City of Robstown - Definitions

Accessory buildings and uses
A subordinate building or a portion of the main building, the use of which is incidental to that of the main building or to the main use of the premises. An accessory use is one which is incidental to the main use of the premises.

Alley
A public or private thoroughfare which affords only a secondary means of access to property abutting thereon.

Apartment
A room or suite of rooms in a multiple dwelling, or in a building in which more than one living unit is established above or on the same floor as nonresidential uses, which room or suite is intended, or designed for use as a residence by one family and which includes culinary accommodations.

Apartment house
A building or portion thereof used or designed as a residence for three (3) or more families living independently of each other, and doing their own cooking in said building, including apartments and apartment hotels.

Boarding house
A building, other than a hotel, where for compensation and by pre-arrangement for definite periods, meals or lodging and meals are provided for three (3) or more persons, but not exceeding twenty (20) persons.

Building
Any structure designed or intended for the support, enclosure, shelter or protection of persons, animals, chattels, or property.

Clinic
An office or group of offices for one or more physicians, surgeons, or dentists engaged in treating the sick or injured, but not including rooms for the abiding of patients.

District
A section or sections of the City of Robstown, Texas, for which regulations governing the use of buildings and premises, the height of buildings, the size of yards, and the intensity of use are uniform.

Dwelling
Any building or portion thereof which is designed and used exclusively for residential purposes.

Dwelling, multiple
A building having accommodations for and occupied exclusively by more than two (2) families.

Dwelling, single-family
A building having accommodations for and occupied exclusively by one (1) family.

Dwelling, two-family or duplex
A building having accommodations for and occupied exclusively by two (2) families.

Family
One or more persons occupying a premises and living as a single housekeeping unit as distinguished from a group occupying a boarding house, lodging house, or hotel as herein defined.

Filling station or service station
Any building or premises used for the dispensing, sale, or offering for sale at retail of any automobile fuels or oils. When the dispensing, sale, or offering for sale is incidental to the conduct of a public garage, or retail store, the premises are classified as a public garage or retail store.

Frontage
All the property on one side of a street between two (2) intersecting streets (crossing or terminating), measured along the line of the street, or if the street is dead-ended, then all the property abutting on one side between an intersecting street and the dead-end of the street.

Garage, private
An accessory building or portion of the main use building; designed for or used for the housing of motor-driven vehicles which are the property of and for the private use of the occupants of the lot on which the private garage is located. Not more than one (1) of the vehicles may be a commercial vehicle and of not more than one and one-half (1-1/2) tons capacity.

Garage, public
A building or portion thereof, other than a private garage, designed or used for equipping, repairing, hiring, servicing, selling, or storing motor-driven vehicles.

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 center of all walls adjoining the streets.

(c) For buildings having no wall adjoining the street, the average level of the finished surface of the ground adjacent to the exterior walls of the building.

Any wall approximately parallel to and not more than five (5) feet from the street line shall be considered as adjoining the street. Where no sidewalk exists, the grade shall be established by the city building inspector.

Height of building
The vertical distance from the grade to the highest point of the coping of a flat roof, to the deck line of a mansard roof, or the mean height level between the eaves and ridge for a gable, hip and gambrel roofs

Home occupation
Any occupation or profession engaged in by the occupants of a dwelling not involving the conduct of a retail business, and not including any occupation conducted in any building on the premises excepting the building which is used by the occupant as his or her private dwelling. Home occupations shall include, in general, personal services such as furnished by an architect, lawyer, physician, dentist, musician, artist, and seamstress, when performed by the person occupying the building as his or her private dwelling and not including a partnership or the employment of more than one assistant in the performance of such services.

Hotel
A building in which lodging or board and lodging are provided and offered to the public for compensation and in which ingress and egress to and from all rooms is made through an inside lobby or office supervised by a person in charge at all hours. As such, it is open to the public in contradistinction to a boarding house, a lodging house, or an apartment which are herein defined.

Lodging house
A building or place where lodging is provided (or which is equipped to provide lodging regularly) by pre-arrangement for definite periods, for compensation, for three (3) or more persons in contradistinction to hotels open to transients.

A small white picket fence on a corner lot next to a city sidewalk with a lawn and house in the background.

