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SANTA CLARA COUNTY CODE OF ORDINANCES: Sec. B11 1/2-2. Definitions.

Copyrighted by SANTA CLARA COUNTY CODE & Municipal Code Corporation, 1998.

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Sec. B11 1/2-2. Definitions.

The following terms are defined for purposes of this division.

Applicant: Any person, firm, corporation, business, or governmental agency that executes the necessary forms to request official approval of a project or a permit in order to carry out construction of a project.

Best Management Practice (BMPs): A structural device or nonstructural practice designed to treat storm water runoff in order to reduce storm water pollution, or designed to prevent storm water pollution.

County: Santa Clara County, in the State of California.

Deemed complete: The date the Planning Office determines that all the required information in a development application has been provided.

Department of Environmental Health: A department of the County.

Department of Planning and Development: A department of the County.

Development: A proposed land use and/or construction project that requires issuance of a land use approval, a building permit, or a grading permit, prior to commencement of construction.

Development Services Office: An office within the Department of Planning and Development that includes the functions of Building Inspection, Land Development Engineering, Surveying, and the Clean Water Program.

Disturbance, or land disturbance: Grading, filling, grubbing, clearing, vegetation removal, building, or demolition.

Existing conditions: Refers to the conditions that exist on a site before the commencement of a land development project and at the time the County approves plans or issues permits for the land development of a site. Where phased development or plan approval occurs (i.e., preliminary grading, road construction and utility installation, etc.), the existing conditions are considered those at the time prior to the time that the first land use approval, building permit or grading permit is issued.

Food service facility: Any business or establishment that prepares food for sale or distribution to the public.

Group 1 Project: Pursuant to the definition in the County's NPDES Municipal Storm Water Discharge Permit, any private or public land development or redevelopment project creating or replacing one acre or more of impervious surface. (Please see Section B11 1/2-17 for effective dates.) The following types of projects are exempt from the Group 1 Project requirements:

(a) Single-family homes that are not part of a larger common plan of development, when the storm drainage is directed to a landscaped or naturally vegetated area;

(b) Sidewalks;

(d) Trails;

(e) Bridge accessories;

(f) Guardrails;

(g) Landscape features;

(h) Interior remodels;

(i) Routine maintenance or repair, including roof or exterior surface replacement, pavement resurfacing, repaving and road pavement structural section rehabilitation within the existing footprint, and any other reconstruction work within a public street or road right-of-way where both sides of that right-of-way are developed.

Group 2A Project: Pursuant to the definition in the County's NPDES Municipal Storm Water Discharge Permit, this is the same as the Group 1 Project definition, except that the size threshold of impervious area for new and significant redevelopment projects is reduced from one acre to 10,000 square feet, and then only if the project is included in one of the following land use categories (Please see Section B11 1/2-17 for effective dates.):

(a) Gas stations;

(b) Auto wrecking yards;

(d) Vehicle or equipment maintenance areas (including washing and repair), outdoor handling or storage of waste or hazardous materials, outdoor manufacturing area(s), outdoor food handling or processing, outdoor animal care, outdoor horticultural activities, and various other industrial and commercial uses where the potential pollutant loading cannot be satisfactorily mitigated through source control and site design practices.

Group 2B Project: Pursuant to the definition in the County's NPDES Municipal Storm Water Discharge Permit, this is the same as the Group 1 Project definition, except that the size threshold of impervious area for new and significant redevelopment projects is reduced from one acre to 10,000 square feet. (Please see Section B11 1/2-17 for effective dates.)

Hazardous material: Any material so designated by state and federal laws or by County ordinance.

Hydromodification: Changes to the storm water runoff characteristics of a watershed caused by changes in land use.

Hydromodification Management Plan BMPs: Any combination of on-site, off-site, and in-stream control measures incorporated into specified development and redevelopment projects in order to reduce peak amounts of storm water runoff flow, so as to not cause an increase in the erosion potential of the receiving watercourse over the pre-project condition, in accordance with the County's NPDES Municipal Storm Water Discharge Permit and the SCVURPPP Hydromodification Management Plan.

Hydromodification Management Plan (HMP): A comprehensive plan to control hydromodification by maintaining the pre-project stream erosion potential for specific types of development projects.

Impervious surface: A surface composed of any material that significantly impedes or prevents the natural infiltration of water into soil. Impervious surfaces include, but are not limited to, rooftops, buildings, streets and roads, parking lots, concrete or asphalt surfaces, compacted base rock, and compacted soils.

Loading dock: The area of a facility intended for the loading and unloading of trucks or other delivery vehicles.

