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The California Department of Housing and Community Development asked Menlo Park to revise its housing element for a second time. Housing advocates say the city may not have far to go in getting its plan for thousands of new units approved.
Menlo Park got its state-mandated housing element in under the wire, adopting the 2023-2031 housing element on deadline day, Jan. 31. The City Council approved it on a 4-1 vote, with Drew Combs opposed.
The state requires cities to plan for future building with an eye toward balancing jobs and housing in a document known as a housing element. Menlo Park’s housing target, also known as the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA), says the city must plan for close to 3,800 new housing units by 2031.
‘I think Menlo Park has been moving in the right direction.’
Jeremy Levine, Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County
The city’s current housing element plans for 7,185 units, 3,518 of which are designated as affordable. The previous RHNA cycle required planning for 2,946 units of housing.
While the housing element requires another try, Jeremy Levine, the policy manager for the Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County (HLC) said that the city is on the right track.
“I wouldn’t say something went wrong so much as there are more steps to be taken,” Levine said. “Instead of like, raking Menlo Park over the coals, they made progress.”
Levine pointed to the 345 affordable units on city-owned parking lots and the tenant protections outlined in the housing element as signs of the significant progress that the Menlo Park City Council made before turning in the second version.
At the April 26 meeting, Council member Cecilia Taylor said she wanted the city to take another look at its below market-rate (BMR) formula. She said monthly rent for a BMR unit runs anywhere from $2,900 to $3,500 and she wants to try to make them more affordable.
“Is there … something that we can use within our tool house to make these units that are not affordable, more affordable,” Taylor said.
Levine said that the city needs to reexamine its policies in order to make building more appealing and feasible, particularly rules that require at least a 20,000-square-foot lot to build, even in areas where properties of that size don’t exist.
“You can’t build anything there anymore,” Levine said. “They’ve just banned housing along a large portion of that area; they should be getting rid of that stuff.”
When it comes to repercussions, Levine said that builder’s remedy was too experimental to really know what to expect. Levine said that he didn’t see builder’s remedy applications becoming a problem, but it was more likely that a city would end up being sued for non-compliance. Menlo Park, however, is unlikely to face that risk.
“(A lawsuit) is unlikely to happen in Menlo Park, as long as the city continues to keep working on putting really good policies into the housing element, then moving in the right direction,” Levine said. “I think Menlo Park has been moving in the right direction, and the best way to avoid getting sued is working to get a housing element in good faith.”
Menlo Park has scheduled to review the latest version of the housing element in mid-June and resubmit the element to the state following a public review period in late June.
Change of plans: Research campus to leave Menlo Park, make way for more housingJune 12, 2026 6:46 pm
Are any other homeowners concerned that the City Council is pushing to exceed the state required housing by 89% – no wonder the state is jubilant.
There are approximately 14k units existing today so their plan represents a ~50% increase in our housing units, in 8 years!
I realize MP’s Planning Commission and City Council are filled predominantly by housing and densification proponents but these numbers are ridiculous. Homeowners wanting to protect Menlo from the Commission and Council need to voice their concerns.
The only way housing is ever going to be “balanced” is if the city stops approving new office space.
Menlo Voter has that right! There is an enormous imbalance of office space and housing, and the current Council has made that worse with its approvals of large projects that did not provide adequate housing.
Ideally the Council would rezone office spaces to allow conversion to housing. That is the only foreseeable path to a better balance.
It goes without saying that the SRI project will worsen the shortage unless the Council requires substantially less office space or a balance of housing and need for housing
.
FYI, proposed in Palo Alto: https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2023/04/21/new-housing-proposal-looks-to-aid-palo-alto-teachers
If my research is correct, this is a ~7000sf lot. This is a truly all-affordable (deed restricted) MR housing project targeted at incomes of 120% AMI or lower. It requires
1.) 255 du/acre density!!!!
2.) A benevolent(?) for profit-developer willing to forego maximal returns (he’s probably filing for LIHTC credits)
3.) Deed restrictions on ALL units to protect would-be tenants from having to compete with higher income tenants.
4.) “families” that are willing to live in studios or 1BR units that are very small.
5.) waiving many city planning requirements including parking, height, density etc.
This project is a real example of market rate “affordable” housing, and bullets 1-5 are what’s required economically to house incomes of 120% AMI and less.
