There is hereby adopted the Code of Ordinances of the City of
Odessa, Texas, as compiled, edited and published by Franklin Legal
Publishing, Inc.
(Ordinance adopting Code)
The ordinances embraced in this chapter and the following chapters,
articles and sections shall constitute and be designated the “Code
of Ordinances, City of Odessa, Texas,” and may be so cited.
(Ordinance adopting Code)
The catchlines of the several articles, divisions and sections
of this code are intended as mere catchwords to indicate the contents
of the article, division or section and shall not be deemed or taken
to be titles of such articles, divisions and sections, nor as any
part of the articles, divisions and sections, nor, unless expressly
so provided, shall they be so deemed when any of such articles, divisions
and sections, including the catchlines, are amended or reenacted.
(Ordinance adopting Code)
In the construction of this code and of all ordinances and resolutions
passed by the city council, the following rules shall be observed,
unless such construction would be inconsistent with the manifest intent
of the city council:
Generally.
Words shall be construed in their common and usual significance
unless the contrary is clearly indicated.
Computation of time.
Whenever a notice is required to be given or an act to be
done a certain length of time before any proceeding shall be had,
the first day is excluded and the last day is included. If the last
day of any period is a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, the period
is extended to include the next day that is not a Saturday, Sunday,
or legal holiday.
Council.
Whenever the term “council” or “city council”
or “the council” is used, it shall mean the city council
of the City of Odessa, Texas.
County.
The words “the county” or “this county”
shall mean the County of Ector, Texas, and the County of Midland,
Texas.
Delegation of authority.
Whenever a provision of this Code of Ordinances requires
or authorizes an officer or employee of the city to do some act or
perform some duty, it shall be construed to authorize such officer
or employee to designate, delegate and authorize subordinates to perform
the act or duty unless the terms of the provision specifically designate
otherwise.
Gender.
A word importing the masculine gender only shall extend and
be applied to females and to firms, partnerships, associations and
corporations, as well as to males.
Joint authority.
Words purporting to give authority to three (3) or more officers
or other persons shall be construed as giving such authority to a
majority of such officers or other persons, unless it is otherwise
declared.
May.
The word “may” is permissive.
Month.
The word “month” shall mean a calendar month.
Nontechnical and technical words.
Words and phrases shall be construed according to the common
and approved usage of the language; but technical words and phrases
and such others as may have acquired a peculiar and appropriate meaning
in law shall be construed and understood according to such meaning.
Number.
Any word importing the singular number shall include the
plural, and any word importing the plural number shall include the
singular.
Oath.
The word “oath” shall be construed to include
an affirmation in all cases in which, by law, an affirmation may be
substituted for an oath, and in such cases the words “swear”
and “sworn” shall be equivalent to the words “affirm”
and “affirmed.”
Official time standard.
Whenever certain hours are named in this code, they shall
mean standard time or daylight saving time, as may be in current use
in the city.
Or, and.
The word “or” may be read “and,”
and the word “and” may be read “or,” as the
sense requires it.
Owner.
The word “owner,” applied to a building or land,
shall include any part owner, joint owner, tenant in common, tenant
in partnership, joint tenant or tenant by the entirety of the whole
or of a part of such building or land.
Person.
The word “person” shall extend and be applied
to associations, corporations, firms, partnerships, organizations,
business trusts, estates, trusts, and bodies politic and corporate,
as well as to individuals.
Preceding, following.
The terms “preceding” and “following”
mean next before and next after, respectively.
Property.
The word “property” shall mean and include real
and personal property.
Real property.
The term “real property” shall mean and include
lands, tenements and hereditaments.
Residence.
The term “residence” shall be construed to mean
the place adopted by a person as his place of habitation, and to which,
whenever he is absent, he has the intention of returning. When a person
eats at one place and sleeps at another, the place where such person
sleeps shall be deemed his residence.
Sidewalk.
The word “sidewalk” shall mean that portion of
a street between the curbline and the adjacent property line intended
for the use of pedestrians.
State.
The term “the state” or “this state”
shall be construed to mean the State of Texas.
Street.
The word “street” shall have its commonly accepted
meaning and shall include highways, sidewalks, alleys, avenues, recessed
parking areas and other public rights-of-way, including the entire
right-of-way.
Tense.
Words used in the past or present tense include the future,
as well as the past and present.
Written or in writing.
The term “written” or “in writing”
shall be construed to include any representation of words, letters,
or figures, whether by printing or otherwise.
Year.
The word “year” shall mean a calendar year.
