Planning Areas

The planning area dataset represents the nine geographical sub regions of Sonoma County's General Plan.  

The General Plan consists of Land Use Elements which provides the distribution, location and extent of uses of land for housing, business, industry, open space, agriculture, natural resources, recreation and enjoyment of scenic beauty, education, public buildings and grounds, solid and liquid waste disposal facilities, and other uses. Each Land Use Element has four major sections one of which includes policies applicable for each of the 9 geographical planning areas/sub regions.  Therefore, the 9 planning areas/sub regions provide the basis for geographically discreet-specific application of land use policies.

Note:
Specific land use policies and land use maps are representative for each of the 9 planning areas/subregions.  The maps show applicable land use categories and maximum permitted density for each parcel.  Further, the maps illustrate the residential density as dwellings per acre in urban residential areas and acres per dwelling in rural areas.		

The 9 planning areas are as follows:
Area 1 - Sonoma Coast/Gualala Basin
Area 2 - Cloverdale/N.E. County
Area 3 - Healdsburg and Environs
Area 4 - Russian River Area
Area 5 - Santa Rosa and Environs
Area 6 - Sebastopol and Environs
Area 7 - Rohnert Park-Cotati and Environs
Area 8 - Petaluma and Environs
Area 9 - Sonoma Valley

Since the GIS data was developed for planning purposes and use in publication of maps and/or database creation, the data is for illustrative purpose only and is not suitable for parcel specific decision making. 

Therefore, the GIS data presented herein are approximations and further land development determination is at the discretion of the PRMD planning staff which may require a parcel specific site review (to draw parcel specific conclusions).

Creation methodology & resources:
1) refer to Data Quality - Attribute Accuracy tab for historical dataset modifications by ActiveMap version release number
2) for ActiveMap Data Capture June 2010 [ver. 2.0.2], rectified dataset to AM_PARCEL 04/01/2010 (modified to the borders of changed parcels & validated topology)