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By Betsy Nash, Menlo Park mayor
On July 29, the California Attorney General’s Office sent Menlo Park a notice about the builder’s remedy development proposal at 80 Willow Rd, claiming the city has violated state law in processing the project.
I’m deeply frustrated that the Attorney General has put our community in this position. They instructed us to process a project that worsens our housing crisis and has no environmental mitigation, and threatened millions in financial penalties for Menlo Park.
On August 25, I sent the following letter to the Attorney General:
Dear Attorney General Bonta,
I am Menlo Park Mayor Betsy Nash and felt compelled to reach out to you after watching a news segment last night. You were featured fighting to preserve mail-in voting and halting negotiations over the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger after the acquiror inappropriately leaked information about settlement talks. I felt proud watching you speak on these issues. So it is regrettable that I also feel so disappointed with your team’s recent impact on our City’s efforts to promote affordable housing and to resist exploitation by a greedy commercial developer. These incongruous feelings compelled me to write to you today.
I refer to the builder’s remedy project at 80 Willow Road in Menlo Park. On July 31, 2026, Deputy Attorney General Matthew Struhar sent Menlo Park a letter stating that our city violated state housing law in processing this application. He implies that we are all NIMBYs who just don’t want housing. I believe our record shows quite the opposite.
First of all, we submitted our Housing Element on time but two resubmissions in response to agency comments opened the door to builder’s remedy projects. Much of the delay was caused by turnover in the state reviewer for our file. A new reviewer introduced new positions requiring new revisions. Slow response times by the state reviewer further delayed approval, despite our best efforts to comply. We were actually one of the earliest cities in San Mateo County to have our Housing Element approved.
Our City Council are housing advocates who have leaned into housing, especially affordable housing, in our community. We implemented SB 79 as written to encourage density and height of development within a quarter mile of our train station. We proposed affordable housing development on city-owned parking lots downtown and are united in opposition to a resident-sponsored ballot measure that would make that impossible. Also, Menlo Park has never been subjected to SB 35 restrictions.
As for the 80 Willow Road project specifically, I invite you to be my guest for a visit to Menlo Park, and to tour the site on the banks of the environmentally-sensitive and flood-prone San Francisquito Creek. The project includes three towers up to 39 stories and 461 feet tall – the tallest building between San Francisco and Los Angeles. This project only creates 665 housing units (only 100 affordable units) but includes over 530,000 sq. ft. of commercial space, a hotel and other uses that add so many jobs that the project actually worsens the existing jobs/housing imbalance in our community. Of course, it is so large a project that it would overwhelm local infrastructure.
Finally, your office instructed the City to process this project without any environmental review and threatened potentially catastrophic financial penalties for Menlo Park. I hope you will look into it and help us find a productive way forward. Please do come visit so I can show you in person.
Respectfully,
Betsy Nash
Nash provided The Almanac with a copy of the letter sent Aug. 25. It is being published with permission.
Menlo Park Mayor Betsy Nash was elected to the Menlo Park City Council to represent District 4 in 2018. She is not seeking reelection.
While the state Attorney General claims Menlo Park acted in bad faith regarding 80 Willow Road, local residents should examine the facts before accepting that narrative, making the town’s invitation for the AG to tour the site a welcome step.
The developer’s “builder’s remedy” proposal includes three towers rising up to 461 feet, making it the tallest structure between San Francisco and Los Angeles, on the historic former Sunset Magazine campus, surrounded by a low-density neighborhood where nothing exceeds two stories. Moreover, the project delivers only about 100 affordable units while adding a hotel and over 530,000 square feet of commercial space, worsening the exact jobs-to-housing imbalance state law intends to fix.
Additionally, the site is a recognized historic resource listed on the California Register, requiring a full Environmental Impact Report (EIR). Over a year after the city hired a consultant, that review has not even begun because the developer has failed to deposit the necessary funds. A development that will permanently alter our skyline for a century should not be rushed to approval before its mandatory environmental study has been conducted.
Serious questions surrounding ownership also remain unaddressed. The property was purchased in 2018 for $72 million in cash via a Delaware shell company by the son of Vladimir Putin’s former energy minister, a transaction the buyer’s own bank flagged internally. While he is not under U.S. sanctions, when this volume of money moves opaquely into a massive local development, our elected officials and federal regulators must exercise due diligence.
Menlo Park has consistently supported responsible housing growth. Insisting on full environmental review and financial transparency is not obstruction. It is sound governance.
Eric Kinney
Flood Triangle, Menlo Park
Rock on, Mayor Nash! Here’s hoping Bonta has the sense to pay attention.
What a farce. Rob Bonta didn’t put us in this situation, Betsy Nash and the other city council members did. If they had taken their responsibilities seriously and done their jobs in getting a housing plan done when it was required the “Builder’s Remedy” could have never been invoked. The Builder’s Remedy is legal provision that allows housing developers to bypass local zoning rules when a city FAILS to adopt a state-compliant housing plan. Nash and the others screwed up big time and now she’s looking for someone else to blame. Please just go quietly Betsy, you’ve done enough damage to Menlo Park.
BUILD BUILD BUILD! We need MORE apartments/condos! TONS of land available! What’s wrong NIMBYS? Don’t you care about your fellow humans?