The California Coastal Commission approved a long-planned update to Sonoma County’s coastal land use and zoning regulations at the commission’s meeting in San Francisco.
The unanimous vote from the commission’s 12 members on Thursday approved an update to Sonoma County’s zoning regulations along its 55-mile coastline that are outlined in a Local Coastal Program, or LCP, also known as a Local Coastal Plan.
It covers land use regulations in areas related to housing and commercial development, agriculture, public access to the coast, open space and conservation.
It also considers water resources, transit and traffic circulation, cultural resources, and public services and resources like hotels and public bathrooms.
Approval of the Local Coastal Plan allows the county government to have permitting authority for development within the County’s Coastal Zone, which extends from between a half mile and three miles from the coast in Sonoma County, except for some areas along the Russian River where it extends as far as five miles from the coast.
It is the first update to Sonoma County’s Local Coastal Plan since 2001, when the version first certified in 1982 was amended, according to the county.
The LCP is required under the California Coastal Act of 1976.
The effort to create a comprehensive new version was launched in 2013, according to Cecily Condon, a project review division manager with Permit Sonoma, who spoke in person during the public comment period at the Coastal Commission’s meeting, along with County Supervisor Lynda Hopkins and other county representatives.
“Our community takes great pride in our coast, and this plan is intended to build us a policy framework not for today, certainly not for 2013, but for something that will carry us and that foundation into the future,” Condon said in her comments to the Coastal Commission.
Boosting affordable housing
Some of the changes focus on new goals such as encouraging more affordable housing development and combatting sea level rise.
Goals listed in the 708-page document include discouraging oil drilling exploration and development off the Sonoma County coast and prohibiting onshore support facilities for such outer continental shelf energy exploration.
Housing goals include encouraging more affordable housing development in existing urban areas by supporting grant programs, pushing allowances under the state’s density bonus law, requiring 30% of housing assisted with county funds be set aside for lower income residents, and supporting more housing for farmworkers.
New housing will be concentrated in the Bodega Bay Urban Service Area, which includes the Sea Ranch community.
New visitor-serving commercial development is encouraged, but only in existing “urban service areas” and with other stipulations. Businesses already serving a visitor or public service-oriented purpose will be allowed limited expansion under the new LCP.
It also encourages more “low impact” or “modest scale” overnight accommodations like campgrounds, short-term vacation rentals in existing homes, guest ranches and motels, according to the LCP submitted to the Coastal Commission.
The plan also lays out a goal of preserving agriculture as a long-term economically viable sector in the county by protecting ag lands from urban development by maintaining rural community boundaries, preventing conversion of farmland into residential use, and seeking more financial resources to prevent ag land from being subdivided.
The Coastal Commission did approve the LCP with some modifications to clarify habitat protection boundaries, coastal drainage, and minor issues like grammar clarifications that must be approved by the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors within six months.
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