Subarea Plan LF Glossary 10-15-09.pdfThis Glossary sets forth definitions of certain words or phrases used in this Subarea
Plan in order to promote consistency and uniformity in their usage, thereby facilitating
the interpretation of this Plan. The meaning and construction of words and phrases
as set forth in this Glossary shall apply throughout the Plan unless the context clearly
indicates otherwise. Definitions contained in City of Spokane Valley Municipal Code
shall be applicable except when in conflict with definitions contained in this Glossary
or elsewhere in this Plan, in which case this Plan’s definitions shall prevail.
Accessory Building:
A building or structure which is located on the same lot and customarily, incidental and
subordinate to the primary building or to the use of land such as a garage. Accessory
buildings may be freestanding and are not considered part of the primary building
mass when attached to a primary building. Typically accessory building uses include
vehicular parking, storage of lawn and garden equipment, storage of household
items, play house or green house. Accessory buildings may include habitable area
such as a home office, recreation room, guesthouse, or sleeping room(s).
Active Living Spaces:
Habitable spaces such as dining rooms, living rooms, or bed rooms that accommodate
living activities.
Active living spaces do not include kitchens, bathrooms, partially submerged
basements, or utility spaces.
Active Open Space:
Any side yard, courtyard, or other open space that is accessed directly by a primary
entrance(s) to housing units or office spaces.
Alley:
A vehicular way located within a block to the rear of parcels providing access to
service areas and parking, and often containing utility easements.
Alley Setback:
The required minimum distance from an alley’s edge of pavement to any building.
Articulation:
The use of architectural elements to create breaks in the horizontal and vertical
surfaces or masses of buildings.
Block:
An aggregate of land, including parcels, passages, rear lanes and alleys, bounded
by streets or railroad rights-of-way. An alley does not constitute the boundary of a
block.
Block Perimeter:
The total length of the public rights-of-way along all block faces.
Building:
A relatively permanent, enclosed structure having a roof. Buildings include both
habitable and inhabitable structures (i.e. parking structures).
Building Composition:
A building’s spatial arrangement of masses and architectural elements in relation to
each other and the building as a whole.
Building Disposition:
The placement and orientation of a building or buildings on a parcel.
Building Envelope:
The maximum space a building or buildings may occupy on a parcel.
Building Function:
The uses accommodated by a building and its lot.
Building Height:
The vertical extent of a building measured in feet and stories, not including a raised
basement or a habitable attic.
Building Mass:
Part or all of a building’s three dimensional bulk.
Building Orientation:
The direction that the primary building facade of a building faces.
Building Placement:
The location of a building on a parcel.
Carriage House:
A separate, detached, complete housekeeping unit with kitchen, sleeping and full
bathroom facilities, located on the same parcel as a Primary Building but subordinate
in size.
Community Development Director/Designee:
The head of a City’s Planning Department or other individual who has the authority
to make decisions regarding the implementation of the regulations within this
plan.
Context:
Physical surroundings, including a combination of architectural, natural and civic
elements that establish a specific district, neighborhood, or block character.
Core Street:
Any street that is lined with development that satisfies all Core Street regulations.
Core Streets provide active “Main Street” like shopping and entertainment
environments.
Corridor:
The combination of all elements that characterize a roadway. This consists of all
elements within the public right-of-way/street (the vehicular realm/thoroughfare
and the pedestrian realm/public frontage) as well as each adjacent property’s private
frontage.
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Curtain Window Wall:
A curtain window wall is a system where a wall of windows is
hung on the building structure, usually from floor to floor.
Density:
The number of dwelling units within a standard measure of
land area, usually given as units per acre.
Development Regulations:
All Standards and Guidelines contained within this
document.
District Zone:
An area as defined in the District Zones Map whose urban
form has a unique character within the Plan Area. The range
of District Zones forms the basic organizing principle for the
Plan’s regulations.
District Zones Map:
The map that designates District Zones and determines which
regulations within this document apply to each property
within the Plan Area.
Driveway:
A vehicular lane within a parcel, usually leading to a garage
or parking area.
Dwelling Unit:
Any building or portion thereof that contains living facilities
including all of the following: provisions for sleeping, a
kitchen, and sanitation for not more than one family.
Enfront:
To be located along a frontage line.