Maximum extent practicable (MEP): The maximum degree of pollution reduction that is achievable by applying best management practices, taking into account the best available technology, cost effectiveness, and other competing issues such as human safety and welfare, endangered species and threatened resources, historic properties and geographic features.

New development: Land development activity on a previously undeveloped site.

NPDES Municipal Storm Water Discharge Permit: A National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Permit issued to the County of Santa Clara and other local jurisdictions by the Regional Water Quality Control Board of the San Francisco Bay Region or of the Central Coast Region, State of California.

Numeric sizing criteria: Equations used for designing storm water treatment measures that are included in the County's NPDES Municipal Storm Water Discharge Permit.

Operation and maintenance agreement: A written agreement providing for the long-term operation and maintenance of storm water management facilities and practices on a site or with respect to a land development project, which when properly recorded with the County Recorder constitutes a restriction on the title to a site.

Owner: The legal or beneficial owner of a site, including but not limited to a person, firm, or corporation in control of the site.

Permit: The permit issued by the County of Santa Clara to an applicant that is required for commencing a land use, land development activity, or a construction project.

Person: Any person, firm, association, organization, partnership, business trust, joint venture, corporation, or company.

Petroleum product: Fuel oil, sludge, oil refuse, oil mixed with waste, gasoline, motor fuel, motor oil, gear oil, and grease.

Planning Office: An office within the Department of Planning and Development.

Program: The County of Santa Clara Clean Water Program

Post-development: Refers to the time period, or the conditions that may reasonably be expected or anticipated to exist, after completion of the land development construction activity on a site.

Redevelopment: A land development project on a previously developed site; excluding ordinary maintenance activities, interior remodeling of existing buildings, resurfacing of paved areas, and exterior changes or improvements which do not materially increase or concentrate storm water runoff, or cause additional storm water runoff pollution.

Refuse: Putrescible and non-putrescible solid or liquid materials or waste, whether combustible or noncombustible, and including garbage, rubbish and food processing waste.

Runoff: Flowing storm water that leaves a site.

Runon: Flowing storm water entering a site from off site.

San Francisco Bay Watershed: All of the territory within Santa Clara County where storm drainage flows to San Francisco Bay.

Santa Clara Valley Urban Runoff Pollution Prevention Program (SCVURPPP): The Santa Clara Valley Urban Runoff Pollution Prevention Program is an association of local jurisdictions located in the northern Santa Clara Valley. SCVURPPP jurisdictions, also referred to as co-permittees, share a common Municipal NPDES Permit to discharge storm water to San Francisco Bay.

Site: Any tract, lot or parcel of land or combination of tracts, lots, or parcels of land, which are under one ownership, or are contiguous and in diverse ownership where a development is to be performed as part of a use permit, subdivision, building permit, or project.

Site design BMPs: Nonstructural techniques designed to reduce the amount of runoff by decreasing the amount of impervious surface, infiltrating runoff into the soil and/or providing storm water detention. Examples of site design BMPs may include narrower streets, permeable pavement, detention ponds, and shared driveways.

Source control BMPs: Structural measures or nonstructural practices used to eliminate contact between rainfall and potential source of contamination. Examples include covered materials handling areas, covered garbage and refuse receptacles, parking lots sweeping, etc.

Storm water discharge: Any flow from land or from impervious surfaces that enters into the storm water system, watercourses, or any other water body.

Storm water treatment measures: Permanent structural measures designed to reduce storm water pollution by capturing and treating runoff. Examples include detention basins, vegetated swales and media filters.

Soil sediments: The soil washed away by water. As used in this division "soil sediments" refers to the loss of soil caused by land disturbance and does not apply to naturally occurring erosion on undisturbed land.

Storm drain: Any inlet, pipe, conduit, swale, channel or creek designed or used for the disposal of storm and surface waters and drainage, but excluding any sanitary sewer system.

Storm water: Unpolluted water that has no added constituents that would render it unacceptable for disposal to storm or natural drainage channels, or directly to surface waters.

Storm water system: The system of inlets, drains, pipes, swales, channels, creeks, which collects, directs and transports storm water runoff.

Unincorporated area: Those portions of the County which lie outside municipal boundaries of the cities within the County.

Watercourse: Any natural or artificial stream, river, creek, ditch, channel, canal, conduit, culvert, drain, waterway, gully, ravine or wash, in and including any adjacent area that is subject to inundation from storm water flow, overflow, or flood water; and any channel, either manmade or natural, in which a flow of water occurs, either continuously or intermittently.

(Ord. No. NS-517.74, § 1, 10-17-06)