S-Z

• SCAG (Southern California Association of Governments). The metropolitan planning organization, representing six counties that undertakes a variety of planning and policy initiatives to encourage a more sustainable Southern California.
• Scale. Proportional relationship of the size of parts to one another and to the human figure.
• Screening. Structure or planting that conceals from view from public ways the area behind such structure or planting.
• Sensitive land uses. Types of facilities that the California Air Resources Board recommends being protected from sources of air pollution. Sensitive land uses include residences, childcare centers, educational institutions, medical facilities, senior care facilities, and parks and recreation facilities.
• Shall. Will always be carried out or required; no exceptions.
• Shared parking. A land use strategy that optimizes parking capacity, reduces the amount of land developed, and promotes connectivity by allowing complementary land uses to share parking spaces, rather than producing or requiring separate spaces for separate uses.
• Should. Will be carried out or required most of the time, unless a very good reason is identified why an exception is acceptable.
• Social capital. An intangible resource that community members can draw upon to solve collective problems. It consists of social trusts, norms, and networks that can alleviate societal problems. Civic engagement encourages feelings of reciprocity between community members and facilitates coordination, communication, and collaboration. Social capital can also be understood by examining community events, organizations, facilities, and participants.
• Sometimes. Will apply to future decisions under specified conditions or circumstances.
• Specify. To establish distinct requirements.
• Sphere of influence (SOI). The probable physical boundary and service area of a local agency, such as an incorporated city or town or a special district, as determined by the local agency formation commission (LAFCO). SOIs are planning tools used to provide guidance for individual proposals involving jurisdictional changes, and are intended to encourage the efficient provision of organized community services and prevent duplication of service delivery. A territory must also be within a city or district’s sphere in order to be annexed.
  While a city/town SOI can include both incorporated and unincorporated lands, the unincorporated lands remain within the jurisdictional control of the county until such time that the land is annexed into the city/town. A city/town is obligated to consider its unincorporated SOI in its general plan, although the county’s planning authority remains in place.
• Standard. A specific, often quantified guideline, defining the relationship between two or more variables. Standards can often directly translate into regulatory controls.
• Streetscape. The scene as may be observed along a public street or way composed of natural and manmade components, including buildings, paving, planting, street hardware, and miscellaneous structures. Examples of streetscape elements include roadways, medians, sidewalks, street furniture, crosswalks, signs, open space, and landscaping, among many other factors.
• Strive. To make great efforts or devote serious effort to achieve or obtain something.
• Subsidence. The gradual, local settling or sinking of the earth’s surface with little or no horizontal motion. Subsidence is usually the result of gas, oil, or water extraction, hydro compaction, or peat oxidation, and not the result of a landslide or slope failure.
• Sufficient buildable area. Able to conform to current development standards and requirements from local, state, and federal agencies.
• Support. To provide assistance or promotion; see encourage.
• Surface rupture. A break in the ground’s surface and associated deformation resulting from the movement of a fault.
• Sustainable. Able to use a resource or conduct activity at a desired rate or level without depleting resources (e.g., financial or natural) to a point where others cannot rely upon or use them in the future; in some context the term can refer to the long-range viability of the environment, economy, and social equity (referred to as “the three E’s of sustainability”).

• Tax Increment Financing. Tax increment financing works by freezing tax revenues from a tax rate area in the interim base year and diverting forecasted tax revenue in future years (known as increment) to pay for improvements and/or pay back bonds.
• Tourism Marketing District. A Tourism Marketing District (TMD) is a benefit assessment district proposed to create a revenue source to help fund marketing and sales promotion efforts for lodging businesses. A TMD is similar to a Business Improvement District (BID) where businesses pay an additional fee in order to fund improvements within the district’s boundaries.
• Traffic calming. Changes in street alignment, installation of barriers, and other physical measures to reduce traffic speeds and/or cut-through traffic volumes in the interest of street safety, livability, and other public purposes.
• Traffic control devices. Signs, signals, or pavement markings (permanent or temporary), placed on or adjacent to a travelway by authority of a public body having jurisdiction to regulate, warn, or guide traffic.
• Transit-oriented development. A mix of buildings and land uses, typically within a quarter-mile walking distance of light rail stops or high frequency bus stops. Transit oriented developments commonly contain convenient shopping, office, restaurant, service commercial, and entertainment uses for transit riders.
• Transportation demand management (TDM). Strategies that influence long-term travel choices and behaviors. TDM’s goal is to improve mobility and decrease negative impacts such as traffic congestion and air pollution. TDM strategies can include: ridesharing, providing commuter subsidies, promoting walking and biking, and encouraging flexible work schedules.
• Travelway. A generalized term that refers to any path of land travel, including roads, freeways, bikeways, pedestrian routes, railroad, etc.
  Truck traffic, truck trips, or trucking-intensive business. In the context of defining truck traffic or a trucking-intensive business, a truck is a vehicle identified by the Federal Highway Administration vehicle as Class 5 or higher, with the exception of dually trucks and recreational vehicles. A trucking-intensive business is a permitted use that includes the frequent use of trucks as part of its primary activities.

• Upstream issues. Conditions, such as food insecurity, that exist prior to and contribute to a person’s undesirable medical, social, financial, or legal circumstance.
• Urban. Development patterns characterized by higher density residential and/or nonresidential development served by frequent transit service and public infrastructure.
• Utility hardware. Devices such as poles, crossarms, transformers, and vaults, gas pressure regulating assemblies, hydrants, and buffalo boxes that are used for water, gas, oil, sewer, and electrical services to a building or a project.

Vacancy rate. The percentage of unoccupied housing units in a jurisdiction. Vacancy rates usually differ according to tenure and housing type.
Value. A shared asset, principle, standard, social more, and in the judgment of the community, what is important in the lives of its residents and businesses.
Vulnerable population or community. Populations or communities that experience heightened risk and increased sensitivity to natural disasters, emergencies, or severe weather events or conditions; and have less capacity and fewer resources to cope with, adapt to, or recover from such events or conditions.

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• Zoning. The division of a jurisdiction by legislative regulations into areas (aka land use zoning districts), which specify allowable uses for real property and size restrictions for buildings within these areas; a program that implements policies and the land use designations of the General Plan.