The newest name on the lower Russian River’s vacation-rental waiting list went on Sept. 25: a two-bedroom house on Terrace Road in Monte Rio. County permit records put it sixth in line in the Terraces/Villa Grande cap zone.
The applicant at the head of that line applied June 2, 2023, about a week after the county’s cap took effect.
The Terraces/Villa Grande zone has 48 permitted vacation rentals. Under the county’s 5% rule, it has room for 17.
Every one of the seven cap zones on the lower river, from Forestville to Cazadero, is over its cap by the county’s own map counts.
What the cap does
The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors adopted Ordinance 6423 on April 24, 2023, on a 4-0 vote with one abstention. It took effect in late May 2023. The ordinance put seven lower-river neighborhoods in a “Vacation Rental 5% Cap (X5) Combining District” and closed four others nearby to new rentals altogether: Armstrong Woods Road, Drake Road, Guernewood Park/Monte Rosa and Neeley Road.
The county code caps rentals in an X5 zone at 5% of its single-family homes, rounded down. Once a zone meets or passes the cap, no new vacation rental is allowed. The ordinance says it “limits or maintains the current number of vacation rentals in a defined area.”
The ordinance’s finding for Monte Rio says the area “has limited evacuation routes, is prone to flooding and landslides, and has a relatively high concentration of Vacation Rentals.” The stated aim for each lower-river cap zone was to reduce public safety risk and preserve residential character “by reducing Vacation Rental concentration.”
Zone by zone
Permit Sonoma’s public vacation rental map lists, for each cap zone, the number of rental permits and the number of single-family homes. Wine Country Gazette pulled the map data Oct. 11 and applied the code’s 5% rule to those house counts.
- Northwood: 18 permits, 112 homes, cap of 5.
- Monte Rio: 25 permits, 213 homes, cap of 10.
- Terraces/Villa Grande: 48 permits, 358 homes, cap of 17.
- Austin Creek, between Highway 116 and Cazadero: 45 permits, 331 homes, cap of 16.
- Summerhome Park: 10 permits, 118 homes, cap of 5.
- Hacienda, in Forestville: 25 permits, 252 homes, cap of 12.
- Rio Dell, in Forestville: 17 permits, 317 homes, cap of 15.
Northwood runs at about 16% of its homes, more than three times its cap. Rio Dell comes closest. It’s two permits over.
Who is waiting
The county keeps a separate waitlist layer on the same map. It shows 22 applications on cap-zone waitlists countywide, and 18 of them are in these seven river zones: six each in Terraces/Villa Grande and Hacienda, three in Austin Creek, and one each in Monte Rio, Northwood and Rio Dell.
Hacienda’s first in line applied July 22, 2023. Monte Rio’s only waiting application was filed April 19 for a house on River Boulevard.
The code bars any new vacation rental while a zone is at or over its cap. In Terraces/Villa Grande, the count would have to fall from 48 to 16 before a new one is allowed.
Permits without licenses
A vacation rental in unincorporated Sonoma County needs both a zoning permit and a vacation rental license. The county map lists the license status of each permit, and in several zones a large share don’t show a current license.
In Austin Creek, 17 of the 45 permits show an active license or a renewal in process. Thirteen show an expired license, two are marked “cessation” and 13 have no license on file. The 13 expired licenses lapsed between August 2024 and August 2026, according to the map.
Across all seven lower-river zones, 91 of 188 permits show an active or renewing license. Another 42 show an expired license and 44 have none on file.
The map shows a status, not the reason for it. An expired license may be a late renewal or a rental that has stopped running. It isn’t clear from the county’s published material whether permits with expired or missing licenses count against the cap.
Counting only the permits with active or renewing licenses, Hacienda would have 11 against a cap of 12, Summerhome Park four against five and Rio Dell five against 15. Monte Rio would still have 17 against 10, and Terraces/Villa Grande 26 against 17.
The house on Terrace Road is sixth in line in that last zone, where the county counts 48 permits and the cap allows 17.