(Ordinance adopting Code; Ordinance 2008-37, sec. 1, adopted 9/9/08)
It is hereby declared to be the intention of the city council
that the sections, paragraphs, sentences, clauses and phrases of this
code are severable, and if any phrase, clause, sentence, paragraph
or section of this code shall be declared unconstitutional by the
valid judgment or decree of any court of competent jurisdiction, such
unconstitutionality shall not affect any of the remaining phrases,
clauses, sentences, paragraphs and sections of this code, since the
same would have been enacted by the city council without the incorporation
in the code of any such unconstitutional phrase, clause, sentence,
paragraph or section.
(Ordinance adopting Code)
The repeal of an ordinance or any portion thereof shall not
repeal the repealing clause of an ordinance or revive any ordinance
which has been previously repealed.
(Ordinance adopting Code)
All ordinances of a general and permanent nature, and amendments
to such ordinances, hereafter enacted or presented to the city council
for enactment, shall be drafted, so far as possible, as specific amendments
of, or additions to, the Code of Ordinances. Amendments to this code
shall be made by reference to the chapter and section of the code
which is to be amended, and additions shall bear an appropriate designation
of chapter, article and section; provided, however, the failure to
do so shall in no way affect the validity or enforceability of such
ordinances.
(Ordinance adopting Code)
(a) By contract
or by city personnel, supplements to this code shall be prepared and
printed whenever authorized or directed by the city council. A supplement
to the code shall include all substantive permanent and general parts
of ordinances passed by the city council or adopted by initiative
and referendum during the period covered by the supplement and all
changes made thereby in the code. The pages of a supplement shall
be so numbered that they will fit properly into the code and will,
where necessary, replace pages that have become obsolete or partially
obsolete, and the new pages shall be so prepared that, when they have
been inserted, the code will be current through the date of the adoption
of the latest ordinance included in the supplement.
(b) In preparing
a supplement to this code, all portions of the code which have been
repealed shall be excluded from the code by omission thereof from
reprinted pages.
(c) When
preparing a supplement to this code, the codifier (meaning the person,
agency or organization authorized to prepare the supplement) may make
formal, nonsubstantive changes in ordinances and parts of ordinances
included in the supplement, insofar as it is necessary to do so to
embody them into a unified code. For example, the codifier may:
(1) Organize
the ordinance material into appropriate subdivisions;
(2) Provide
appropriate catchlines, headings and titles for articles, sections
and other subdivisions of the code printed in the supplement and make
changes in such catchlines, headings and titles;
(3) Assign
appropriate numbers to articles, sections and other subdivisions to
be inserted in the code and, where necessary to accommodate new material,
change existing article or section or other subdivision numbers;
(4) Change
the words “this ordinance” or words of the same meaning
to “this chapter,” “this article,” “this
section,” “this subsection,” etc., as the case may
be; and
(5) Make
other nonsubstantive changes necessary to preserve the original meaning
of ordinance material inserted into the code, but in no case shall
the codifier make any change in the meaning or effect of ordinance
material included in the supplement or already embodied in the code.
(Ordinance adopting Code)
(a) Whenever
in this code or in any ordinance of the city an act is prohibited
or is made or declared to be unlawful or an offense or a misdemeanor,
or whenever in such code or ordinance the doing of any act is required
or the failure to do any act is declared to be unlawful, the violation
of any such provision of this code or any such ordinance governing
fire safety, zoning and public health and sanitation other than vegetation
and litter violations shall be punishable by a fine not to exceed
two thousand dollars ($2,000.00). The violation of any such provision
of this code or any such ordinance governing traffic offenses shall
be punishable by a fine not to exceed two hundred dollars ($200.00).
The violation of any other provisions of this code shall be punishable
by a fine not to exceed five hundred dollars ($500.00). Each day any
violation of this code or any other ordinance shall continue shall
constitute a separate offense.
(b)
(1) The specific sections and provisions of the city code and any codes, supplements, appendixes, schedules, standards, tables or other attachments referenced therein that govern fire safety, zoning and public health and sanitation other than vegetation and litter violations and subject to a fine not to exceed two thousand dollars ($2,000.00) per day or any portion thereof and referenced in subsection
(a) of this section, as now adopted or as hereafter amended, are as follows:
Section
2-1-8, Rabies Confinement.
Section
2-2-3, Failure to Release Animal to Enforcement Officer.
Section
2-2-4, Keeping Vicious Animal.
Article
2-5, Miscellaneous Provisions, except for section
2-5-3.
Article
3-2, Building Code.
Article
3-3, Division
2, Plumbing Code.
Article
3-4, Division
2, Electrical Code.
