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An affordable housing project for educators on the former Flood School site in Menlo Park will move forward after the City Council shot down an appeal on Tuesday night. The project has received pushback from neighbors in the years since it was first proposed, including a citywide ballot measure aimed at stopping the development, and a proposed mayoral recall motivated by the project.
The city council voted 4-0 on March 11, with Council member Cecilia Taylor absent, to reject the appeal after more than four hours of discussion and public comment.
The appellant, Skip Hilton, a resident of the Suburban Park neighborhood where the project is located, challenged the Planning Commission’s entitlement of the project, arguing that there were safety concerns due to the lack of a second public vehicle entrance, and what he said were “significant deficiencies and inaccuracies” in the traffic studies commissioned by the developer and the city.
The project, now approved, will consist of 88 units, with all but the manager’s unit being offered at below-market rates targeted specifically at educators.The site is owned by the Ravenswood City School District, which spoke in favor of the project at the meeting. The property has sat empty since the James Flood Magnet School was closed in 2011, and the buildings demolished in 2018.
Steven Spielberg, a representative from developer Alliant Communities project, told the council that if it did not approve the project at this council meeting, funding would be in jeopardy.
“We had hoped this appeal hearing would have come and gone by now, but tomorrow morning I need to submit a form that says we’re approved, or we’re really not going to be able to move forward (with the financing application),” he said. “We might be able to re-apply next year, and there might be other funding opportunities along the way, but essentially a denial tonight would set this project back significantly.”
The appeal
At the meeting, Hilton told the council that he is ultimately in favor of the site becoming affordable housing for teachers in the city, but that he feels the project “can be greatly improved for future residents with some obvious, common sense changes that were not fully considered by the planning commission,” such as a second entrance on the east side of the property. He said that he believes some of the planning commissioners felt forced to make a decision to approve the use permit for the development.
Specifically, he said that the transportation analysis did not assess the project’s impact to the already congested intersection at Bay Road and Ringwood Avenue, that the public transit, bicycle and pedestrian analysis was misleading and inaccurate, that the project was inconsistent with the city’s general plan and that the project lacked environmental and traffic mitigation measures. He also said that the city and developer did not attempt to find “creative solutions” to some of the traffic and environmental impacts.
“My goal would be that those creative solutions are now brought to the table,” he said. “I don’t believe this is going to put the project at risk. I think the project is a great project and we do want this housing to exist, but … we have an opportunity to improve (it and make (it) better.”
City staff rejected Hilton’s arguments. Chris Turner, senior planner for Menlo Park, stated that the plans had all been reviewed by city planning experts, fire officials and other relevant agencies, all of which found that the project was compliant with applicable codes and standards.
The city acknowledged that one of the bicycle and pedestrian commute diagrams in its transportation analysis relied on an entrance to Flood Park that would be locked at certain hours of the day, but said that an alternative route that does not cut through the park does not add any time to a bike commute to Caltrain, and does not change the city’s analysis of bicycle and pedestrian access.
Council member Jeff Schmidt said that the city is at a point where it has to “walk the walk” and approve affordable housing proposals.
“I’ve lost count of how many times apparently everyone in the city has said they support affordable housing,” he said. “If we don’t get this built, then we should probably stop saying that we support affordable housing, because this one is way down the line in the process.”
Fire safety
Several other public commenters told the council that they fear the project is not fire safe due to the lack of a second entrance and the presence of overhead electrical wires at the entrance of the
Menlo Park Fire Protection District Chief Mark Lorenzen told the council that fire safety officials generally review and approve building plans when permits are issued, not entitlements, and that the high-level reviews needed for the entitlement process are complete.
“Nobody’s in violation of any codes,” said Lorenzen. “Obviously, we will apply the codes, and when the building plans come to us, we will review them for compliance.”
Turner said that the city would not issue building permits until the fire district has signed off on the plans, as they do with any other development project. Lorenzen also mentioned that it is likely that the overhead wires would need to be undergrounded, which could be expensive for the project, but said that the fire district would “be happy to have conversations with the developer about how we can remedy this.”
“Once we submit (building plans) … if there is an issue (with the power lines) and we can’t work it out, fire, life, safety always wins,” said Spielberg. “We certainly wouldn’t want to build a project that wasn’t safe for future residents.”
Debate over a second entrance
Throughout the life of the project, Suburban Park neighbors have been advocating for a second entrance. The council received dozens of emails in advance of the meeting and about a dozen public comments at the meeting asking the council members to require a second entrance to the project based on both fire safety and traffic concerns.
