This week: One last chance to comment on Menlo Park's latest housing plan before the City Council's vote

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Menlo Park City Hall on April 16, 2020. Photo by Magali Gauthier.

Menlo Park’s housing element is coming back around to the City Council next week, but first, the document is up for public review through Friday, Nov. 3.

One of the final steps before resubmitting the housing element to the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) is a seven-day review period for the public to view the latest changes and leave comments. City staff has compiled a summary of modifications made in response to the HCD’s and City Council’s requests. To comment on the document, residents can contact Assistant Community Development Director Deanna Chow at dmchow@menlopark.gov by 5 p.m. on Nov. 3.

The housing element update is a state-mandated process that occurs every eight years — and the state is strongly enforcing penalties for failing to comply. California requires cities to plan for future development with an eye toward balancing jobs and housing. Menlo Park’s housing target, also known as the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA), says the city must plan for close to 3,800 net new housing units by 2031, and show how it will accomplish it in a document known as a housing element.

Menlo Park first submitted its housing element to the HCD in July 2022, but state housing officials didn’t accept it and sent it back for revisions. A second attempt was shot down by the state in April. The third and most recent iteration of the housing element was submitted in June and rejected in August.

“This is a fantastic opportunity for community members to see the changes being made in the housing element based on comments that we’ve gotten,” Council member Maria Doerr said. “I’m feeling positive about this round of the housing element.”

Among the issues that the state took with Menlo Park’s latest housing element version was that housing opportunities were unequally distributed between the city’s east and west sides.

Doerr said that a big part of making good on the housing element is the ongoing conversations about zoning that will return to the Menlo Park City Council in late November.

Council member Drew Combs expressed concern that zoning changes to encourage denser housing development are too concentrated in the Belle Haven and Bayfront neighborhoods that make up District 1, represented by Council member Cecilia Taylor. The planning commission recently met over rezoning issues, singling out downtown Menlo Park as an area that could support higher density buildings in the future. Combs said he is still hopeful that the other changes city staff made are enough to get the housing element over the finish line.

Until Menlo Park’s housing element is approved by the state, the city is under the threat of builder’s remedy projects — like the high-rise proposal at the old Sunset Magazine headquarters on Willow Road — that can bypass the city’s own development rules.

Mayor Jen Wolosin said that she’s optimistic that the latest iteration of the housing element will make it over the finish line, especially since city staff has been speaking with HCD staffers as they make the necessary changes.

“I’m hopeful that this time we’ve reached the necessary sort of approach that the state is looking for,” Combs said. “…I’m hoping that some of the changes and that face-to-face engagement is enough to make this time successful.”

The housing element will come back to the Menlo Park City Council a meeting for approval and a fourth submission to the state.