Chapter 18.03
USE CLASSIFICATIONS

Sections:

18.03.010    Purpose and applicability.

18.03.020    Uses not classified.

18.03.030    Residential use classifications.

18.03.040    Public and semipublic use classifications.

18.03.050    Commercial use classifications.

18.03.060    Industrial use classifications.

18.03.070    Accessory use classifications.

18.03.080    Temporary use classifications.

18.03.010 Purpose and applicability.

Use classifications describe one or more uses having similar characteristics, but do not list every use or activity that may appropriately be within the classification. The community development director shall determine whether a specific use shall be deemed to be within one or more use classifications or not within any classification in this title. The community development director may determine that a specific use shall not be deemed to be within a classification, whether or not named within the classification, if its characteristics are substantially incompatible with those typical of uses named within the classification. The community development director’s decision may be appealed to the planning commission. (Ord. C-2015-04 §1(part), 2015; 1996 zoning code (part)).

18.03.020 Uses not classified.

Any new use, or any use that cannot be clearly determined to be in an existing use classification, may be incorporated into the zoning regulations by a zoning ordinance text amendment as provided in this title. (1996 zoning code (part)).

18.03.030 Residential use classifications.

A.    Accessory Dwelling Unit. An attached or detached residential dwelling unit as defined in this title.

B.    Large Family Day Care. A home that regularly provides care, protection, and supervision for nine to fourteen children under eighteen years of age in the provider’s own home (including children under the age of ten years who reside at the home) for periods of less than twenty-four hours per day while the parents or guardians are away.

C.    Small Family Day Care. A home that regularly provides care, protection, and supervision for eight or fewer children under eighteen years of age in the provider’s own home (including children under the age of ten years who reside at the home) for periods of less than twenty-four hours per day while the parents or guardians are away.

D.    General Day Care. Nonmedical care and supervision, other than family day care, for children or adults for periods of less than twenty-four hours per day, including nursery schools, preschools, and day care centers for children or adults licensed by the state of California.

E.    Group Residential. Shared living quarters without separate kitchen or bathroom facilities for each room or unit. This classification includes boarding houses and private residential clubs, but excludes residential hotels or motels.

F.    Multifamily Residential. Two or more dwelling units on a site. This classification includes manufactured homes.

G.    Single-Family Residential. Buildings containing one dwelling unit located on a single lot. This classification includes manufactured homes and lots containing a primary dwelling unit and an accessory dwelling unit.

H.    Target Population. Means adults with low income having one or more disabilities, including mental illness, HIV or AIDS, substance abuse, or other chronic health conditions, or individuals eligible for services provided under the Lanterman Developmental Disabilities Services Act (Division 4.5 (commencing with Section 4500) of the Welfare and Institutions Code) and may, among other populations, include families with children, elderly persons, young adults aging out of the foster care system, individuals exiting from institutional settings, veterans, or homeless people.

I.    Temporary Use. Any use or activity proposed to be open, operated, established, or otherwise in existence for less than thirty consecutive days.

J.    Supportive Housing. Housing with no limit on length of stay, that is occupied by the target population, and that is linked to an on-site or off-site service that assists the supportive housing resident in retaining the housing, improving his or her health status, and maximizing his or her ability to live and, when possible, work in the community.

K.    Transitional Housing. Buildings configured as rental housing developments, but operated under program requirements that require the termination of assistance and recirculating of the assisted unit to another eligible program recipient at a predetermined future point in time that shall be no less than six months from the beginning of the assistance. (Ord. C-2018-04 §2(Att. A)(part), 2018; Ord. C-2016-03 §2(part), 2016; Ord. C-2015-08 §1(Exh. A(part)), 2015: 1996 zoning code (part)).

18.03.040 Public and semipublic use classifications.

A.    Clubs and Lodges. Meeting, recreational, or social facilities of a private or nonprofit organization primarily for use by members or guests. This classification includes union halls, social clubs and youth centers.

B.    Convalescent Facilities. Establishments providing care on a twenty-four-hour basis for persons requiring regular medical attention, but excluding facilities providing surgical or emergency medical services.

C.    Cultural Institutions. Nonprofit institutions displaying or preserving objects of interest in one or more of the arts or sciences or presenting musical, theatrical or literary performances. This classification includes libraries, museums, art galleries and community theaters.

D.    Emergency Health Care. Facilities providing emergency medical service with no provision for continuing care on an inpatient basis.

E.    Emergency Shelter. Means housing with minimal supportive services for homeless persons that is limited to occupancy of six months or less by a homeless person. No individual or household may be denied emergency shelter because of an inability to pay.

F.    Government Offices. Administrative, clerical or public contact offices of a government agency, including postal facilities, together with incidental storage and maintenance of vehicles.

