California Coverage · Sonoma County
Sonoma County base maps & site data for designers
The existing-conditions base map and pre-design site analysis that normally takes a half-day across county GIS portals and hand-tracing into CAD — for any Sonoma address, from Healdsburg estates to coastal parcels, in about a minute.
What Lekua resolves in Sonoma County
Every layer below is pulled at export time from county, state and national GIS sources the moment you enter an address — no manual tracing, no generic insets, and the sheet cites which source drew each layer.
Assessor parcel boundary with APN, address, and lot area from Permit Sonoma’s own GIS.
Fine 1–2 ft contours generated on-demand from the 1-meter USGS 3DEP elevation model — vineyard- and hillside-grade relief the county’s 40-ft published contours can’t provide.
Countywide building outlines from the county’s fall-2013 lidar flight (roof extents, structures over 100 sq ft), with the county’s circa-2000 digitised outlines kept and labelled where the lidar saw nothing, and national outlines dashed in for anything newer (Overture Maps’ mixed mapped and machine-learned outlines where a county cut is imported, otherwise FEMA USA Structures with Microsoft machine-learned outlines where FEMA has none) — the fallback matters here, where post-wildfire rebuilding outpaces any single flight.
The county’s digitised footprint layer files what each structure is, and where one of those outlines is drawn it is labeled in the county’s own words, prefixed with its name — “SONOMA: SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENCE”. The 2013 lidar outlines that draw first carry no use, so the label appears on the older outlines the lidar did not replace; roughly a fifth of the county’s records carry no use at all and draw unlabelled rather than presumed. Ground-mounted solar arrays are filed as structures; Lekua excludes them, so they don’t collect defensible-space rings or count toward lot coverage.
CAL FIRE FHSZ severity (2024–25 remap) with Zone 0 / 1 / 2 defensible-space perimeters — in the county reshaped by Tubbs, Kincade, and Glass, fire-wise planting is the starting point, not an afterthought.
USDA SSURGO soil profile, historical rainfall, and modeled seasonal sun-hour heat maps for the parcel.
California natives matched to the site’s soil and microclimate, plus the serving water supplier’s lawn-replacement rebate, shown only while it was verified on the supplier’s own page within 60 days.
The county’s 2022 lidar surfaces — highest-hit minus bare-earth — give every structure a measured height and true grade countywide, from Santa Rosa to Cloverdale; where the 2022 surfaces carry no data, the 2013 flight measures the building instead, and each height on the sheet names the flight that measured it. Where a record carries no height, the structure is labeled as having none rather than drawn at a confident wrong number. Coverage is the populated part of the county: measured 2026-09-21, the layer answers around Santa Rosa (parcel-scale box) and returns nothing over Cloverdale town centre (parcel-scale box). Beyond it the height falls back to the modeled national data rather than going missing.
Built for the county that rewrote its fire rules
Tubbs, Kincade, and Glass reshaped how Sonoma builds and plants. Much of the county sits in mapped fire-hazard severity zones, and defensible-space rules now shape nearly every rural and hillside project. Lekua draws the CAL FIRE Zone 0 / 1 / 2 perimeters on the plan and filters the plant palette to what each zone allows — fire-wise from the first pass.
- Zone 0 (0–5 ft ember-resistant), Zone 1 (5–30 ft), and Zone 2 (30–100 ft) perimeters drawn around the structures.
- Every recommended plant carries a defensible-space zone rating, so you place the right species in the right zone.
- Flammability ratings draw on Las Pilitas burn-time research and UCANR / CAL FIRE-aligned fire-safe lists.
Zoning setbacks, by jurisdiction
Setbacks in Sonoma are set per town, not countywide. Lekua resolves the parcel’s jurisdiction and zone code and encodes each jurisdiction’s adopted setback table, citation and all. Setback rings are drawn only after a table passes independent panel review — until then the export carries the code-cited values with an explicit “unverified” advisory instead of lines we can’t stand behind.
Example — Unincorporated Sonoma County residential setback table, as encoded from the adopted code
| Zone | Front | Side | Rear |
|---|---|---|---|
| RRD / LIA / LEA / DA | 30′ | 10′ | 20′ |
| AR | 30′ | 10′ | 20′ |
| RR / R1 / R2 | 20′ | 5′ | 20′ |
| R3 | 15′ | 5′ | 10′ |
Sonoma County Code Ch. 26 Tables 6-2/8-2 (Ord. 6532/2025), resolved off the county zoning service’s district field. Verified live at 8868 Mill Creek Rd, Cazadero, which resolves RRD and draws 30/10/20 with the full Ch. 26 citation. Covers unincorporated Sonoma only — the nine incorporated cities resolve to an honest null rather than a borrowed table. Combining districts (SR/RC/F1/F2/VOH/BR) and planned developments are disclosed on the sheet; §26-16-060 reductions are never applied in our favour. Verify with Permit Sonoma before submittal.