Article
3-5, One- and Two-Family Dwelling Code.
Article
3-6, Mechanical Code.
Article
3-8, Code Enforcement Guidelines for Residential Rehabilitation.
Article
3-9, Wind Energy Conversion Systems.
Article
3-10, Dangerous Buildings.
Article
3-11, Swimming Pool Code.
Article
3-12, Floodplain Management Regulations [Flood Damage Prevention].
Article
3-13, Mobile Homes and Manufactured Homes, except for section
3-13-62(14).
Section
3-15-109, Clearance for Fire Equipment.
Article
3-16, Minimum Building Standards and Property Maintenance Code, except for sections 302.4, 302.8, 302.9, 304.2, 304.3, 304.8, 304.20, 304.21, and 308.1.
Article
3-17, Energy Conservation Code
Article
3-18, Existing Building Code
Article
4-4, Dance Halls.
Section
4-5-17, Location of Sexually Oriented Business.
Article
4-14, Oil and Gas Drilling.
Article
4-18, Retailers of Illegal Smoking Materials.
Article
5-3, Fire Prevention Code.
Article
6-2, Health Certificates.
Article
6-3, Privies and Closets.
Article
6-4, Repair of Conditions Causing Improper Discharge of Wastewater.
Article
6-6, Food Establishments.
Article
6-7, Tobacco Products.
Article
6-8, Public and Semipublic Swimming Pools.
Article
6-10, Transportation and Disposal of Liquid Waste.
Article
6-11, Trailer Camps.
Article
6-12, Veterinarians.
Section
8-1-3, Discharging Firearm.
Section
8-1-26, Illegal Smoking Materials.
Article
13-1, Utilities, General Provisions.
Article
13-2, Water and Sewer Service.
Article
13-3, Cross-Connections.
Article
13-4, Solid Waste, except for section
13-4-5.
Article
13-5 [Article
13-2, Division
4], Sewage Quality Control.
Chapter
14, Zoning Ordinance.
Standards and requirements for street, alley, water, sewer and
drainage improvements.
(2) All
other nontraffic violations shall have a maximum fine of five hundred
dollars ($500.00).
(c) The
city code, zoning ordinance, standards and requirements for street,
alley, water, sewer and drainage improvements, and supplements, appendixes,
schedules, standards, tables, or other attachments referenced therein,
as now adopted or as hereafter amended or revised, are amended as
follows:
(1) Any
violation of this code or of any ordinance set forth herein that is
punishable by a fine that does not exceed the amount authorized by
section 12.23 of the Texas Penal Code does not require a culpable
mental state, and a culpable mental state is hereby not required to
prove any such offense.
(2) Any
violation of this code or of any ordinance set forth herein that is
punishable by a fine that exceeds the amount authorized by section
12.23 of the Texas Penal Code shall require a culpable mental state
of “criminal negligence.”
(3) Any
existing ordinance in conflict with this section shall be superseded
only to the extent of such conflict.
(d) Whenever
necessary to make an inspection to enforce any ordinance of the city
or whenever [there is] reasonable cause to believe there exists a
violation of any chapter of the Code of Ordinances of the city or
the laws of the state, an inspector or officer of the city may enter
at all reasonable times, upon presentation of proper credentials,
to inspect, or to perform any duty required by the Code of Ordinances
or state law. If such entry is refused, the inspector or officer shall
have recourse to every remedy provided by law to secure entry. It
shall be unlawful for any person to prevent any authorized inspection
or to interfere therewith in any manner.
(e) The
inspectors and officers from the following departments of the city
are authorized to make inspections and/or enforce ordinances of the
city and/or the laws of the state:
(Ordinance 70-59, sec. 1, adopted 8/25/70; Ordinance 85-41, sec. 1, adopted 5/14/85; Ordinance 85-84, sec. 3, adopted 10/22/85; Ordinance 89-24, sec. 2, adopted 3/28/89; Ordinance 96-45, sec. 1, adopted 7/9/96; Ordinance 99-46, sec. 2, adopted 9/14/99; Ordinance 2005-33, sec. 1, adopted 11/22/05; Ordinance 2006-11, sec. 1, adopted 3/14/06; 1957
Code, sec. 1-5; Ordinance 2013-50, sec. 3, adopted 9/10/13; Ordinance 2014-60 adopted 10/28/14; Ordinance 2016-42 adopted 10/25/16; Ordinance 2016-55 adopted 12/13/16; Ordinance 2017-61 adopted 12/12/17; Ordinance
2019-52, sec. 1, adopted 10/22/19)