G.    Maintenance and Service Facilities. Facilities providing maintenance and repair services for vehicles and equipment, and materials storage areas for public or quasipublic entities. This classification includes corporation yards, equipment service centers, and similar facilities for public or quasipublic entities.

H.    Park and Recreation Facilities. Noncommercial parks, playgrounds, recreation facilities and open spaces.

I.    Public Safety Facilities. Facilities for public safety and emergency services, including police and fire protection.

J.    Religious Assembly. Facilities for religious worship and incidental religious education, but not including private schools as defined in this section.

K.    Schools, Public or Private. Educational institutions having a curriculum comparable to that required in the public schools of the state of California.

L.    Temporary Use. Any use or activity proposed to be open, operated, established, or otherwise in existence for less than thirty consecutive days.

M.    Utilities, Major. Generating plants, electrical substations, aboveground electrical transmission lines, switching buildings, refuse collection, transfer, recycling or disposal facilities, flood control or drainage facilities, water or wastewater treatment plants, transportation or communications utilities, and similar facilities of public agencies or public utilities. A structure that may have a significant effect on surrounding uses shall be regulated under this classification.

N.    Utilities, Minor. Utility facilities that are necessary to support legally established uses and involve only minor structures such as electrical distribution lines, underground water and sewer lines, and recycling centers within convenience zones, as defined by the California Beverage Container Recycling and Litter Reduction Act. (Ord. C-2016-03 §2(part), 2016; Ord. C-2015-08 §1(Exh. A(part)), 2015: 1996 zoning code (part)).

18.03.050 Commercial use classifications.

A.    Adult Businesses. Establishments based primarily on materials or performances that depict, describe, or relate to “specified sexual activities” and “defined anatomical areas,” as defined in the municipal code.

B.    Ambulance Services. Provision of emergency medical code or transportation, including incidental storage and maintenance of vehicles.

C.    Animal Sales and Services.

1.    Animal Boarding. Provision of shelter and care for small animals on a commercial basis. This classification includes activities such as feeding, exercising, grooming, and incidental medical care.

2.    Animal Grooming. Provision of bathing and trimming services for small animals on a commercial basis. This classification includes boarding of domestic animals for a maximum period of forty-eight hours.

3.    Animal Hospitals. Establishments where small animals receive medical and surgical treatment. This classification includes only facilities that are entirely enclosed, soundproofed, and air-conditioned. Grooming and temporary (maximum thirty days) boarding of animals is included, if incidental to the hospital use.

4.    Animals, Retail Sales. Retail sales and boarding of small animals, provided such activities take place within an entirely enclosed building. This classification includes grooming, if incidental to the retail use, and boarding of animals not offered for sale for a maximum period of forty-eight hours.

D.    Artist’s Studios. Work space for artists and artisans, including individuals practicing one of the fine arts or performing arts, or skilled in an applied art or craft. This classification includes instruction in the art or craft, the artist or artists are engaged in where instruction is limited to no more than ten students at one time.

E.    Banks and Savings and Loans. Financial institutions that provide retail banking services to individuals and businesses. This classification includes only those institutions engaged in the on-site circulation of cash money. It also includes businesses offering check-cashing facilities.

1.    With Drive-Up Service. Institutions providing services accessible to persons who remain in their automobiles.

F.    Building Materials and Services. Retailing, wholesaling, or rental of building supplies or equipment. This classification includes lumber yards, tool and equipment sales or rental establishments, and building contractors’ yards, but excludes establishments devoted exclusively to retail sales of paint and hardware, and activities classified under vehicle/equipment sales and services, including vehicle towing services.

G.    Catering Services. Preparation and delivery of food and beverages for off-site consumption without provision for on-site pickup or consumption. (See subsection I of this section, Eating and Drinking Establishments.)

H.    Communications Facilities. Broadcasting, recording, and other communication services accomplished through electronic or telephonic mechanisms, but excluding major utilities. This classification includes radio, television, or recording studios; telephone switching centers; and telegraph offices.

I.    Eating and Drinking Establishments. Businesses serving prepared food or beverages for consumption on or off the premises. This classification includes cabarets with live entertainment serving food or drink.

1.    With Fast-Food or Take-Out Service. Establishments where patrons order and pay for their food at a counter or window before it is consumed and may either pick up or be served such food at a table or take it off-site for consumption.

a.    Drive-Through. Service from a building to persons in vehicles through an outdoor service window.

b.    Limited. Establishments that do not serve persons in vehicles.

2.    Bar or Tavern. An establishment in which the sales of alcoholic beverages at retail for consumption on the premises is the primary business and from which minors are excluded by law. This definition includes the incidental sale of food for consumption on the premises.

