The following words or terms as used in this chapter shall have the following meaning unless a different meaning is clearly indicated by the context:

(1) "Approval by motion" is a means by which a board, through other than by ordinance, approves and records recognition of a comprehensive plan or amendments thereto.

(2) "Board" means the board of county commissioners.

(3) "Certification" means the affixing on any map or by adding to any document comprising all or any portion of a comprehensive plan a record of the dates of action thereon by the commission and by the board, together with the signatures of the officer or officers authorized by ordinance to so sign.

(4) "Commission" means a county or regional planning commission.

(5) "Commissioners" means members of a county or regional planning commission.

(6) "Comprehensive plan" means the policies and proposals approved and recommended by the planning agency or initiated by the board and approved by motion by the board (a) as a beginning step in planning for the physical development of the county; (b) as the means for coordinating county programs and services; (c) as a source of reference to aid in developing, correlating, and coordinating official regulations and controls; and (d) as a means for promoting the general welfare. Such plan shall consist of the required elements set forth in RCW 36.70.330 and may also include the optional elements set forth in RCW 36.70.350 which shall serve as a policy guide for the subsequent public and private development and official controls so as to present all proposed developments in a balanced and orderly relationship to existing physical features and governmental functions.

(7) "Conditional use" means a use listed among those classified in any given zone but permitted to locate only after review by the board of adjustment, or zoning adjustor if there be such, and the granting of a conditional use permit imposing such performance standards as will make the use compatible with other permitted uses in the same vicinity and zone and assure against imposing excessive demands upon public utilities, provided the county ordinances specify the standards and criteria that shall be applied.

(8) "Department" means a planning department organized and functioning as any other department in any county.

(9) "Element" means one of the various categories of subjects, each of which constitutes a component part of the comprehensive plan.

(10) "Ex officio member" means a member of the commission who serves by virtue of his or her official position as head of a department specified in the ordinance creating the commission.

(11) "Official controls" means legislatively defined and enacted policies, standards, precise detailed maps and other criteria, all of which control the physical development of a county or any part thereof or any detail thereof, and are the means of translating into regulations and ordinances all or any part of the general objectives of the comprehensive plan. Such official controls may include, but are not limited to, ordinances establishing zoning, subdivision control, platting, and adoption of detailed maps.

(12) "Ordinance" means a legislative enactment by a board; in this chapter the word, "ordinance", is synonymous with the term "resolution", as representing a legislative enactment by a board of county commissioners.

(13) "Planning agency" means (a) a planning commission, together with its staff members, employees and consultants, or (b) a department organized and functioning as any other department in any county government together with its planning commission.

(14) "Variance." A variance is the means by which an adjustment is made in the application of the specific regulations of a zoning ordinance to a particular piece of property, which property, because of special circumstances applicable to it, is deprived of privileges commonly enjoyed by other properties in the same vicinity and zone and which adjustment remedies disparity in privileges.