Tree ordinance rewrite still stalled after a year of talk
A trove of agenda postings that surfaced this week lays out, in granular detail, just how long Fairfax's Tree Advisory Committee has been sitting on a rewrite of the town's tree-removal ordinance. The idea — modeling Fairfax's rules on San Anselmo's revised ordinance — has been a standing discussion item since at least March 2025, and as of the committee's most recent agenda in March 2026, it still has no draft to vote on.
By its November 17, 2025 meeting, the committee had at least sketched what a rewrite might cover: heritage and desirable tree status, arborist report requirements, dead or diseased tree certification, nesting-season rules, a ban on affixing items to trees, root protection zones, replacement standards, and fee structures for owners and contractors. Nothing has come back as an adoptable draft since.
A second, related question has been parked even longer: what a homeowner must legally do when Ross Valley Fire or the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority orders a tree removed for fire safety. That item has rolled from meeting to meeting since at least August 2025, pending committee member Tom Childers' promised sit-down with the Town Manager — a meeting that, as of March 2026, still hadn't happened.
Both items are now teed up again for the committee's April 27, 2026 meeting, roughly where they stood a year earlier — even as the committee has kept approving individual removal permits almost every month in the meantime.