J.    Equestrian Centers. Facilities for the care and feeding of horses and related activities, and establishments offering instruction in horseback riding, including rings, stables and exercise areas.

K.    Filming, Commercial. Commercial motion picture or video photography at the same location more than six days per quarter of a calendar year.

L.    Food and Beverage Sales. Retail sales of food and beverages for off-site preparation and consumption. Typical uses include groceries, liquor stores, or delicatessens. Establishments at which twenty percent of more of the transactions are sales or twenty percent of floor area is devoted to sales of prepared food for on-site or takeout consumption shall be classified as eating and drinking establishments.

M.    Funeral and Interment Services. Establishments primarily engaged in the provision of services involving the care, preparation or disposition of human dead other than in cemeteries. Typical uses include crematories, columbariums, mausoleums or mortuaries.

N.    Gardening Services. Any activity related to the installation and or maintenance of landscaping, trees, or other vegetation.

O.    Laboratories. Establishments providing medical or dental laboratory services; or establishments with less than two thousand square feet providing photographic, analytical, or testing services. Other laboratories are classified as limited industry.

P.    Maintenance and Repair Services. Establishments providing appliance repair, office machine repair, or building maintenance services. This classification excludes maintenance and repair of vehicles or boats; see subsection (A)(4) of this section, vehicle or equipment repair.

Q.    Nurseries. Establishments offering plants or gardening materials for sale, whether wholesale or retail.

R.    Offices, Business and Professional. Offices of firms or organizations providing professional, executive, management, or administrative services, such as architectural, city planning, engineering, graphic design, landscape design, interior design, real estate, insurance, investment, legal, veterinary, public surveying, and medical/dental offices. This classification includes medical/dental laboratories incidental to an office use, but excludes banks and savings and loan associations.

S.    Outdoor Use. Any use or activity operated or established in a nonfixed place of business, or in a temporary structure such as a tent, awning or ramada, or where the majority of the goods for sale, rental or use are displayed or otherwise stored or located outside of a structure.

T.    Personal Improvement Services. Provision of instructional services or facilities, including photography, dine arts, crafts, dance or music studios, driving schools, business and trade schools, and diet centers, reducing salons, and fitness studios.

U.    Personal Services. Provision of recurrently needed services of a personal nature. This classification includes barber and beauty shops, seamstresses, tailors, shoe repair shops, dry-cleaning businesses (excluding large-scale plants), photocopying, and self-service laundries.

V.    Recreation and Entertainment, Commercial. Provision of participant or spectator recreation or entertainment. This classification includes theaters, bowling alleys, dance halls, ice or roller skating rinks, golf courses, miniature golf courses, tennis or racquetball courts, health or fitness clubs, electronic games centers having more than three coin-operated game machines, and card rooms.

1.    Limited. Indoor movie theaters, game centers and performing arts theaters.

2.    Extensive Outdoor. Golf courses, ball fields, tennis courts and other outdoor facilities.

W.    Retail Sales. The retail sale of merchandise not specifically listed under another use classification. This classification includes department stores, drug stores, clothing stores, furniture stores, and businesses retailing the following goods: toys, hobby materials, hand-crafted items, jewelry, cameras, photographic supplies, medical supplies and equipment, electronic equipment, records, sporting goods, kitchen utensils, hardware, appliances, antiques, art supplies and services, paint and wallpaper, carpeting and floor covering, office supplies, bicycles, and automotive parts and accessories (excluding auto service, repair, installation or dismantling). This classification includes outdoor sales on the site of an existing retail use.

1.    Visitor-Oriented. Sale of arts and crafts, antiques, jewelry, clothing, books, toys, gifts, flowers, and recreational equipment. This classification includes arts and crafts studios, galleries and shops.

X.    Secondhand Appliances and Clothing Sales. The retail sale of used appliances and clothing, by secondhand dealers. This classification excludes antique shops primarily engaged in the sale of used furniture and accessories other than appliances.

Y.    Temporary Use. Any use or activity proposed to be open, operated, established, or otherwise in existence for less than thirty consecutive days.

Z.    Travel Services. Establishments providing travel information and reservations. This classification excludes car rental agencies.

AA.    Vehicle/Equipment Sales and Services.

1.    Automobile Rentals. Rental of automobiles, including storage and incidental maintenance, but excluding maintenance requiring pneumatic lifts and major repairs.

2.    Automobile Washing. Washing, waxing or cleaning of automobiles or similar light vehicles.

3.    Service Stations. Establishments engaged in the retail sale of gas, diesel fuel, lubricants, parts and accessories. This classification includes incidental maintenance and repair of automobiles, recreational vehicles, and light trucks, but excludes body and fender work or repair of heavy trucks or vehicles.

