General Plan

A general plan serves as a local government’s blueprint for how the city and/or county will grow and develop and includes seven mandatory elements: land use, transportation, conservation, noise, open space, safety, and housing.

The Town of Fairfax General Plan also includes an optional element specific to the mixed-use central area of the Town: the Town Center Element.

Each element is organized to present all the background and regulatory information in the beginning, followed by Goals, Objectives, Policies and Programs.

• Goals are statements of direction, stating where the Town is focusing efforts and attention, and towards what end.
• Objectives are more specific directives guiding the implementation of Goals.
• Policies are specific statements that are intended to guide future actions. They answer the questions of What and Why.
• Programs are the actions used to put into effect the policies of the element. Programs answer the questions of What, How, Where, and by Whom.

The Land Use Element provides a guide to the general public, the Council and Planning Commission, to appointed committees and boards and to the Town Manager, Planning Director and staff as to the ultimate pattern of development for the Town in the future.

The Land Use Element has the broadest scope of all of the General Plan elements. It plays a central role in presenting land use issues, and the policies that will influence those issues. The goals, objectives, policies and programs found in this element relate directly to all other elements. In the daily business of the Town, this element is usually the most visible and most often used. While all of the general plan elements are equal in importance, the Land Use Element is usually referred to as being most representative of the Town’s General Plan. Central to this element are the General Plan Map and the Zoning Map, both of which have a significant role in the daily decisions of the Town. The programs contained in this element influence the short- and long-term actions for the Town, including the yearly budget.

The Housing Element is distinct from the other elements as it is subject to detailed legal requirements regarding its content, particularly its policies and programs. The Housing Element is required, by state law, to be updated every five years, and must be reviewed and certified by the Department of Housing and Community Development. This requirement is symbolic of the state’s recognition that the availability of meaningful housing opportunities is critical to the community’s well-being and that cooperation between government and the private sector is important to the attainment of the state’s housing goals.

State law requires the Town to adequately plan to meet existing and projected housing needs, including its fair share of the regional demand. The state sees the Housing Element as part of its market-based strategy to increase the housing supply at all levels of income. In this element, the Town has identified some unique ways to meet the community’s goals while maintaining the integrity of the Town.

A city’s safety element establishes policies and programs to protect the community from risks associated with seismic, geologic, flood, and wildfire hazards, as well as from other concerns such as drought.

The current process underway will update the Safety Element to meet new requirements enacted under State law and to align it with the Town’s section of the updated Marin County Multi-Jurisdictional Local Hazard Mitigation Plan (MJHMP) adopted in 2024. For funding and other implications, it is important the MJHMP and the General Plan Safety Element are consistent with one another. Additionally, several other changes to the element will serve to make it consistent with housing element policies and more streamlined.

The Circulation Element is more than a transportation plan for vehicles. The Town’s substantial commitment to transit, bicycle and pedestrian systems is also reflected in this element. The Land Use Element and the Circulation Element are bound together by state law. This element also has direct relationships to the Housing, Open Space and Safety Elements. The goals, objectives, policies and programs of this element affect the Town’s physical, social and economic environment. Even though the Town is primarily built-out, changes to the existing circulation networks and systems are possible; and in some cases, particularly those related to transit, bicycle and pedestrian circulation, are preferred by the community.

The Town Center Element is an optional element, not required by State law that has been included in the General Plan as a result of ideas generated during the community- based workshops. This element is a subset of both the Land Use Element and the Circulation Element. This element is specific to the mixed-use central area of the Town, extending from the dual gateways of the Town at Sir Francis Drake and Center Boulevard at the San Anselmo border to the library at the northern end of the downtown area, including School Street Plaza. Also included is the area from Broadway along the Bolinas Road to the Town Hall and the 7-11, as well as Peri Park and the Women’s Club. The programs in this element will implement the Land Use Element and the Circulation Element when the creation of a “Town Center Plan” called for in this element is formulated and acted on.

The primary purpose of the Noise Element is to limit the exposure of the community to excessive levels of unwanted sound. In developing this element, noise levels and the extent of noise was analyzed and quantified through actual on-site measuring activities. The technical data was gathered and analyzed and a series of noise control policies and programs were developed that minimize the exposure of the community members to excessive and unwanted noise.

The policies and programs in the Noise Element that will serve as community guidelines for compliance with sound transmission control requirements. Of particular importance to the Town are the recommended construction noise mitigation measures, particularly in light of the bowl-like configuration of the landscape, and the typical construction and reconstruction patterns currently in effect. The Noise Element directly relates to the Land Use, Circulation¸ and Housing Elements.

The Conservation Element provides direction regarding the conservation, management and careful utilization of the Town’s natural resources, including the air around it. This element directly relates to the Open Space Element, and overlaps the requirements of the Land Use, Safety, and Circulation Elements. The most significant difference between this element and others is that it focuses primarily on the Town’s natural resources and systems. The most significant role of the Conservation Element is to establish policies and programs that recognize and reconcile the conflicting demands on both renewable and non-renewable resources while respecting the social and economic needs of the community.

The Open Space Element establishes a guide for the comprehensive and long-range preservation and conservation of key open space land around and throughout the Town. Next to the Land Use Element, this element is the broadest in scope, overlapping some of the other elements while including goals and policies that are central to the quality of life as clearly defined by the community. Included in this element is an inventory of the areas of open space around and in the Town that are seen as candidate parcels for preservation, conservation or restoration. The Open Space Element is also closely related to the Conservation Element, and taken together these two elements identify and strengthen the collective environmental-quality attitudes of the Town.