Planning Commission votes to certify final EIR and forward General Plan 2050 to City Council

The Santa Rosa Planning Commission voted 7-0 on April 24, 2025 to recommend that the City Council certify the Final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for General Plan 2050 and to adopt the General Plan 2050 and associated specific plan amendments.

The recommendation covers two separate but related actions: (1) certification of the final program-level EIR, adoption of the CEQA findings, the mitigation, monitoring and reporting program and a statement of overriding considerations; and (2) forwarding General Plan 2050 and the specified specific plan amendments to the City Council for adoption, including staff revisions read into the record to Action 6.6-2 and Figure 6-2.

The General Plan 2050 update, a multi-year effort that city staff said began in March 2020, is a comprehensive update to the city’s land-use policy document last comprehensively updated in February 2009. Jessica Jones, Deputy Director of Planning, told the commission that the commission previously denied the Elm Tree Station project and that an appeal of that action had been filed and is likely to be scheduled before the City Council in July. Nancy Waltering, senior planner and project manager for the general plan, described the plan as the city’s primary land-use tool for the next 25 years and said staff directly engaged over 4,700 community members and about 90 community groups during the plan process.

The Final EIR and the General Plan include a greenhouse gas…