7000 sf is lot size of a “typical” R1S home. R1S neighborhoods have a density of approximately 5 du/acre.
Does anyone truly believe that putting 44 “families” on a single 7000sf lot in living spaces of 500 sf with or without a bedroom is the new American Dream? Is this the crowning achievement of progressive housing policy?
From Pro-publico: “When private equity becomes your landlord.” https://www.propublica.org/article/when-private-equity-becomes-your-landlord
Relevant for two reasons:
1.) The for-profit apartment industry is changing with private equity firms doing much of the new building. Their aim is to extract maximal rent flows to sell entire buildings to Wall Street investment firms at the highest price. (Who must then retain those flows in order to make the purchase pay off.)
2.) It cites Greystar as an example. Greystar is building up a storm in RWC and Menlo Park.
@MenloVoter writes “The only way housing is ever going to be ‘balanced’ is if the city stops approving new office space.”
I agree completely but the more immediate issue is that the City Council and Planning Commission are planning to exceed MP’s state-required new housing units (RHNA) by 89% within the next eight years. In addition to partnering with nearby cities to push back on the state, we should be targeting to meet our RHNA rather than exceed it by 89% which will result in even greater increases in traffic, crime, and unplanned infrastructure costs.
“While the housing element requires another try, Jeremy Levine, the policy manager for the Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County (HLC) said that the city is on the right track.”
Jeremy Levine is four years out of college with little-to-no development experience and has been in his position for just over a year, and he is the one explaining what is acceptable from the City of Menlo Park? The inmates have fully taken over the asylum.
@MPFather “[Menlo Park] is planning to exceed MP’s state-required new housing units (RHNA) by 89% within the next eight years.”
Not sure, but maybe. I don’t claim to be up on today’s RHNA/HE requirements, but I thought HCD required cities to “overzone” their housing pipeline to meet the quota. If the quota is 1000 you need to show plausible zoning say for 1500.
@PH easy fix, repeal Article 34 and let the state build thousands of low income units that we can mix with medium density mixed use housing. Add rapid bus lanes up and down 101 and ECR. The solutions are within reach and blueprints exist to build them.
@Michael “@PH easy fix, … let the state build thousands of low income units”
Good luck with that.
“The Costs of Affordable Housing Production: …” https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/LIHTC_Construction_Costs_March_2020.pdf
“In … 2016, California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) reported that
California’s shortfall of subsidized housing units—affordable to those who earn 80 percent or less of the median income where they live—was about 1.7 million housing units. … closing this shortfall through new construction would cost in excess of $250 billion in public subsidies, though the report also noted: “There is a good chance the actual cost could be higher.
That caveat now seems prescient. Between 2016 and 2019, the costs to develop a new affordable unit under the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program have increased from $425,000 per unit to more than $480,000 per unit, an increase of 13 percent in just four years … . Costs per square foot have increased by 30 percent … reaching $700 per square foot in 2019. A report by the federal … (GAO) found that average development costs for new LIHTC projects in California were the highest in the nation, eclipsing those in New York City.
The research shows that hard construction costs—specifically the costs of material
and labor—are the primary driver of rising development costs. The shortage in the
construction labor market and higher prices for general contractors ([and] subcontractors …) is affecting affordable housing development—just as this
shortage impacts market-rate development. The research also highlights the importance
of other costs, including local development fees, lengthy entitlement processes, parking requirements, prevailing wages or local hire requirements, and state and local design regulations (including those that require more sustainable building techniques.)
PH:
Don’t confuse Michael with the facts. It is quite clear that even government supported housing is unaffordable. Not to mention to suggest more housing is going to somehow suddenly fix the homeless problem is disingenuous or naïve at best. When the majority of the homeless are mentally ill or addicts or both, simply putting them in a house is not going to fix the problem. These people are unable to care for themselves.
@menlovoter sorry the facts don’t support your libertarian narrative. The majority of homeless are in fact just folks, many of them children, who cannot afford housing. @PH housing, like transit and utilities should not be a for profit endeavor. We need to have the State build at scale low income housing that we can have private capital build around it or better yet allow the State to build social housing. There are blueprints all over the world that show us how to do this but we choose to go down a path to see if 1 person can have all the money.