4.    Vehicle or Equipment Repair. Repair of automobiles, trucks, motorcycles, mobile homes, recreational vehicles or boats, including the sale, installation and servicing of related equipment and parts. This classification includes auto repair shops, body and fender shops, wheel and brake shops, and tire sales and installation, but excludes vehicle dismantling or salvage and tire retreading or recapping.

5.    Vehicle or Equipment Sales and Rentals. Sale or rental of automobiles, motorcycles, trucks, tractors, construction or agricultural equipment, manufactured homes, boats, and similar equipment, including storage and incidental maintenance.

6.    Vehicle Storage. Storage of operative or inoperative vehicles. This classification includes storage of parking tow-aways, impound yards, and storage lots for automobiles, trucks, buses and recreational vehicles, but does not include vehicle dismantling or junkyards.

BB.    Visitor Serving Accommodations.

1.    Hotels, Motels and Time-Share Facilities. Establishments offering lodging on a less than weekly basis, and having kitchens in no more than sixty percent of guest units. This classification includes eating, drinking, and banquet service associated with the facility.

2.    Bed and Breakfast Inn. An owner-occupied dwelling unit where lodging, with or without meals, is provided for compensation.

3.    Campgrounds. An area on which accommodations for the temporary occupancy by the general public, primarily for recreational, educational or vacation purposes, may be placed, including tents, cabins and recreational vehicles.

CC.    Warehousing and Storage, Limited. Provision of storage space for household or commercial goods within an enclosed building without direct public access to individual storage spaces. This classification includes facilities with a maximum of five thousand square feet of gross floor area, but excludes wholesale, distribution and storage, and vehicle storage. (1996 zoning code (part)).

18.03.060 Industrial use classifications.

A.    Industry, Custom. Establishments primarily engaged in on-site production of goods by hand manufacturing involving the use of hand tools and small-scale equipment.

B.    Industry, General. Manufacturing of products, primarily from extracted or raw materials, or bulk storage and handling of such products and materials. Uses in this classification typically involve a high incidence of truck or rail traffic, and/or outdoor storage of products, materials, equipment, or bulk fuel. This classification includes chemical manufacture or processing, food processing and packaging, laundry and dry cleaning plants, auto dismantling within an enclosed building, stonework and concrete products manufacture (excluding concrete ready-mix plants), small animal production and processing within an enclosed building, and power generation.

C.    Industry Limited. Manufacturing of finished parts or products, primarily from previously prepared materials; and provision of industrial services; both within an enclosed building. This classification includes processing, fabrication, assembly, treatment and packaging, but excludes basic industrial processing from raw materials and vehicle or equipment services, but does allow food processing for human consumption.

1.    Small-Scale. Limited to a maximum gross floor area of five thousand square feet.

D.    Outdoor Use. Any use or activity operated or established in a nonfixed place of business, or in a temporary structure such as a tent, awning or ramada, or where the majority of the goods for sale, rental or use are displayed or otherwise stored or located outside of a structure.

E.    Temporary Use. Any use or activity proposed to be open, operated, established, or otherwise in existence for less than thirty consecutive days.

F.    Wholesaling, Distribution and Storage. Storage and distribution facilities without direct public access. (1996 zoning code (part)).

18.03.070 Accessory use classifications.

A.    Accessory Uses and Structures. Uses and structures that are incidental to the principal permitted or conditionally permitted use or structure on a site and are customarily found on the same site. This classification includes detached or attached garages, guest houses, caretaker’s quarters and home occupations and excludes accessory dwelling units.

B.    Accessory Dwelling Unit. An attached or detached dwelling unit as defined in Section 18.02.040. (Ord. C-2018-04 §2(Att. A)(part), 2018: 1996 zoning code (part)).

18.03.080 Temporary use classifications.

A.    Animal Shows. Exhibitions of domestic or large animals for a maximum of seven days.

B.    Seasonal Agricultural and Forestry Sales. Seasonal retail sales of agricultural produce, Christmas trees, and flowers.

C.    Circuses and Carnivals. Provision of games, eating and drinking facilities, live entertainment, animal exhibitions, or similar activities in a tent or other temporary structure for a maximum of seven days. This classification excludes events conducted in a permanent entertainment facility.

D.    Commercial Filming, Limited. Commercial motion picture or video taping at the same location six or fewer days per quarter of a calendar year.

E.    Real Estate Sales. An office for the marketing, sales or rental of residential, commercial or industrial development.

F.    Retail Sales, Outdoor. Retail sales of new merchandise on the site of a legally established retail business, or on a vacant site within a zoning district where retail sales are permitted.

G.    Street Fair. Provision of games, eating and drinking facilities, live entertainment, or similar activities not requiring the use of roofed structures. (1996 zoning code (part)).