• The City of Sonoma has been undergoing a transition over the last year with a new City Manager and a new Community Development Director along with new planning staff. I am aware of the Housing Element programs and goals and I am working with an ad hoc committee to complete these. We will be discussing these in November at our regularly scheduled Planning Commission Meeting. https://sonomacity.civicweb.net/portal/?notices=True Is where our agendas and staff reports are posted.
• The requirement for “rezoning” was not to change zoning district but rather to apply GC Section 65583.2(i) to specific sites which isn’t as simple as it was stated. All three of the sites are zoned differently but allow multi-family housing so we need to modify their land use and zoning district and/or create an overlay for those sites that applies this GC Section. The General Plan update process is a great opportunity for this and other sites. We are also proposing to create a new affordable housing overlay to apply to specific properties in the City to incentivize affordable housing. We will be talking with City Council at a study session on Monday.
• The City of Sonoma will rezone to allow developments by right pursuant to Government Code Section 65583.2(i) when 20 percent or more of the units are affordable to lower income households on sites identified in Appendix A to accommodate the lower income RHNA that were previously identified in past housing elements. Specifically, the City will rezone Site 11 (APN 127-221-033), Site 28 (APN 018-241-054), and Site 70 (APNs 128-321-032 and 128-321-034).

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Rezoning ordinance had its second reading last night at the city council meeting. Agenda here: https://cotaticity.primegov.com/Portal/Meeting?meetingTemplateId=6733