Entrance or Entry
A point of pedestrian access into a building.
Façade (streetwall, sidewall, rearwall):
The exterior wall of a building.
Front Entrance:
The main point of pedestrian access into a building.
Front Street:
The street that a building’s primary entrance shall be oriented
towards.
Front Street Setback:
The distance or range of distances (expressed in both
minimum and maximum) required from the back-of-sidewalk
to the primary building façade along a front street.
Front Yard:
The area that results from a front street or side street setback.
Frontage Coverage:
The minimum percentage of the length of the frontage
coverage zone that shall be occupied by the front façade of
the primary building.
Frontage Coverage Zone:
The space between the minimum and maximum front street
setback lines and the minimum side or side street setback
lines.
Frontage Line:
A property line that coincides with the corridor public right-
of-way.
Frontage Type:
A specific configuration of elements that define how public or
private frontages may be designed.
Garage:
A building used for vehicular parking with no internal
circulation.
Guidelines:
Principles that provide direction regarding the preferred
method of addressing specified design considerations.
Conformance with guidelines is recommended but not
required.
Historic Resource:
A building, site or feature that is a local, state, or national
historic landmark.
Home Occupation:
An occupation conducted at a premises containing a dwelling
unit as an incidental use by the occupant of that dwelling
unit.
House Scale:
To be roughly equivalent in size and mass to a detached single
family house.
Human Scale:
To have the size, height, bulk, massing, or detailing that
creates a comfortable relationship to humans.
Liner Building/Uses:
A portion of a building, with distinct, habitable uses located
along a property frontage such that it conceals the larger
building behind. Typically, liner uses are located along
parking garages or large format/anchor retail buildings.
Multi-Family:
The use of a site for two or more dwellings within one or
more buildings.
Municipal Code:
A collection of regulations that guide local government.
Open Space (Public, Active, & Private):
Land that may be used for passive or active recreation. There
are a wide range of open space types including parks, plazas,
landscaping, lawns and other configurations.
Parcel or Assembled Parcel:
A legally defined area of land under single ownership.
Parking Lot:
A paved area, usually divided into individual spaces, intended
for parking vehicles.
Parking Structure:
A building used for vehicular parking with internal
circulation.
Partially Submerged Podium:
A parking structure built below the main building mass and
partially submerged underground.
Passage:
An at-grade pedestrian connector passing between buildings,
providing shortcuts through long blocks and connecting
sidewalks or front yards to rear yards, parking areas, and open
spaces. Passages may be roofed over.
Path:
A pedestrian (or bike) way traversing a park or rural area,
with landscape matching the contiguous open space.
Plan Area:
The land whose boundary includes all the properties that must
adhere to the regulations within this document.
Planter Strip:
An element of the public frontage, located in between the
sidewalk and the thoroughfare curb face, which accommodates
landscaping, including street trees. Planter strips may be
continuous or individual.
Primary Building:
A main/principal building on a lot, including parking
structures and excluding accessory buildings or structures,
whose streetwall is located with the frontage coverage zone.
Primary Building Façade:
The main/principal façade of a building that faces a front
street or active open space.
Primary Building Mass:
The most prominent portion of the primary building’s
3-dimensional bulk.
Primary Entrance:
The main/principal point of pedestrian access into a
building.
Primary Street:
A street that services as one of the principal thoroughfares for
a city or district.
Private Frontage:
1) The portion of a property between the back of sidewalk
line and the primary building facade along any Street.
2) Portions of all primary building facades up to the top of
the first or second floor, including building entrances, located
along and oriented a street or active open space.
Physical elements of the Private Frontage include, but are not
limited to a building’s primary entrance treatments, setback
areas and property edge treatments.
Property:
An individual/owner’s land, including land improvements
and any permanent fixtures on the land including buildings,
trees and other fixtures.
Property Line:
The boundary that legally and geometrically demarcates a
property.
Public Frontage:
The area between a thoroughfare curb face and the back of
sidewalk line. Physical elements of the Public Frontage
include, but are not limited to the type of curb, sidewalk,
planter strip, street tree and streetlight.
Public Right-Of-Way:
For purposes of this plan, any area dedicated or subject to
public fee ownership or an easement for public use for
vehicular and/or pedestrian travel including, but not limited
to, streets, alleys, and sidewalks.
