Menlo residents deliver petitions to City Hall Menlo residents deliver petitions to City Hall (February 18, 2004)

By Rebecca Wallace

Almanac Staff Writer

Triumphantly wheeling cardboard boxes filled with petitions into City Hall, a group of Menlo Park residents announced February 11 that they had gathered enough signatures to have new home-building rules either overturned by the City Council or put on a future city ballot.

Planning Commissioner Kelly Fergusson said the group of volunteers had gathered more than 2,500 signatures. By law, they had had to amass about 1,700 signatures of registered Menlo Park voters by February 12, the date the new rules were set to take effect.

"It's a bad ordinance," she said. "We can do better."

After an initial count by the City Clerk's office, the signatures will be turned over to the San Mateo County registrar's office for verification. Then the council will have to decide whether to rescind the new rules or have the voters decide whether to do so.

The changes to the zoning ordinance, to which the council gave final approval with a 3-2 vote in January, have sparked scorching debate in Menlo Park.

Supporters of the tiered, rule-based framework for the approval process for new homes and major remodels say the plan is fair and will encourage residents to remodel aging homes. Opponents say the rules slash much-needed human discretion from the process and with it protection for neighbors' privacy and sunlight.

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