A native palette, enriched beyond the plant list
Start from the Calscape native plant database — then get the research-backed traits Calscape alone doesn’t put at your fingertips, matched to the parcel’s mapped soil, sun, rainfall, and microclimate. Hand a client a list checked against the code, climate-appropriate, and built to perform.
Flammability and defensible-space zone suitability from Las Pilitas burn-time research and UCANR / CAL FIRE-aligned fire-safe lists — not just a name on a list.
Slow / moderate / fast growth plus mature height and spread, so spacing and time-to-fill are realistic from day one.
Calscape cultivation and longevity guidance, so the palette reads for how it performs over 10–20 years, not just at install.
WUCOLS-aligned water-use ratings (for the MWELO budget) and pollinator / bird support scores on every species.
Plant data: Calscape / CNPS, enriched with Las Pilitas burn-time research, UCANR & CAL FIRE-aligned fire-safe lists, and WUCOLS water-use ratings.
Water suppliers
Main water suppliers in Sonoma County: Sonoma Water · City of Santa Rosa Water · City of Petaluma · City of Sonoma.
Sonoma County base map FAQ
Are the building heights on a Sonoma County base map measured or assumed?
Measured, wherever the county record carries one. The county’s 2022 lidar surfaces — highest-hit minus bare-earth — give every structure a measured height and true grade countywide, from Santa Rosa to Cloverdale; where the 2022 surfaces carry no data, the 2013 flight measures the building instead, and each height on the sheet names the flight that measured it. A structure whose record has no height is labeled as having none — the sheet prints an explicit no-data note instead of a plausible number, because a wrong ridge height is worse on a shade study than an admitted gap. Coverage is the populated part of the county: measured 2026-09-21, the layer answers around Santa Rosa (parcel-scale box) and returns nothing over Cloverdale town centre (parcel-scale box). Beyond it the height falls back to the modeled national data rather than going missing.
Can I get a CAD base map for a Sonoma County parcel?
Yes. Enter any Sonoma address and export a layered DXF (AutoCAD-compatible) with assessor parcel lines, building footprints, on-demand 1–2 ft contours, and spot elevations — plus a designed PDF site report for the client.
What contour interval is available in Sonoma County?
Sonoma’s published vector contours are 40-ft, so Lekua generates fine 1–2 ft contours on-demand from the 1-meter USGS 3DEP elevation model instead — the difference between usable grading information and decoration on hillside and vineyard-adjacent lots.
Does it include zoning setbacks in Sonoma County?
For unincorporated Sonoma, yes — County Code Ch. 26 Tables 6-2/8-2 (Ord. 6532/2025) has passed review, so the setback envelope is drawn with its citation: 30/10/20 in RRD/LIA/LEA/DA and AR, 20/5/20 in RR/R1/R2, 15/5/10 in R3. The nine incorporated cities — Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Healdsburg and the rest — are not yet encoded, and the export resolves them to an honest null rather than borrowing the county table. Where a setback isn’t verified the sheet says so instead of drawing a line.
Does the base map say what the buildings on the parcel are?
Where the county’s digitised footprint layer is what draws, yes: those outlines are labeled with the county’s assessed use in its own vocabulary, prefixed with its name — “SONOMA: SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENCE” — because the county sometimes files a residence as something else, and that is a claim a designer needs to be able to check against a source. The 2013 lidar outlines that draw first carry no use, so most sheets show the label only on the older outlines the lidar did not replace, and a record with no use draws unlabelled rather than presumed to be a house. Ground-mounted solar arrays are filed as structures in the county data and are excluded.
How does it handle defensible space and fire-safe planting?
Lekua draws CAL FIRE Zone 0 / 1 / 2 defensible-space perimeters around the structures and tags every recommended native with the zones it’s suited to — using flammability data from Las Pilitas burn-time research and UCANR / CAL FIRE-aligned fire-safe lists.
Is the data current and reliable enough for submittals?
Layers are pulled live from county GIS, USGS, and CAL FIRE at export time, and any encoded setback table cites its source with a date. Everything is labeled “for planning reference — not for construction.” Verify against the current code and a stamped survey before submittal.
Start with a Sonoma address
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