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Permit Sonoma › About Us › Joining Exclusion Combining District
Vacation Rentals & Hosted Rentals

Joining the Exclusion (X) Combining District

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Do you want to apply to re-zone your property to add the Exclusion (X) Combining District? Here’s what you need to know:

All proposed zone changes must be consisted with adopted Area Plans and the General Plan; applicants should verify with planning staff if an Area Plan Amendment or General Plan Amendment must be filed in conjunction with the Zone Change.

Your proposal statement should include how the proposed Zone Change (addition of the Vacation Rental Exclusion (X) Combining Zone) would be consistent with the Sonoma County General Plan and Zoning Regulations.

General Plan – The General Plan Housing Element contains policy that calls for continued regulation of the use of existing residences on residential lands for vacation rentals; and a program for considering revisions to the Vacation Rental Ordinance to limit conversion of permanent housing stock to visitor-serving (commercial) uses and making vacation rental uses more compatible.

Include in your proposal statement how and to what extent the proposed Zone Change would limit the conversion of existing residences to vacation rentals thus complying with the Housing Element policy.

Zoning Regulations – The Zoning Regulations include the Vacation Rental Exclusion (X) Combining Zone, which may be placed on parcels where one or more of the following criteria are met:

  1. there is inadequate road access or off-street parking;
  2. the prevalence of vacation rentals is detrimental to the residential character of neighborhoods;
  3. the housing stock should be protected from conversion to visitor-serving uses;
  4. there is a significant fire hazard due to topography, access or vegetation;
  5. the residential character is to be preserved or preferred; and
  6. other areas where the Board of Supervisors determines that it is in the public interest to prohibit the establishment and operation of vacation rentals.

Include in your proposal statement a discussion of whether and in what way the area proposed for the X Combining Zone has inadequate road access or off-street parking, a significant fire hazard, a residential character to be preserved, or housing that would be lost to commercial uses.

The following documents must be submitted: