Within the meaning of this Article:
(1) The word "person" includes any individual, partnership, firm, association, joint venture, public or private corporation, trust, estate, commission, board, public or private institution, utility, cooperative, interstate body, the State of North Carolina and its agencies and political subdivisions, or other legal entity.
(2) A person, as defined in this section, doing business or maintaining an office within a county is a resident of the county.
(3) "Tall buildings or structures" include any building, structure or unit within a multiunit building with a vertical height of more than 40 feet measured from the top of the foundation of said building, structure or unit and the uppermost point of said building, structure or unit; provided, however, that where such foundation measured from the natural finished grade of the crest or the natural finished grade of the high side of the slope of a ridge exceeds 3 feet, then such measurement in excess of 3 feet shall be included in the 40-foot limitation described herein; provided, further, that no such building, structure or unit shall protrude at its uppermost point above the crest of the ridge by more than 35 feet. "Tall buildings or structures" do not include:
a. Water, radio, telephone or television towers or any equipment for the transmission of electricity or communications or both.
b. Structures of a relatively slender nature and minor vertical projections of a parent building, including chimneys, flagpoles, flues, spires, steeples, belfries, cupolas, antennas, poles, wires, or windmills.
c. Buildings and structures designated as National Historic Sites on the National Archives Registry.
(4) "Construction" includes reconstruction, alteration, or expansion.
(5) "Ridge" means the elongated crest or series of crests at the apex or uppermost point of intersection between two opposite slopes or sides of a mountain, and includes all land within 100 feet below the elevation of any portion of such line or surface along the crest.
(6) "Protected mountain ridges" are all mountain ridges whose elevation is 3,000 feet and whose elevation is 500 or more feet above the elevation of an adjacent valley floor; provided, however, that a county, or a city with a population of fifty thousand (50,000) or more, may elect to eliminate the requirement for an elevation of 3,000 feet, and such election shall apply both to an ordinance adopted under G.S. 113A-208 and the prohibition against construction under G.S. 113A-209; provided, further, that such ordinance shall be adopted pursuant to the procedures of G.S. 113A-208.
(7) "Crest" means the uppermost line of a mountain or chain of mountains from which the land falls away on at least two sides to a lower elevation or elevations. (1983, c. 676, s. 1; 1985, c. 713, s. 1.)