Levy's article is about residential community, and the Smart Growth needs for housing near transit. Greenheart is office-intensive, adding way more office than anticipated in the expensive downtown plan put in place. That much office brings commuter traffic and will end up putting more pressure to add even more housing than in the plan.
That doesn't stack up right in my book.

Good question/bad understanding of the facts. Look at the Greenheart proposal before making inaccurate statements about it:

"Greenheart is planning to build two three-story buildings with 210,000 square feet of office space, and up to 216 apartments on its nearly 7-acre site, with 16,000 square feet of retail incorporated into the commercial buildings and 7,000 square feet in the residential. Ninety-five percent of the on-site parking would be provided by an underground garage with entrances off El Camino Real and Garwood Way."

"The proposal also includes renovating Garwood Way and creating a bicycle/pedestrian path to connect with the Caltrain station on Merrill Street."

Compare that to what would happen with Greenhearts multiple parcels IF they were forced under the fatally flawed Lanza/Fry initiative to develop each parcel independently and there was no incentive for offering public benefits.

Actually, Levy's article is about smart growth. The latter means, among other things, placing offices near both transit and housing. So how much of the commuter traffic you cite will use transit? How could that number be increased? How many people will prefer to live within a walkable distance of their offices, thereby reducing vehicular traffic? These questions help determine how "smart" this growth really is. Of course, there will be growth...the real issue being where, whether it adds to urban sprawl and inefficient use of land and resources.

well,let's have Menlo become real. there once was a middle-class on the peninsula.it is necessary to level the playing field. can people who grew up here actually afford to live here? let's have Menlo become real, for sure

Stanford and Greenheart have proposed to build more moderately (in relative terms) priced housing than has been built in Menlo Park in the last 20 years.

But Save Menlo doesn't want ANYBODY else in their little life boat.

IF the Lanza/Fry initiative were to pass and Stanford decided that it could not economically develop its 8+ acres given the crazy limitation in the initiative then perhaps Stanford could decide to simply make a generous contribution to Menlo Park by constructing ALL residential units.

The base density for these parcels is 40 units/acre or 320+ units.

Or Stanford could be really civic minded and do all low income housing where the Public Benefit Bonus Density is 60 dwelling units per acre for a total of 480+ units.

Careful what you hope and vote for - this initiative is fatally flawed.

"While issues such as dealing with cars, supporting downtown merchants and absorbing Silicon Valley growth, got lost in the tumult."

Unfortunately, this is not a sentence. While reading this article, this fragment made it hard to read.

Good point! How is this?


"Issues such as dealing with cars, supporting downtown merchants and absorbing Silicon Valley growth, get lost in the tumult."

I understand that Stanford and Greenheart, as developers, hope to profit from the margins they can get from up to 50% office compared to more residential or retail. I'm willing to risk it that the city can get better buildings, better public space, lots of residential and additional benefits if we are forceful enough, in trade for those margins. The initiative may have worked at some point in the past, and Menlo Park should have been smarter about what could be built through the Specific Plan. But the initiative is a bad response today for that past and for where the city is at. Paul is right that the initiative is as confused and misleading as the supposed threats to the Farmer's Market from the Specific Plan. But the stakes are bigger and a vote on the initiative will occur in November.