To Mayor Cutrano and Council Members Coler, Hellman, Ackerman and Blash:
For over 50 years, Fairfax has protected both private and public open space with large lot zoning modeled after the County of Marin’s A-60 zoning in West Marin. Why isn’t the Planning Commission and Fairfax Town Council protecting the established interests of our town? Dyett & Bhatia are proposing zoning amendments to allow cluster development of estate houses on our ridgelines, scenic corridors and Upland Residential Zones by overturning Fairfax's protective zoning which has been in place since 1973. Cluster developments have been previously challenged and denied on Marin's A-60 zoned properties.
Some of the parcels shown on Dyett & Bhatia's map for new clustered market rate housing are multi-million-dollar estate houses, in violation of Fairfax's current zoning. Why is the Fairfax Town Council is supporting a developer who is trying to build 34 more units on the mandated Open Space parcels?
I am fully opposed to any zoning changes promoting clustered housing developments or the development of Open Space parcels!
Our legislators have steadily dismantled local authority and transferred it to developer/investors with the hope that the private sector will step in and develop “affordable housing”. This false narrative does not increase affordability. Current housing legislation is promoting market-rate housing. It supports investor profits and assures “builder’s remedy”, ignoring community experience, history and wisdom and the desires of local residents.
Housing isn’t unaffordable because of its cost, it’s unaffordable because people don’t make enough money to be able to afford it. Some say housing costs are rising because we have not built enough, but affordability affects more than just housing for the average middle-class family.
Affordability affects all things.
According to Marin Housing, median income for 4-person household in Marin County in 2023 is $175,000. To be considered low income, a family of four must earn $148,650. A single person is considered low income if they earn $104,100. That means you may not qualify for low-income affordable housing if you don’t earn that much money. How many cost-burdened Fairfax residents does this eliminate?
With the high cost of construction, state budget deficits, the high cost of building and upgrading aging infrastructure, destruction of existing zoning and ignoring local planning mandates, the inevitable result will be population decreases, higher taxes and increasingly higher costs of living in California.
Unfortunately, “affordable housing” cannot be socially engineered into convenient rhetoric or progressive ideology. Please be respectful of the many years of responsible planning that have preserved Fairfax. Please do not forever alter the town we love with short-sighted decisions! Our town is not for sale.
Teliha Draheim, Fairfax resident 28 years