Planning Commission Sends 4,000-Unit Fairview Plan to Council 4-2, Over Objections From Most Speakers in the Room
- Will Setka
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
After more than three hours of public comment, the Costa Mesa Planning Commission voted 4-2 Monday night to recommend that the City Council certify the Environmental Impact Report and adopt the Fairview Developmental Center (FDC) Specific Plan, clearing the way for a project that allows a minimum of 2,300 housing units and up to 4,000 on the former state hospital site. Commissioners Angely Andrade Vallarta, David Martinez, Karen Klepack and Chair Jeffrey Harlan voted yes. Commissioners Robert Dickson and Vice Chair Jon Zich voted no.
The vote came after roughly two-thirds of the more than 30 people who spoke during public comment raised concerns about the plan or asked the commission to send it back for revisions. Fewer than a third spoke in clear support of moving the plan forward as staff presented it.
By the numbers
Units: 2,300 minimum, up to 4,000 maximum
Open space: 14 acres minimum, publicly accessible
Commercial: 10,000 to 35,000 square feet
Site area: 110 acres total; 15 acres held by the state for an Emergency Operations Center, 15 acres retained by DDS, leaving 80 developable acres
Secondary access: Required through the Costa Mesa Country Club golf course once the project reaches 2,300 units
Estimated buildout: 12 to 20 years, with staff estimating roughly 18 years for full completion
Next stop: Costa Mesa City Council, tentatively Sept. 15, 2026
What most speakers told the commission
Public comment ran long, and speakers returned again and again to three themes: traffic and access concentrated on Harbor Boulevard, the loss of open space and golf course acreage, and a feeling that the unit count kept climbing while public benefits did not.
Steve Smith, a Costa Mesa resident running for City Council in District 5, told commissioners the city was "putting the cart before the horse" on a plan that isn't well thought out, citing traffic along with unresolved questions about schools and water. He asked the commission to "consider thoughtful revisions which will make this plan better for Costa Mesa."
Resident Cynthia McDonald asked commissioners to weigh "whether this plan creates a balanced community or maximizes housing at the expense of everything else the residents want and need," pointing out that the buildable acreage kept shrinking — from 115 acres to 95 to 80 — while the unit count kept climbing toward 4,000.
Several speakers focused on the secondary access road planned through the municipal golf course. High school golf coaches Scott Tarno and Michael Jacobs both asked the commission to find an alternative route, warning the road would effectively end 36-hole play at Mesa Linda. Southern California Golf Association public affairs director Kevin Fitzgerald echoed that concern, saying the road appeared "less than ideal" and questioning whether the city had fully studied other options.
Commercial real estate executive Scott Grady presented research arguing that Marramac Way, currently treated as private and emergency-only, may in fact carry a public easement dating to the 1960s, predating the Harbor Village lease that restricts its use — a claim staff said it had not fully resolved.
Resident Jen Tanaka, calling in by phone, told commissioners that any unit count the city's own feasibility analysis shows penciling out is going to be well above 3,500 units, and that a project of that size is, sooner or later, "the functional end of the golf course as it exists today." She suggested commissioners could decline to recommend the plan or send it back for further negotiation with the state, saying their recommendation "is advisory and I think that's the best permission anyone can give you not to wave this through."
Resident Tim Cromwell called 4,000 units "crazy density." Resident Bob Abbott said the commission seemed to be "worshiping at the altar of feasibility" rather than asking what's good for the city.
A smaller but vocal group of speakers supported moving the plan forward, arguing Costa Mesa faces a genuine housing and affordability crisis. Those speakers claimed it would house teachers, nurses, police officers and other working residents currently priced out of the city, and pushing back on what they characterized as misinformation about who would live there.
Why the majority voted yes
Commissioner Andrade Vallarta, who made the motion to approve staff's recommendation, argued the city has little choice but to move forward given the state's housing mandate and the limited number of sites where the city can legally build multifamily housing. "The reality is that we don't have the capacity to rezone everything," she said, noting most of the city's single-family neighborhoods remain off-limits to added density. She also pointed to the lack of parks in her own district: "I live in my district and I only have two parks, and both of them are currently being developed. So I have no parks right now."
Commissioner Martinez framed his vote around housing supply and generational access to the city, telling colleagues the project would take roughly two decades to build out but was necessary "for the grocery store workers, police officers, firefighters and recent college graduates 20 years from now." He closed his remarks simply: "Vote in favor of this plan."
Chair Harlan, who cast the deciding vote against a motion to delay the plan, framed the commission's role narrowly. "It's not to have the perfect plan. It's not to even have a compromise plan. It's just to give our advice," he said, adding that he didn't think additional time would change the commission's conclusions and that the City Council was the appropriate body to weigh a delay. He described the site earlier in the process as "the repository of everybody's hopes and fears," acknowledging the competing pressures on the commission from both housing advocates and residents worried about traffic, parks and the golf course. "We have these competing interests within our community," Harlan said. "Layer on top of that our city council's priorities, which are affordable housing and environmental sustainability and fiscal health. And this is very complicated."
Why the minority voted no
Before the final vote, Commissioner Dickson made a substitute motion to postpone adoption of the specific plan, re-engage the state and the Department of General Services on the affordable housing percentage, reassess the plan's cumulative traffic impacts, and revisit intersections projected to fall to a failing level of service. That motion failed 4-2, with only Dickson and Vice Chair Zich voting yes.
Dickson argued the plan had drifted from what residents originally asked for. "This plan clearly is not driven by the community preferences," he said, pointing to the original 2020 council vision of roughly 1,500 units and arguing the jump toward 4,000 units was driven by a financial feasibility analysis the commission had never scrutinized in detail. On the plan's open space numbers, which fall well short of the city's long-standing parkland benchmark, he was blunt: "We're going backwards. We're going into the hole on Parkland."
Vice Chair Zich had pressed staff earlier in the meeting on unresolved questions, including whether the Marramac Way lease and easement issues raised by public commenters had been fully investigated, and whether the golf course reconfiguration had been vetted by an outside design expert whose analysis the commission had never actually seen.
What happens next
The Planning Commission's vote is a recommendation only. The item is tentatively scheduled to go before the Costa Mesa City Council on Sept. 15, 2026, where council members will decide whether to certify the EIR and formally adopt the specific plan. Public comment will again be open at that hearing.
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