
tents, trailers, shelters, houseboats or other accommodations of a
design or character suitable for seasonal or other more or less temporary
living purposes, regardless of whether such structures or other accommodations
actually are occupied seasonally or otherwise.
Any building or group of buildings, other than buildings constituting
a camp, used for temporary or seasonal living purposes other than
normal residential occupancy of a dwelling of a type permitted in
the district in which situated or normal occupancy of a hotel, rooming
house, tourist home or automobile court.
Any land, including any building thereon, used for any assembly
of persons for what is commonly known as "day camp" purposes and shall
apply to any of the foregoing establishments, whether or not conducted
for profit and whether occupied by adults or by children, either as
individuals, families or groups.
A parcel of land used or intended to be used, let or rented
for occupancy by campers or for occupancy by or of trailers, tents
or movable or temporary dwellings, rooms or sleeping quarters of any
kind.
An open space for the storage of one or more vehicles in
the same manner as a private garage, which may be covered by a roof
supported by columns or posts, except that one or more walls may be
the walls of the main building to which the carport is an accessory
building or extension.
A story partly underground and having more than 1/2 of its
clear height below the average level of the adjoining ground. A cellar
shall not be considered in determining the permissible number of stories.
As applied to any entity, organization, group, business use,
operation or function, shall mean and connote that the use, business,
operation or function is conducted not for profit, regardless of the
nature or purpose thereof, except as pertains to obscene and/or pornographic
materials or displays, and shall include those entities under the
provisions of the Pennsylvania Solicitation of Funds for Charitable
Purposes Act, 10 P.S. § 162.1 et seq., or under any of the
provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code or of any laws,
regulations or rules enacted thereunder.[1]
An establishment operated by an organization for fraternal,
sororal, social, recreational or educational purposes that do not
include the sale, display, or providing of obscene materials or entertainment
or the conduct of which would constitute a criminal offense according
to the Crimes Code, 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 5903.
A multifamily dwelling constructed by converting an existing
dwelling into apartments for more than one family without substantially
altering the exterior of the building.
An unoccupied open space, other than a yard, on the same
lot with a building, which is bounded on two or more sides by the
walls of such building.
A court enclosed on all sides by exterior walls of a building
or by exterior walls and lot lines on which walls are allowable.
A court enclosed on not more than three sides by exterior
walls and lot lines on which walls are allowable, with one side or
end open to a street, driveway, alley or yard.
That portion or percentage of the plot or lot area covered
by the building area.
The officially established grade of the curb in front of
the midpoint of the lot.
An establishment having, as a substantial or significant
portion of its income, money or revenue derived from the sale, rental
or lease of any part of the premises for the purpose of dancing, either
by patrons and/or entertainers, wherein there are obscene materials
or obscene entertainment pursuant to the definition of "obscenity"
contained herein. Any establishment that is opened and maintained
by any organization that is recognized as a charitable organization
by the Internal Revenue Service is exempted from this definition.
The keeping of three or more dogs that are more than six
months old.
A lot or land or part thereof used primarily for the disposal
by abandonment, dumping, burial, burning or any other means and for
whatever purpose of garbage, sewage, trash, refuse, junk, discarded
machinery, vehicles or part thereof, or waste material of any kind.
A group of two or more one-family, two-family, or multiple
dwellings occupying a lot in one ownership and having any yard in
common.
A building used or designed as a residence for three or more
families living independently of each other and doing their own cooking
therein, including apartment houses, group dwellings and row dwellings.
A detached building designed for or occupied exclusively
by one family and having two side yards.
A house accommodating but a single family and having two
side yards.
A one-family house having one party wall and one side yard.
A dwelling, the walls on two sides of which are in common
with the walls of adjoining dwellings and are party or lot line walls
and consisting of more than two dwelling units in a row.
A building having two side yards and accommodating but two
families, with one family living over the other.
A building or portion thereof providing complete housekeeping
facilities for one family.
An assemblage of equipment for a purpose other than generation
or utilization, through which electric energy in bulk is passed for
the purposes of switching or modifying its characteristics to meet
the needs of the general public.
