The Town of Fairfax is holding a public meeting on Thursday, August 26, 2010 from 7:00 PM-9:00 PM at the Women's Club to discuss the draft Housing Element of the General Plan. The joint meeting of the Planning Commission, General Plan Advisory Committee and the Affordable Housing Committee will “roll out” the draft 2010 Housing Element.
The agenda for this meeting is up on the Town’s web page. Town staff & its consultant will be presenting the draft 2010 Housing Element document; i.e., how it is organized - along with the major opportunity sites and the strategy for meeting the Town’s fair share of 108 affordable housing units over the next five years. In addition, we will be presenting the recommendations for which zones in Town should allow emergency homeless shelters “by-right” (per SB 2).
The major opportunity sites and/or zoning changes that we will be covering at Thursday night’s public meeting are as follows:
Rezoning the Lutheran Church property at 2626 Sir Francis Drake Boulevard from Upland Residential 7 du/acre (UR -7) to Planned District Development (PDD) and thereby making it possible to accommodate forty (40) units of “senior housing”;
Rezoning the “Olema/Mandarin Garden” property at 2170 Sir Francis Drake Boulevard from Light Commercial (CL) to Planning District Development and thereby making it possible to accommodate twenty (20) units of “work-force” housing;
Rezoning School Street Plaza from Light Commercial (CL) to Planned District Development (PDD); thereby making it possible to accommodate a mix of uses including housing and/or a new school at this site;
Rezoning all Highway Commercial (CH) to Central Commercial (CC), which will allow housing on second floors “by right” instead of requiring “conditional use permits” thereby making it possible to accommodating at least twenty one (21) units of affordable housing spread out over multiple properties and acres – and within a mixed-income range of housing;
Rolling over the Second Unit Amnesty Ordinance without the requirement of fire suppression sprinkler systems, thereby incentivizing for formalization of at least twenty seven (27) second units (i.e., the 25% maximum allowable credit for second units to be counted as part of the State mandated 108 unit share of affordable housing for the Town of Fairfax); and
Allowing Emergency Homeless Shelters within the Central Commercial (CC) zone, and on public and quasi public properties “by right”; thereby meeting the new State requirement to specifically allow shelters “by right” in at least one zone within the Town of Fairfax (per SB 2).
Please note that in addition to the “roll out” of the draft 2010 Housing Element this Thursday evening, the public will have another chance to comment on the draft 2010 Housing Element at the Council’s September 1, 2010 meeting - as part of the General Plan update report. And likewise, the public will have still another chance to comment when the “packaged” General Plan is presented to Council for adoption (pending environmental review) – after the “Super Committee” completes its final review of the entire 2010 General Plan in the fall.
