Sonoma, CA Home Business: Home Daycare (2026)

020 defines a "Large family day care home" as "a day care facility located in a single-family residence where an occupant of the residence provides care and supervision for seven to 14 children," and a "Small family day care home" as one "where an occupant of the residence provides care and supervision for eight or fewer children," with children under age 10 who live in the home counted toward the total. 050 lists "Child Day Care: Small Family Day Care Home" as requiring a use permit (UP) in the R-R, R-L, R-S, R-M and R-H districts and as not allowed ("–") in R-HS (Hillside), R-O and R-P; the corresponding "Large Family Day Care Home" row shows UP in R-L, R-S, R-M, R-H and R-O, and "–" in R-HS and R-R.

A separate "Child Day Care Center" row, for larger nonresidential facilities, carries its own UP requirement in most residential zones. Because this table treats a small home-based day care as a discretionary use-permit matter in five of the city's eight residential zones, operators should know that California Health and Safety Code provisions governing family day care homes require cities to treat a small family day care home (eight or fewer children) as a residential use of property, generally without a discretionary permit process, and give large family day care homes a ministerial or administrative permitting path with only narrow exceptions.

Where Sonoma's printed table and that state framework conflict, the state rule controls; the table entry quoted here is the city's own printed text, not a statement that the discretionary process survives a state-law challenge.