Notice given by a municipality through the Internet of the
time and place of a public hearing and the particular nature of the
matter to be considered at the hearing, pursuant to 53 P.S. § 10109.[3]
One or more persons who live together in one dwelling unit
and maintain a common household; may consist of a single person or
of two or more persons, whether or not related by blood, marriage
or adoption; may also include domestic servants and gratuitous guests.
Any parcel of land which is used for gain in the raising
of agricultural products, livestock, poultry and dairy products. It
includes necessary farm structures within the prescribed limits and
the storage of equipment used. It excludes the raising of fur-bearing
animals, riding academies, livery or boarding stables and dog kennels.
Any area of land, including structures thereon, that is used
or designed to be used for the supply of gasoline or oil or other
fuel for the propulsion of motor vehicles and which may include facilities
used or designed to be used for polishing, greasing, washing, spraying,
dry cleaning or otherwise cleaning or servicing such motor vehicles.
The aggregate of the horizontal areas of all rooms used for
habitation, such as living room, dining room, kitchen, bedroom, but
not including hallways, stairways, cellars, attics, service rooms
or utility rooms, bathroom, closets, nor unheated areas such as enclosed
porches, nor rooms without at least one window or skylight opening
onto an outside yard or court.[4]
The sum of the gross horizontal areas of the several floors
of a building and its accessory buildings on the same lot, excluding
cellar and basement floor areas not devoted to residential use, but
including the area of roofed porches and roofed terraces. All dimensions
shall be measured between exterior faces of walls.
An enclosed or covered space for the storage of one or more
motor vehicles, provided that no business, occupation or service is
conducted for profit therein nor space therein for more than one car
is leased to a nonresident of the premises.
Any garage not a private garage and which is used for storage,
repair, rental, servicing or supplying of gasoline or oil to motor
vehicles.
The elevation of the center line of the streets as officially
established by the municipal authorities.
The completed surfaces of lawns, walks and roads brought
to grades as shown on official plans or designs relating thereto.
Any use customarily conducted entirely within a dwelling
or in a building accessory thereto and carried on by the inhabitants
residing therein, providing that the use is clearly incidental and
secondary to the use of the dwelling for dwelling purposes, the exterior
appearance of the structure or premises is constructed and maintained
as a residential dwelling, and no goods are publicly displayed on
the premises other than signs as provided herein.
Unless otherwise specified, the term "hospital" shall be
deemed to include sanitarium, sanatorium, preventorium, clinic, rest
home, nursing home, convalescent home and any other place for the
diagnosis, treatment or other care of ailments and shall be deemed
to be limited to places for the diagnosis, treatment or other care
of human ailments.
A building containing rooms intended or designed to be used
or which are used, rented or hired out to be occupied or which are
occupied for sleeping purposes by guests and where only a general
kitchen and dining room are provided within the building or in any
accessory building.
Any portable or mobile vehicle used or designed to be used
for living purposes and with its wheels, rollers or skids in place
or not in place or a permanent or semipermanent foundation is constructed
underneath.
A lot, land or structure, or part thereof, used primarily
for the collecting, storage and sale of wastepaper, rags, scrap metal
or discarded material or for the collecting, dismantling, storage
and salvaging of machinery or vehicles not in running condition, and
for the sale of parts thereof.
A business premises equipped with individual clothes washing
machines for the use of retail customers, exclusive of laundry facilities
provided as an accessory use in an apartment house or an apartment
hotel.
The dividing line between the street and the lot.
A building in which three or more but not more than 15 rooms
are rented and in which no table board is furnished.
Land occupied or to be occupied by a building and its accessory
buildings, or by a dwelling group and its accessory buildings, together
with such open spaces as are required under the provisions of this
chapter, having not less than the minimum area and width required
by this chapter for a lot in the district in which such land is situated,
and having its principal frontage on a street or on such other means
of access as may be determined in accordance with the provisions of
law to be adequate as a condition of the issuance of a building permit
for a building on such land.
A parcel of land at the junction of and abutting on two or
more intersecting streets.
A lot other than a corner lot.
The lines bounding a lot as defined herein.