Michael:
I have personal experience dealing with homeless people and I can tell you that you are mistaken. The majority of homeless are mentally ill, addicts or both. If you don’t believe me go out and find someone you’d be willing to allow to move into your home. Walk the talk. In case you missed it, state built housing is not affordable in this state. The cost is too high. Not to mention is violates the state constitution and that is very unlikely to change.
@menlovoter In case you missed it, your anecdote does not represent the actual data. The State has not been allowed to build housing since the late 50’s because of Article 34 of the State Constitution, in case you missed this fact as well.
Michael:
I know about Article 34 and you’re dreaming if you think it’s going to be repealed. Which brings us back to the state not building housing and it being too expensive for others to build it so that it is “affordable”. Seems to me we have too many people in this state.
Care to share a link to the data you keep quoting about who makes up the homeless population?
Michael:
Since you weren’t able to provide a link to support your claims, I went and found information on the subject. From a white paper by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. Funny thing, it doesn’t support your contention.
“Appendix Table A.1. contains estimates for the prevalence of mental illness and drug addiction among the homeless. The prevalence is particularly high among the chronically homeless, over 75 percent of whom have substance abuse or a severe mental illness (Kuhn and Culhane 1998; Poulin et al. 2010; Ellen Lockard Edens, Mares, and Rosenheck 2011). Powerful drugs such as P2P methamphetamine induce psychosis, the symptoms of which are sometimes confused with schizophrenia.
https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/homelessness-california-causes-and-policy-considerations#:~:text=The%20prevalence%20is%20particularly%20high,Culhane%201998%3B%20Poulin%20et%20al.
Don’t believe everything you think.
MV if you’re correct and quoting that study sounds like you are and 75 % of homeless are on drugs Then while CBP works as administrators processing millions of illegal crossings. Then literally “tons” of illegal drugs are smuggled through ports of entry, and points in between killing our children.
Maybe crack down on both including sending people back. Renistate the “Stay in Mexico policy” and focus on illegal drugs. Saving lives. Also, fewer drugs make it more difficult for the homeless to get drugs. It’s Not that complicated.
It’s what CBP has been trained to do, not be paper pushers.
All the while the Cartels are literally making “Billions of dollars” extorting the migrants and selling drugs. They must look at us, shake their heads and say “What fools”
Temporary housing built specifically for the homeless to get back on their feet should be a drug-free zone.
It’s not fair to those following the rules. Especially to women and young families who don’t deserve the violence that goes with rampant hardcore drug abuse.
“Temporary housing built specifically for the homeless to get back on their feet should be a drug-free zone.
It’s not fair to those following the rules. Especially to women and young families who don’t deserve the violence that goes with rampant hardcore drug abuse.”
Aye, and there’s the rub. Since most of the homeless are addicts, mentally ill or both, they don’t want to follow the rules, so they won’t go into housing that is provided for them. But don’t tell the homeless industrial complex, they’re making millions off the lie that the addicts and mentally ill will go into the shelters.
Westbrook:
What you are talking about is prohibition, which we already have. It didn’t work with alcohol in the 20’s and it hasn’t worked for the las 50 years with drugs. It just creates a criminal class. Legalize drugs and take all of the money spent on drug enforcement and use it for treatment and prevention programs. The money will be better spent as it might actually do something. It’s not doing anything now. And that is coming from an ex police officer that spent ten years arresting people for possessing, using and selling drugs.
The 1.8M shortfall of subsidized units for incomes < 80% AMI and the ~170k “homeless” are two different populations with different needs.
This article is about HCD enforcement of RHNA quotas which really addresses neither, but “hopes” to address the first.
For reasons discussed, HCD mandates upzoning on cities that eventually become luxury units. It pretends high-density will lead to subsidized, deed restricted “affordable” units, particularly to extremely, very and low income families.
It’s a trickle-down housing policy. Some deed restricted units do get built but nowhere close to the amount needed, and more rarely at the extremely and very low categories.
High wage concentration in supercities is not unique to California, but it has become extreme, and it is by policy. California electeds have engaged in long term policies that benefit future higher-wage Californians at the expense of current lower-wage Californians. Look no further than Willow Village or SRI.
“Coastal Cities Priced Out Low-Wage Workers. Now College Graduates Are Leaving, Too.”
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/15/upshot/migrations-college-super-cities.html#commentsContainer