Planning commission reviews broad general-plan changes; Sebastiani rezoning draws sustained public concern

The Sonoma Planning Commission received a detailed update from Community Development Director Jennifer Gates on proposed changes to the city's general plan and related zoning concepts, including new park and greenway designations, changes to commercial and residential density ranges, an affordable‑housing overlay and a site‑specific proposal to convert the Sebastiani winery property to a mixed‑use designation.

Gates said staff will begin environmental review, post draft general‑plan elements in stages and hold another community meeting on Jan. 30 at Vintage House to review the land‑use maps and accept public comment. "We're going to begin our environmental review, and we're going to begin drafting our general plan," Gates said. "My intent is to post sections of the draft elements as we get them completed and release them for comments."

The update focused on several substantive proposals the city council had directed staff to pursue. Staff recommended reclassifying the Mountain View Cemetery area to a park designation and explicitly allowing cemeteries as a park use to avoid creating nonconforming uses; creating a greenway/blue‑infrastructure overlay and adding creek‑corridor and trail policies for Bridal Creek, portions of Nathanson Creek and Sonoma Creek; and revising commercial zones so a residential component would be optional for commercial and gateway commercial zones while retaining required residential components for mixed‑use zones.

Gates also proposed increases in allowable densities in low‑ and Sonoma‑residential designations to allow up to fourplexes in some low‑density areas, while leaving Hillside and rural residential unchanged. To retain flexibility, Gates said the general plan would remove numerical height, lot coverage and FAR limits and leave those standards to the development code so zoning changes could be made without reopening the general plan. "We would be looking at allowing up to four units regardless of the density," Gates said regarding the low‑density allowance; she added development…