Notice given by a municipality by first-class mail of the
time and place of a public hearing and the particular nature of the
matter to be considered at the hearing, pursuant to 53 P.S. § 10109.[5]
An establishment having any income derived from providing
services for obtaining massages wherein the services would constitute
a criminal offense according to Pennsylvania Crimes Code, 18 Pa.C.S.A.
§ 5902, and/or otherwise would be considered obscene pursuant
to the definition provided herein.
A voluntary negotiating process in which parties in a dispute
mutually select a neutral mediator to assist them in jointly exploring
and settling their differences, culminating in a written agreement
which the parties themselves create and consider acceptable.
See "auto court."
A business or commercial activity administered or conducted
as an accessory use which is clearly secondary to the use as a residential
dwelling and which involves no customer, client or patient traffic,
whether vehicular or pedestrian, pickup, delivery or removal functions
to or from the premises, in excess of those normally associated with
residential use. The business or commercial activity must satisfy
the following requirements:[6]
The business activity shall be compatible with the residential
use of the property and surrounding residential uses.
The business shall employ no employees other than family members
residing in the dwelling.
There shall be no display or sale of retail goods and no stockpiling
or inventory of a substantial nature.
There shall be no outside appearance of a business use, including,
but not limited to, parking, signs or lights.
The business activity may not use any equipment or process which
creates noise, vibration, glare, fumes, odors or electrical or electronic
interference, including interference with radio or television reception,
which is detectable in the neighborhood.
The business activity may not generate any solid waste or sewage
discharge in volume or type which is not normally associated with
residential use in the neighborhood.
The business activity shall be conducted only within the dwelling
and may not occupy more than 25% of the habitable floor area.
The business may not involve any illegal activity.
A structure or land lawfully occupied by a use that does
not conform to the regulations of the district in which it is situated.
Any dwelling with less than 15 sleeping rooms where persons
are housed or lodged and furnished with meals and nursing care for
hire.
As used in this chapter, the following terms shall have the
meanings indicated:
COMMUNITY STANDARDSThe standards of the community from which the jury is drawn or would be drawn if it were the trier of fact.
NUDE OR PARTIALLY DENUDED FIGURESLess than completely and opaquely covered:
OBSCENEThat which is determined as obscene, applying the following guidelines:
Whether the average person applying contemporary community standards
would find that the subject matter taken as whole appeals to the prurient
interest.
Whether the subject matter depicts or describes in a patently
offensive way sexual conduct of a type hereinafter described.
Whether the subject matter taken as a whole lacks serious literacy,
artistic, political or scientific value.
PATENTLY OFFENSIVESo offensive on its face as to affront current standards of decency and shall be deemed to include any of the following described forms of sexual conduct if depicted, described or exhibited in a patently offensive way:
An act of sexual intercourse, normal or perverted, actual or
simulated, real or animated, including genital/genital, anal/genital,
or oral/genital intercourse, whether between human beings or between
a human being and an animal.
Masturbation, excretory functions, or physical contact or simulated
physical contact between humans and/or between humans and animals
in an act of apparent sexual stimulation or gratification.
A device designed and marketed as useful primarily for stimulation
of the human genital organs.
Male or female genitals in a state of sexual stimulation or
arousal.
Fellatio, cunnilingus, anal sodomy, seminal ejaculation, or
any other excretory function.
An unoccupied space open to the sky on the same lot with
the building.
A map, plan or layout of a subdivision indicating the location
and boundaries of individual properties.
A covered area in excess of four feet by five feet or 20
square feet in area at a front, side, or rear door.
Any lot, parcel or tract of land and any building constructed
thereon.
A formal meeting held pursuant to public notice by the Borough
Council or the Zoning Hearing Board, intended to inform and obtain
public comment, prior to taking action in accordance with this chapter.[8]
A forum held pursuant to notice under the Sunshine Act, 65
Pa.C.S.A. § 701 et seq.[9]
Notice published once each week for two successive weeks
in a newspaper of general circulation in the Borough. Such notice
shall state the time and place of the hearing and the particular nature
of the matter to be considered at the hearing. The first publication
shall not be more than 30 days and the second publication shall not
be less than seven days from the date of the hearing.
