The Oak Woodland Combining District (OAK) was established by Ordinance 6469, adopted by the Board of Supervisors on April 16, 2024.

This feature class represents the Oak Woodland Combining District (OAK), which is defined as follows:

1. Starting with the Sonoma Veg Map Fine Scale feature class as the source data, select features where MAP_CLASS equals the following vegetation types (all Quercus hardwood types):

• Quercus agrifolia Alliance (coast live oak)

• Quercus chrysolepis Alliance (canyon live oak)

• Quercus douglasii Alliance (blue oak)

• Quercus garryana Alliance (Oregon oak)

• Quercus kelloggii Alliance (black oak)

• Quercus lobata Alliance (valley oak)

• Quercus wislizeni (tree) Alliance (interior live oak)

• Quercus (agrifolia, douglasii, garryana, kelloggii, lobata, wislizenii) Alliance

2. Dissolve all selected features along common boundaries.

3. Erase all areas within the Coastal Zone.

4. Erase all areas within Incorporated Sonoma County.

A parcel is designated with the OAK Combining District if "at least 0.5 acre" of the parcels intersects the OAK Combining District as defined above. Note, this differs from all other Combining Districts for which an intersection of any area designates the parcel with that Combining District.

The initial source of the OAK Combining District is the Sonoma County fine scale vegetation and habitat map. The Sonoma County fine scale vegetation and habitat map is an 83-class vegetation map of Sonoma County with 212,391 polygons. The fine scale vegetation and habitat map represents the state of the landscape in 2013 and adheres to the National Vegetation Classification System (NVC).

The source dataset was downloaded from: "Sonoma County Fine-scale Veg. and Habitat Map" Countywide Geodatabase: https://sonomavegmap.org/data-downloads/

The purpose of the Oak Woodland Combining District (OAK) has been combined with the purpose of the Valley Oak Habitat Combining District (VOH) in the County Code as follows:

To advance the protection, preservation, and enhancement of oak trees and Oak Woodlands in Sonoma County for the benefit of present and future generations and to implement Sonoma County General Plan Policies OSRC-71. related to Oak Woodlands, and OSRC-7m, related to valley oak habitat. This article achieves these purposes by prohibiting the removal of oaks within Oak Woodlands, with limited exceptions for certain listed land uses that the County has determined promote public, health, safety, and welfare, including uses related to hazard reduction or removal, conservation, agriculture, pest control. and residential maintenance. Where proposed valley oak or Oak Woodland removal is subject to a discretionary permit process, mitigation measures to address loss of trees would apply, such as measures to ensure no net loss of Oak Woodlands or, for the highest quality woodlands, would provide a unique public benefit equal to or greater than the value associated with removed oaks.