Editorial: Fairfax-trust connection in push to obtain Wall property is an open-space win for Marin

Fairfax’s long-standing goal of saving the 100-acre Wall property, an undeveloped ridgeline that’s long been one a scenic backdrop of the town, is getting closer to becoming a reality.

The Town Council endorsed an agreement with the Marin Open Space Trust, supporting its plan to raise $2.8 million to acquire the property that stretches behind the north side of downtown and has long been a popular site for hikers and habitat for wildlife. The site is also believed to be a Native American tribal cultural resource.

Fairfax faces the same state mandates as other municipalities to allow the building of more housing units, but a developer’s plans to build 10 homes on the site was hardly the affordable housing the town and Marin needs.

When the developer gave up his plans, the trust saw the opportunity to save the site as open space late last year and entered into a sales agreement with the land’s owners, Marinda Heights LLC. The nonprofit has raised funds and pledges to put it on a promising track of meeting the October deadline set to complete the purchase.

In a letter to the state Coastal Conservancy, Mayor Barbara Coler called the property a “jewel of Fairfax.”

Supervisor Katie Rice, whose district covers the Ross Valley, has supported local, county, state and private funding for the acquisition, stressing its importance in connecting to other open space lands in the area.

The conservancy is being asked to contribute $500,000 to the initiative. “In the current environment, future pressure for residential development will remain intense and the loss of valuable natural, visual and recreational resources will be threatened and eventually lost unless this acquisition is completed,” conservancy staff wrote, recommending the funding.

Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, and Assemblyman Damon Connolly, D-San Rafael, have also urged state funding for the acquisition.

Besides meeting a long-standing community goal of saving the ridgeline from development, the acquisition also reflects the importance of the trust and its success in playing a timely role to secure purchase agreements when lands on the county’s open space “shopping list” become available and then rallying the varied funding to complete the acquisition.

Buying the Wall site (once owned by Dr. Alan Wall) was the scene of age-old attempts to build homes on the property until late last year when a developer had to abandon his plans. The land reverted to his lenders who contacted the town about buying the property.

The Marin Open Space Trust was poised to act on the town’s behalf.

For more than two decades, the town had designated the land as potential open space. It is also on the Association of Bay Area Governments’ “priority conservation area list,” which is made up of Bay Area locations recommended for protection of natural habitat and preservation as open space.

Making that happen takes more than having it on a list.

“There was no guarantee this was ever going to be possible,” said Fairfax Councilmember Chance Cutrano, who voted in support of the pact with MOST, a major legal step toward public acquisition.

It looks very promising that achieving the community’s long hoped for goal of preserving the Wall land for public open space, for generations today and to come, is going to be fulfilled.