A lot or land or part thereof used for the purpose of extracting
stone, sand, gravel or topsoil for sale, as an industrial operation,
and exclusive of the process of grading a lot preparatory to the construction
of a building for which application for a building permit has been
made or for which a plot plan showing present and proposed grades
has been approved.
A dwelling occupied by permanent guests only and not by transients.
It may include restaurants, newsstands, and other accessory services
primarily for serving its occupants and only incidentally the public.
Any establishment where horses are kept for riding, driving,
or stabling for compensation or incidental to the operation of any
club, association, ranch or similar establishments.
A private hospital, whether or not such facility is operated
for profit.
Any device for visual communication that is used for the
purpose of bringing the subject thereof to the attention of the public,
but not including any flag, badge or insignia of any government or
government agency, or of any civic, charitable, religious, patriotic,
fraternal or similar organization.
An accessory building in which horses are kept for private
use and not for hire, remuneration or sale.
A building in which any horses are kept for remuneration,
hire or sale.
A covered or uncovered area at a front, side or rear door
not exceeding four feet by five feet or 20 square feet in area.
That portion of a building 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 any floor and the ceiling
next above it.
A story under a gable, hip or gambrel roof, the wall plates
of which on at least two opposite exterior walls are not more than
two feet above the floor of such story.
A public way which affords principal means of access to abutting
properties.
The officially established grade of the street upon which
a lot fronts or in its absence the established grade of other streets
upon which the lot abuts, at the midpoint of the frontage of the lot
thereon. If there is no officially established grade, the existing
grade of the street at such midpoint shall be taken as the street
grade.
Any man-made object having an ascertainable stationary location
on or in land or water, whether or not affixed to the land.[11]
The division or redivision of a lot, tract or parcel of land
by any means into two or more lots, tracts, parcels or other divisions
of land, including changes in existing lot lines, for the purpose,
whether immediate or future, of lease, partition by the court for
distribution to heirs or devisees, transfer of ownership or building
or lot development; provided, however, that the subdivision by lease
of land for agricultural purposes into parcels of more than ten acres,
not involving any new street or easement of access or any residential
dwelling, shall be exempted.[12]
A building and its equipment erected and used for the purpose
of facilitating transmission and exchange of telephone messages between
subscribers and other business of the telephone company, but, in a
residential district, not to include public business facilities, storage
of materials, trucks or repair facilities or housing of repair crews.
A building or part of a building devoted to the showing of
moving pictures or theatrical productions on a paid admission basis.
An open lot or part thereof, with its appurtenant facilities,
devoted primarily to the showing of moving pictures or theatrical
productions, on a paid admission basis, to patrons seated in automobiles
or on outdoor seats.
A group of buildings, including either separate cabins or
a row of cabins, which:
A dwelling in which overnight accommodations are provided
or offered for transient guests for compensation.
See "house trailer."
A tract of land:
The specific purpose for which land or a building is designed,
arranged, intended, or for which it is or may be occupied or maintained.
The term "permitted use" or its equivalent shall not be deemed to
include any nonconforming use.
An opening to the outside other than a door which provides
all or part of the required natural light, natural ventilation or
both to an interior space. The glazed portion of a door in an exterior
wall may be construed to be a window in regard to provision of natural
light.
An unoccupied space open to the sky, on the same lot with
a building or structure.
An open unoccupied space on the same lot with a main building,
extending the full width of the lot and situated between the street
line and the front line of the building projected to the sidelines
of the lot. The depth of the front yard shall be measured between
the front line of the building and the street line. Covered porches,
whether enclosed or unenclosed, shall be considered as part of the
main building and shall not project into a required front yard.
An open unoccupied space on the same lot with a main building,
extending the full width of the lot and situated between the rear
line of the lot and the rear line of the building projected to the
sidelines of the lot. The depth of the rear yard shall be measured
between the rear line of the lot and the rear line of the building.
An open unoccupied space on the same lot with the building,
situated between the building and the sideline of the lot and extending
from the front yard to the rear yard. Any lot line not a rear line
or a front line shall be deemed a sideline.
