Fairfield City Council approves plan for train station community
FAIRFIELD – A vision for a community with up to 6,800 residences and such features as a train station, town plaza, shops, industrial area and 50-acre park won praise and approval Tuesday from the Fairfield City Council.
This community is to be near Peabody and Vanden roads, and is part of the city’s largest remaining planned growth area. Construction could take place over two decades.
The City Council approved a project environmental impact report and specific plan. It introduced as ordinances the necessary zoning laws and an agreement with the area’s major developers, and will take a final vote on these items at its Aug. 16 meeting. It did all of this by unanimous votes.
“This is really a great project,” Mayor Harry Price said. “It is well-planned and I would imagine it will be textbook-quality work.”
City Councilman John Mraz also offered his praise.
“It’s going to be a place where I think anybody can proudly live,” he said.
City Councilwoman Catherine Moy added to the praise.
“This is good for the town,” she said. “We have a train station going in. It (the new community) is going to be beautiful. It’s not like anything we’ve ever seen. Not in Fairfield.”
Twelve members of the public spoke. One wanted more time for the public to examine the agreement with major developers, another had transportation questions he said had answered by city staff and another expressed concerns about what will happen to the wildlife and rare plants in the area. Others praised the project.
There was no hint of the organized opposition that has often arisen over large, proposed development visions in Fairfield over the years, including a mid-1990s attempt to develop the Peabody Road area. The train station community will be within city growth boundaries approved by voters more than a decade ago.
When finished, the train station community will cost the city an estimated $10.05 million annually to provide police, fire and other services. City officials estimate it will generate at least $10.7 million through a combination of property taxes and fees, not counting the industrial area. A homeowner could pay an estimated $85 a month in homeowners association, landscape district and community facility district fees.
“My biggest plus on this is it’s going to pay for itself,” Mraz said.
Much of the 2,970-acre area is vacant land, though it also has businesses and is not quite a blank slate. Some of the properties have wetlands and vernal pools, including habitat for the rare Contra Costa goldfield flower. Vanden and Peabody roads are busy, major regional links between Fairfield and Vacaville.
Fairfield faced these and other challenges in planning the new community. The city will do such things as preserve 1,500 acres as open space and widen the major roads to handle the added traffic, including roads that will become part of the regional Jepson Parkway. The environmental impact report addresses these and other issues. Such funding sources as developer fees are to pay for the work.
A centerpiece of the new community will be a train station Fairfield plans to build on 10 acres near Vanden and Peabody roads. The station is to be surrounded by higher-density residences, as well as businesses and shops. Other parts of the planning area are to have single-family homes.
Reach Barry Eberling at 425-4646, ext. 232, or beberling@dailyrepublic.net
Short URL: http://www.dailyrepublic.com/?p=70835
Posted by Barry Eberling
on Jul 26 2011.
Filed under Fairfield, Local News, Top stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
Just like all the money the City poured into police firing range….
ANYTHING John Mraz says has no credibility….
Ugh! I’ll be laughing my tail off when the state cuts their share of the Cap. Corridor subsidy. Relink Suisun City with Fairfield – far quicker and more convenient train station right there and a boon to south central Fairfield. Will it pay for itself like lower green valley, or Paradise Valley or … ad infinitum? What schools will they close so they can get a quorom for whatever school they build out there? They’re wasting time and money locking us into a silly giveaway to Yarboroughs’ heirs and Premier. This thing is already dated and is economically infeasible now and for the next couple decades.
Council thinks, council does, typical. Where is water and safety going to come from? We don’t have enough of either to go around. Another burden upon us.
Roads are crowded as is?, Near schools? Have you tried getting a child there to school in the AM. decade of constructions = decades of traffic. Use money to support Education of Fairfiled’s youth.
Madness! Sheer folly! Fairfield’s own Field of Dreams: Build It and They Will Come. If we were awash in tax revenues, everyone had a job, no house was in foreclosure, and so forth, this would still be a piece of pie in the sky. A big lake is the centerpiece attraction but as CD said: Where is the water going to come from?
How ironic that eco-freaks’ pet AB32 is as responsible for this loss of intertown buffer and unnecessary sprawl as anything. It will share blame for the resulting traffic congestion. Per the bill, slap on a train station or a transit center – mass transit!! – and it’s A-OK to build a mini-city where none is needed. Or is Fairfield adding 10,000 or so permanent jobs in the next decade? Didn’t think so. The construction workers for traintown will leavetown when the work is over.
The construction workers will just come here from Mexico anyways so what difference would that make. So Mraz, all those city worker jobs that you have been contracting out, do you require the contractor to use “E-Verify” to prove that they have legal status?
What a silly idea, Unbuilt pads, foreclosed homes and a desire to build a train station no one will use. The developers come and the city is left to clean up the aftermath. Fairfield needs no more knew homes at present. Eventually all those homes built on streets named after Presidents will have to be replaced. Planning needs to go into those areas. Many families were raised in those homes. They are now old and very small as well as not very effecient. Let us not forget, the largest source of income generated for the area comes from Travis Air Force Base. They cannot input while the developers and slow growth arguable but when all is said and done. Base encroachment can be a huge issue and can devastate entire communities if the Military base moves on. Do not forget the SLEEPING GIANT TAFB.
Dumb, the developers are local. What makes you think the train station won’t be used? Suisun is very active. This will serve north Fairfield, Travis and Vacaville. Travis has already said they don’t have a problem with it.