“This second entrance will not only improve overall safety as well as effective responsiveness in case of emergency, but also reduce daily commute times. … This simple addition will help existing Suburban Park residents as well as future residents of the new development.” wrote Suburban Park resident Alison O’Callaghan in an email to the council. Many of her neighbors echoed her sentiments.
Several other residents from Flood Triangle, the neighborhood that traffic would be directed through should a second entrance be added, told the council that they already bear an unfair traffic burden due to their proximity to Flood Park, which will only increase now that the county has improved park facilities.
Mayor Drew Combs, who represents both Suburban Park and Flood Triangle, said he is concerned that adding a second entrance would only serve to shift traffic from one neighborhood to another, which would be unfair to the residents of Flood Park.
Linda Klein, the attorney for Alliant Communities, said that comments alleging that the developers were not willing to create a second entrance were making misleading statements, because they do not have easements to the Caltrans and Haven House family shelter property on the east side of the project.
“Haven House has made it very clear that they’re not interested in giving us full access through their property,” she said. “Caltrans, as you imagine, is not in the business of providing their public property to private individuals.”
“We are willing, but lack the property rights to do so, and those property rights are not feasibly obtainable.” she added.
Turner and Spielberg reminded Hilton and the council that as an affordable housing development, the project is subject to the state density bonus law, which allows waivers from development standards that would physically prevent the project from being constructed.
The project is also exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act because it is classified as urban infill, similar to building a new single-family home on a vacant lot in a city. Therefore, it was not legally required to complete several of the analyses that Hilton said were deficient, and it is also not legally required to include any additional mitigation measures for environmental or traffic impacts.
Spielberg also pointed out that the 88 units of housing now planned for the site would generate much less traffic for the neighborhood than the site’s previous use as a school.
“When it was an active school, there were approximately 300 students and 40 staff members that were all coming and going from this one access point, twice a day, five days a week at a pretty traffic-intensive time,” said Spielberg.
The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors waded into the fray, voting 5-0 at their March 4 meeting to allocate $9 million to the project, conditional on the parking lot being designed to accommodate a future second driveway.
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The developer, Steven Spielberg, is absolutely, 100% wrong when he says, “When it was an active school, there were approximately 300 students and 40 staff members that were all coming and going from this one access point, twice a day, five days a week at a pretty traffic-intensive time.”
I lived in Suburban Park when Flood School was active, and families were expressly forbidden to drive through Suburban Park to access the school grounds. In fact, if we saw parents driving through the neighborhood to drop off their children at the Sheridan gate, we were encouraged to call the Flood principal to let her know, so that she could remind parents not to drive through the neighborhood. I wish someone had called Steven Spielberg out on this misleading statement.
Suburban Park is a small, contained neighborhood, with very narrow streets that only accommodate a single car, filled with children, pets, and pedestrians. It’s insane to route the traffic for 88 additional households through these narrow, winding streets. Anyone who thinks this isn’t a recipe for disaster is kidding themselves. I feel so sorry for the current residents of Suburban Park; this significant an increase in traffic is going to have a hugely detrimental impact on the neighborhood.
HelloHanalei:
FACTS:
1) It was uncovered that a PG&E Power Line crosses the main entrance of the project at Sheridan Drive. A huge cost in the millions of dollars and a year waiting time for PGE to complete the undergrounding.
The main entrance to the property, violates the California State Fire Code: Appendix D 105. It cannot be built with a Fire Code violation. No written correspondence between the city of Menlo Park approving the project or agreeing to an “Emergency Fire Exit”.
2) The Menlo Park Fire Protection has not approved this project to date.
3) The city of Menlo Park Staff reports or legal review from Cox Castle Law Firm for Item: K-2, at the March 11th 2025 MP Council Meeting does not contain any information involving the power line violation crossing the main Ingress/egress on Sheridan Dr.
It is amazing that so many emails communications appear between the Fire District and the city of Menlo Park (from March 2024 to November 2024) regarding the discussion about the Power-Line undergrounding, over the main ingress/egress.
4) The SMC Parks Department has refused to install any ingress/ egress into Flood Park.
5) The Developer knew of the problem with the main ingress/ egress since March 2024.
6) The solutions: Van Buren:
Accordingly, Van Buren is that alternative. No fire code violations, but 2 ingress/ egress points are safer. This emergency entrance should not be counted as an alternate, only as a “last resort” for dangerous situations requiring immediate action.
Let’s get this project moving. We need BMR Developments ASAP. Get these problems worked out, city and developer.