Former Fairfax Mayor Lew Tremaine wants to slam the brakes on plans to build a six-story, 243-unit apartment building on School Street Plaza, a nearly two-acre downtown site at 95 Broadway.

He filed an appeal of the town’s approval of the plans. The problem is the town hasn’t approved it.

Tremaine is no uninformed novice when it comes to the legalities of land-use planning. But he may not be up to speed where the plan stands in that process.

He’s already treading into a process that has gone through tectonic legal changes where the state has rewritten local municipalities’ long-held governance of land-use planning in order to promote the construction of new housing.

Those changes have laid the foundation for what could be the single largest development in the history of a small town known for slow growth.

In Fairfax, where fewer than 100 new residential units have been built since 2000, the state has set a quota — if not mandate — that 490 new units be built by 2031.

It’s all part of the push to undermine local control in order to build housing needed across California.

That push set the stage for limiting the town’s power to reject the proposed apartment building, but Tremaine is poised to challenge that.

When it comes to housing, the site offers some important benefits.

It is in the heart of downtown, close to shopping, restaurants and public transit.

But at six stories — four stories of apartments and retail space above two stories of parking — its size has been a rallying cry for critics of the current town council, including two who are being targeted in a recall petition.

The council’s designation of the site for housing fueled the politics that led to the replacement of two council incumbents in November’s election. They were replaced by the return of two former mayors, Frank Egger and Mike Ghiringhelli.

Now there’s a recall petition seeking to remove council members Stephanie Hellman and Lisel Blash.

Similarly out-of-scale development proposals are popping up across Marin.

Controversy over the School Street Plaza plan should prompt Town Hall officials to be as transparent as possible regarding its determination that plans are legally complete, and about changes in the planning process.

Tremaine’s appeal is evidence that there may be a need for greater clarity.

His appeal claims that the project does not qualify for the state’s provision for ministerial approval, which allows local OK from staff alone with no need for planning commission or town council reviews or public hearings and citizen participation — civic involvement for which Fairfax is well known.

The site is zoned for housing and the developer is using state-approved bonuses to increase the size and scope of its proposal.

It is unlikely that Tremaine will shelve his appeal.

He questions whether the plans can be approved ministerially.

Some of the questions he raises will likely have to be resolved by lawyers — the developer’s, the town’s and his.

The rules have changed and Sacramento appears to be ready to enforce them. Apparently, developers are ramping up to take advantage of them.

There’s little debate over whether the housing is needed. Like other towns across Marin, Fairfax needs more affordable housing. The question of possible sites has been answered by the town, but Sacramento is driving the answers of how many units and the size of the developments.

The days of municipalities requiring costly environmental impact reports; a public hearing process that consumes months, if not years; and, in some cases, rejection from local politicians have faded. Sacramento has rewritten the rules.

In Fairfax, the School Street Plaza proposal is its example.

There is a great deal of local public interest in the proposal and the town’s process. The appeal is evidence of that. Town Hall should make responding to that interest with transparency and clarity a top priority.