Lot
A parcel of land occupied or intended for occupancy by a use permitted in this ordinance, including one (1) main building together with its accessory buildings, the open spaces and parking spaces required by this ordinance, and having its principal frontage upon a street or upon an officially approved place.

Lot of record
A lot which is a part of a subdivision, the map of which has been recorded in the office of the county clerk of Nueces County, Texas; or a parcel of land, the deed of which was recorded in the office of the county clerk of Nueces County, Texas, prior to the adoption of this ordinance.

A line drawing with a series of lots bounded by city streets, showing examples of corner lots.

Lot, corner
A lot abutting upon two (2) or more streets at their intersection.

Lot, depth of
The mean horizontal distance between the front and rear lot lines.

A line drawing with a series of lots bounded by city streets, showing an example of a through lot.

Lot, through or double frontage
An interior lot having frontage on two (2) streets.

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.

A parking lot in front of a building with a parking space marked with yellow lines. Red dashed lines are superimposed to show the full extent of the parking space.

Parking space
An area enclosed or unenclosed containing not less than one hundred and sixty (160) square feet exclusive of the driveways connecting said space with a street or alley. Said parking space and connecting driveway shall be durably surfaced and so arranged to permit satisfactory ingress and egress of an automobile.

Place
An open unoccupied space other [than] a street or alley permanently reserved as a principal means of access to abutting property.

Story
That portion of a building, other than a basement, 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.

An alley lined with garages on both sides under a partly cloudy sky.

Street
A public thoroughfare which affords the principal means of access to abutting property.

Construction workers on scaffolding working on the exterior of a building. A ladder leans against the side, and construction equipment is visible in the background, indicating renovation.

Structural alterations
Any change in the supporting members of a building, such as bearing walls or partitions, columns, beams, girders, or any complete rebuilding of the roof or the exterior walls.

Structure
Anything constructed or erected, the use of which requires permanent location on the ground or attachment to something having a permanent location on the ground, including, but without limiting the general inclusiveness of the foregoing, advertising signs, billboards, poster boards, and pergolas.

Tourist court (Auto courts, motels, or motor lodges)
A group of attached, semi-detached, or detached buildings containing individual sleeping or living units, designed for or used temporarily by automobile tourists, or transients, with garage attached or parking space conveniently located to each unit and offering to the public daily as well as other longer term rental rates, and maintaining a register of guests and/or their vehicles.

Trailer
Any structure used for living, sleeping, business, or storage purposes, constructed to be towed by a motor vehicle on its own chassis over roads and highways under special permit or license, connected to utilities and designed without a permanent foundation for year-round living as a trailer. The term trailer shall exclude camp cars, house cars, motorcar homes and pickup campers. Also excluded are camping trailers used expressly for hunting, fishing, or other form of recreation and which are not used for human habitation at any time inside the city limits. For the purposes of this ordinance a trailer is not a single-family dwelling and no house trailer shall be located, situated, or placed either temporarily or permanently within the city limits of the City of Robstown, Texas, except in designated trailer camps or trailer parks, and when trailers are sold by a dealer in a business or industrial zone.

Trailer camp or trailer coach park
A lot or tract of land where facilities and accommodations are provided by the day, week, month or for a longer period of time, for or without compensation, for two (2) or more trailers when such trailers are being used for human habitation.

Yard
An open space on the same lot with a building, 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 horizontal distance between the lot line and the main building shall be used.

A line drawing of four parcels in plan view with different building footprints and corresponding area designated as front yards.

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 projections thereof other than the projection of the usual steps, unenclosed balconies, or open porch.

A line drawing of four parcels in plan view with different building footprints and corresponding area designated as rear yards.

Yard, rear
A yard extending across the rear of a lot, measured between the side lot lines, and being the minimum horizontal distance between the rear lot line and the rear of the main building or any projections 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 a lot from the front yard.

A line drawing of four parcels in plan view with different building footprints and corresponding area designated as side yards.

Yard, side
A yard between the main building and the side line of the lot, and extending from the front lot line to the rear yard line.

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MapLink™ | Definitions

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City of Robstown, TX

MapLink™ | Definitions