By Frank Egger
Special to the Ross Valley Reporter
Five decades of protecting Fairfax’s small town character and her ridgelines and open spaces is about to end.
Here’s what you need to know as I see it … and lived it.
1966 – The Fairfax City Council signs a contract with the County of Marin to produce the Fairfax Area General Plan.
1968 – The Fairfax City Council, with councilmembers Peter Arrigoni and Frank Egger taking the lead, approve Resolution # 827 adopting the Fairfax Area General Plan.
1972 –The State of California orders a moratorium on new development in Fairfax because Fairfax doesn’t have an approved Open Space Element.
1973 – Fairfax adopts a new Zoning Ordinance # 352 to protect ridgetops and ridgeline scenic corridors.
1973 – The State Division of Mines & Geology sends geologist Ted Smith to Fairfax to map every landslide in Town.
1973 – Fairfax hires the nationally known and leading environmental Planning and Land-use firm Wallace McHarg Roberts & Todd to prepare Fairfax’s 1st Open Space Element.
1974 – The Fairfax Town Council (Frank Egger initiated its title from “City” back to “Town”) approves Fairfax’s Open Space Element, an environmental reconnaissance of the entire Town.
1972 to 1982 – Fairfax amends its zoning ordinances to preserve, protect and restore Fairfax’s small town character, limit development and protect existing affordable housing and apartments.
1972 to 1991 – Fairfax is sued over zoning laws authored by Frank Egger. Four times Fairfax is challenged all the way to the California Supreme Court. Fairfax wins and creates new case law.
Now fast forward to 2023.
Fairfax has protected both private and public Open Space in our Town for over 50 years with large lot zoning modeled after the County of Marin’s A-60 Zoning in West Marin. Cluster development has been denied on Marin’s A-60 zoned properties and has been upheld.
Developers do not like large lot zoning, they want cluster zoning so they don’t have to install public roads, evacuation routes, and water and sewer lines too difficult to develop properties. The purpose of Marin’s A-60 zone and Fairfax’s UR-7 and 10 zones is to require one house on a 60- or a 7- or a 10-acre parcel and not allow clustering.
The Marin County Superior Court ordered settlement for the Fairfax Hills subdivision allowed the clustering of 20 units on 80 acres. Five of those units were on the Sleepy Hollow side of the ridge and the Triple C Ranch, represented by former supervisor Gary Giacomini, bought the rights to those five units. The Fairfax Town Council, led by Barbara Coler and Town Attorney Janet Coleson, is supporting a developer who is trying to build 34 more units on the mandated Open Space parcels. Wendy Baker and Frank Egger are two of the Fairfax Town Council participants from that litigation and are still with us in town.
Fairfax’s housing consultants, first hired was EMC and now Dyett & Bhatia, are being paid well over $1 million dollars to come up with these new housing plans. Many cities are pushing back but Fairfax is capitulating to the State’s demand for more housing even in WUI (Wildland Urban Interface) Zones. Dyett & Bhatia first set a density on almost every undeveloped parcel in Fairfax and are now proposing zoning amendments to allow cluster development of estate houses on our ridgeline scenic corridors and Upland Residential Zones by overturning Fairfax’s protective zoning in place since 1973.
BACKGROUND
Technical amendments have been prepared for the zoning ordinance with additions to Chapter 17.060 (Ridgeline Development, Chapter 17.072 Hill Area Residential Development Overlay Zone), and Chapter 17.124 (UR Upland Residential Zone). Together, these amendments implement Program 2-D in the Housing Element Action Plan: Standards for Clustered Development on Large Sites.
The basic idea being to expand development opportunities for market rate housing.
A few of the parcels up for new clustered market rate housing developments, a.k.a. multi-million dollar estate houses, in violation of Fairfax’s current UR-7 & 10 Zoning plus other public and private open spaces are shown on Dyett & Bhatia’s new parcel map.
The 10 acres of the Meadowland subdivision’s private Open Space, as approved as a condition of development by the Fairfax Town Council in the 1960’s, on the ridge between Glen Drive homes and the Canon Tennis & Swim Club; 40 acres of Marin County Superior Court’s ordered open space as a result of the Fairfax Hills Litigation Settlement described today as 615 Oak Manor Drive; lands at the top of Redwood and Scenic Roads; the Ross property off of Toyon Drive above Hickory Road & Cypress Drive; the top of Fawn Drive above Deer Park Villa; parcels between Meadow Way and Bolinas Road; parcels fronting Crest Road over to Francis & adjacent to Sky Ranch; a parcel at the end of Pine Drive; a ridgetop parcel next to the Wall property; if the Wall property is not purchased for open space, it will be included too.
Highrise Development coming to Fairfax will be overriding Fairfax’s height ordinance at School Street Plaza. Proposed is a Redevelopment Project, a 175 unit 5 to 7 story highrise condo/apartment complex with minimal off-street parking because of the closeness of the Fairfax bus stop. All of the mom-pop businesses will be gone including the Marin Alliance. The Fairfax business district is very small and we need to keep what businesses we have downtown.
In 2021, when former Fairfax planning commissioner and current Ross Valley School District Board president Shelley Hamilton rewrote sections of Fairfax’s General Plan deleting all references to Small Town Character and it was approved by the Fairfax Town Council, the handwriting was on the wall.
If the Fairfax Town Council adopts Dyett & Bhatia’s proposed Zoning Ordinance at an up-and-coming meeting and approves the CEQA required Environmental Impact Report and the new Housing Element with highrise at School Street Plaza and allows open spaces and ridgeline scenic corridors to be developed, we won’t recognize Fairfax in ten years.
Be vigilant. Attend Fairfax Town Council meetings.
(Frank Egger served on the Fairfax Town Council for 40 years and was mayor 7 times.)
thank you frank- what you don’t talk about which is up to those of us who supported you- is the oust egger campaign led by the fairfax civic league with david weinsoff and other residents and some non-residents at the helm- some who served on the council with you. i’ll bet they are all hitting themselves on the head over their stupidity these days as they watch the developers take over- unless of course- they have a vested interest in it going down, as you describe.