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Menlo Park Presbyterian Church has won approval to increase the number of hours it uses its meeting room in back of the building that houses the ACE hardware store at 700 Santa Cruz Ave. in downtown Menlo Park.
At its Feb. 9 meeting, the Menlo Park Planning Commission voted 6-0 to modify and extend the church’s existing use permit to August 2014. Commissioner Vince Bressler abstained over concerns about the impacts on neighboring businesses.
The church currently uses the 5,225 square feet of space on Sunday mornings and evenings, and for youth group meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. Its current use permit, set to expire in May, allows for two additional “social events” per month during weekdays.
The new use permit would allow for events to be held from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and all day Sunday, allowing for full use of the space’s capacity of 225 people. The church could also use the building for one weekday morning event per week, with attendance limited to 50 people.
The church had originally sought permission to hold events every weekday morning, with an upper limit of 100 attendees, but modified its request to placate neighboring business owners who were concerned about parking space. The church had also sought to use the space all day on Saturdays.
The church’s increased use of the space would not conflict with the majority of business operations downtown, Associate Planner Thomas Rogers said. And representatives from Menlo Park Presbyterian had pointed out that weekday morning events would bring potential shoppers to the downtown area.
Any appeal to the City Council of the Planning Commission’s decision would have to be filed by Feb. 24.
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Why is Menlo Park using tax payer dollars to provide parking for a religious organization? Does the church pay taxes – property taxes, user, improvement or business fees, etc? Also, are the weekends of the arts and street faires specifically excluded as use days? In a sense are we giving up our public property rights to a religious organization?
As I posted before, the PC was sure to approve this nonsense. I doubt anyone in the community will have the initiative to appeal this lousy decision. The more I see from this new PC the more I see they are a bunch of wimps.
The Presbyterian Church has in the past shown more political clout than other group in town and they show it again.
Keep your eyes on their upcoming expansion plans as they see to obtain variances and new zoning for whatever suits them.
Scandalous, outrageous, horrible, outlandish!!! How could we ever approve a group of individuals the right to occupy a room, that would otherwise be vacant! Oh, the horrors!
Get a grip people. At least this group gives back to this community. We are lucky to have the Presbyterian Church in this town. I am not a Presbyterian, but I don’t care what religion it is, they give back much more than any non-profit or religious group in Menlo Park. Find something else to criticize, and while you are at it, find some more church groups to occupy those other vacant store fronts in the commercial district!
If you don’t like this post, then tell us YOUR idea to fill this vacant room, and the rest of the store fronts, then perhaps I’ll reconsider my opinion. Good Luck!
OK,”How Terrible”
We could generate plenty of TOD tax by creating a Red Light district along Santa Cruz. Say 10 or twelve bordellos would being in plenty of occupancy taxes and the store fronts would be filled. Think of the additional traffic to other stores along Santa Cruz.
You don’t generate healthy retail strips, by putting none retail usage in these spaces. I don’t like your post and I don’t think you even begin to understand the picture. Of course, the PC doesn’t either.
As far as I can tell, anything that brings potential customers into Menlo’s downtown can only mean a more vibrant community. Without this agreement, we’d have no Hardware store either. Sure, MPPC has some clout, but I see them using it for the betterment of Menlo and the Peninsula in general, which is more than I can say for some.