Sonoma County General Plan update ramps up with new website, Board of Supervisors discussion

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Permit Sonoma has launched General Plan Sonoma, the comprehensive update to Sonoma County’s General Plan. The project launch includes an updated website and email newsletter, which will provide project information, event and meeting dates, opportunities for input and online engagement, and milestones reached. The General Plan is a foundational document that outlines community goals and creates a vision for the future by establishing policies that guide land use and development over the next 20-30 years. Robust public input is essential in the General Plan update, and community engagement will kick off in January 2025.

The next milestone for the project will be a Board of Supervisors workshop on Oct. 15, where supervisors will discuss the draft Community Engagement Plan and provide feedback on the proposed engagement topics for the Community Visioning phase of the update. Permit Sonoma staff will also present a preliminary draft audit of the General Plan 2020.

The County’s current General Plan was adopted by the Board of Supervisors in 2008. Since then, significant changes have occurred related to public health, climate change, equity, costs of land, and housing prices. Meanwhile, state laws regarding what needs to be covered in the General Plan have also changed. State guidelines recommend that General Plans be updated every five to 10 years to ensure they remain relevant and reflect physical and demographic changes.

The audit of the General Plan 2020 aims to identify necessary changes for compliance with state law, ensure consistency, eliminate redundancies, and reflect current conditions. The audit will serve as a starting point for policy development in the following phases of the General Plan update.

The Community Engagement Plan aims to solicit input from a wide range of Sonoma County residents that reflects the spectrum of opinions and demographics across the county, and it outlines the County’s approach for community visioning in the General Plan update. The plan identifies focus topics for community discussion, target audiences — especially underrepresented groups — and strategies to address engagement barriers such as language and accessibility. It highlights potential community partners and ambassadors, engagement activities like workshops and neighborhood chats, and promotional methods. While the scope of the engagement plan is limited to the initial visioning process, it represents the county’s commitment to thorough, community-centered engagement for what will be a multi-year and multi-phase process.

The public is invited to participate in the discussion at the Board of Supervisors meeting on Oct. 15 at 1:45 p.m. in the Board Chambers at 575 Administration Drive, room 102A, in Santa Rosa. The agenda for the meeting is posted here and on the project website.

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Media Contact:
Matt Brown, Communications Specialist
publicaffairs@sonoma-county.org
(707) 565-3040
575 Administration Drive, Suite 104A
Santa Rosa, CA 95403