Public Right-Of-Way Line:
The boundary that legally and geometrically demarcates the
Public Right-Of-Way.
Rear Lane:
A vehicular driveway located to the rear of lots providing
access to parking and outbuildings and containing utility
easements. Rear lanes may be paved lightly to driveway
standards. Its streetscape consists of gravel or landscaped
edges, no raised curb and is drained by percolation.
Rear Yard:
The area that results from a rear yard setback.
Rear Yard Setback:
The distance between a rear property line and any building.
Regulations:
Both standards and guidelines.
Ribbon Windows:
Ribbon windows are a series of long, horizontally proportioned
windows interrupted by vertical mullions.
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Secondary Street:
A support street that connects areas of a district or city to a
primary street.
Services:
Activities and, in some instances, their structural components
that relate to the maintenance and basic functioning
components of each land use. These activities may include, but
are not limited to, trash and recycling areas and aboveground
components of wet and dry utilities.
Shopfront:
A specific private frontage type. Shopfronts are the primary
treatment for ground-level commercial uses, designed for
active ground floor activities including retail, dining, and
personal services.
Sidewalk:
The paved area of the public frontage dedicated exclusively
to pedestrian activity.
Side Setback:
See Side Yard Setback
Side Street:
A street along a corner parcel that is not a front street.
Side Street Façade:
The façade of a building that typically faces a side street.
Side Street Setback:
The distance or range of distances (expressed in both
minimum and maximum) required from the back-of-sidewalk
to the building façade along a side street.
Side Yard:
The area that results from a side yard setback.
Side Yard Setback:
The distance between a side property line and any structure
requiring a building permit.
Sign:
Any writing (including letter, word, or numeral), pictorial
representation (including illustration or decoration), emblem
(including device, symbol, or trademark), flag (including
banners or pennants), or any other device, figure, or similar
character, including its structure and component parts, which
is used for, intended to be used for, or which has the effect
of identifying, announcing, directing, or attracting attention
for location, advertising, or other informational purposes,
including subject matter attached to, printed on, or in any
other manner represented on a building or other structure or
device.
Significant:
An important part or area, or a large quantity.
Significant Additions:
Additions greater than 20 percent of the buildings floor area.
Single-Family:
The use of a site for one dwelling within one building.
Standards:
Rules or provisions that specify requirements. Conformance
with standards is mandatory.
Story:
A habitable level within a building as measured from finished
floor to finished ceiling. Attics and raised basements are not
considered stories for the purposes of determining building
height.
Street:
The combination of all elements within the public right-of-
way: the vehicular realm/thoroughfare and the pedestrian
realm/public frontage.
Street Type:
A specific configuration of elements that define how new
streets may be designed.
Streetscape:
The composition and design of all elements within the public
right-of-way: the vehicular realm/thoroughfare (travel lanes
for vehicles and bicycles, parking lanes for cars, and sidewalks
or paths for pedestrians) and the amenities of the pedestrian
realm/public frontage (sidewalks, street trees and plantings,
benches, streetlights, etc.).
Streetwall:
The plane of a building façade that fronts upon a street,
extending from the ground up to the streetwall eave line.
Tandem Parking:
An off-street parking arrangement where one vehicle is parked
behind the other.
Terminated Vista:
A location at the axial conclusion of a corridor.
Thoroughfare:
The portion of the street between curbs that includes all
vehicular lanes, including travel lanes, turn lanes, parking
lanes.
Townhouse:
A home that is attached to one or more other houses, and
which sits directly on a parcel of land that is owned by the
owner of the house.
Transition Line:
A horizontal line spanning the full width of a facade, expressed
by a material change or by a continuous horizontal articulation
such as a cornice or a balcony.
Urban Design Concept:
This district structure which serves as the conceptual basis for
the regulations contained in Book II.
Use (as a verb):
To occupy land or water in any manner or to establish, carry
out, maintain or continue any activity or development on land
or in water regardless of whether the activity or development is
established, carried out, maintained or continued in a manner
that utilizes buildings or structures on land or in water.
Zoning Ordinance:
Land use regulation enacted by the city that define the
development standards for different zones. These standards
establish permitted and conditional uses and provide
regulations for density, height, lot size, building placement
and other development standards.
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