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Editor’s note: This article was updated to include information about another event that will be hosted in advance of the Jan. 14 City Council meeting.
In advance of the Menlo Park City Council’s discussion of building affordable housing on the city’s parking lots downtown, which is set to take place on Jan. 14, local community group Menlo Together and several other interested residents have been working to support the council’s plan to build housing on city-owned lots.
In support of the proposal, Menlo Together has created a petition urging the council to maximize the number of affordable homes on parking lots, prioritize the approval and development of these homes, identify strategies to support extremely low-income homes, encourage developers to make use of available state laws to help streamline the process and to prioritize a mix of community benefits that will help advance community priorities without making the project infeasible. As of Jan. 7, the petition has 230 signatures.
Supporters of the proposal to build housing on city-owned lots also took to the Menlo Park Farmers Market on Sunday, Jan. 5, to gather signatures for the petition.
“Menlo Park can be part of a bigger solution to ensure everyone has a safe, stable place to call home by promoting housing on our downtown parking lots,” the petition reads.
The plan to build affordable housing on city-owned parking lots has faced opposition from other residents and business owners over concerns about a loss of parking, loss of character and impacts to businesses downtown. A petition asking the council to reconsider the plan to encourage development of housing projects on the lots, and to explore other locations in the city for housing has 1,960 signatures as of Jan. 7.
The council had been set to vote on Nov. 19, 2024 to declare three of the eight city-owned parking lots as “exempt surplus land” and begin the process of soliciting designs for housing and parking solutions on the lots, but opted to hold the vote until Jan. 14 after hearing from residents who expressed concerns about the plan. Residents also told the council that they felt they hadn’t been properly notified about the changes that could come to the downtown area.
Menlo Park hopes to add at least 345 units of affordable housing on three city-owned parking plazas between Oak Grove and Santa Cruz avenues by 2027, to meet its state-mandated regional housing needs allocation (RHNA) numbers for 2023-31.
In an interview with The Almanac, Karen Grove, one of the founders of Menlo Together, said that supporting the construction of affordable housing on downtown lots was one of the issues that the community group originally crystallized around.
“We’ve been supporting this idea for years, for as long as we’ve existed,” said Grove. “The purpose of the petition is to show the City Council that there are many people who are too busy to show up to City Council meetings who support this. Some of them are working multiple jobs because it is so expensive to pay the rent in Menlo Park.”
Grove, and fellow Menlo Together founder Adina Levin, said that the group does not wish to disregard the concerns brought up by downtown business owners around parking loss and loss of convenience, but that they believe there are multiple, creative ways for the city to address those concerns while still creating more opportunities for affordable housing.
“We support and believe that it’s important to have convenient access to downtown for people that are residents, visitors and workers,” said Levin. “The city’s proposal process (for developers) does include solicitation of replacement parking.”
Sean van Dril, a 29-year-old Menlo Park resident who is working with Menlo Together to get the word out about the project, said he believes that through the process of developing the downtown lots, the city has “a real chance to make parking easier, and to improve business downtown.” Van Dril has some personal motivation for supporting the project: he has lived in Menlo Park for a few years with his wife but doesn’t know if he can afford to stay in the city, which he has come to love, long term.
“Parking downtown is difficult to dangerous as is,” said Grove. “It’s old, from the days when our cars were smaller. We can do way better with parking.”
Grove emphasized that the city’s request for proposal and qualifications from developers asks for replacement for 90% of the existing number of parking spots in addition to the parking required for new residents.
Van Dril said that he has been speaking with business owners downtown about the proposed development, and said he has found that business owners and customers alike are currently very unhappy with the state of parking downtown. Business owners report a decline in foot traffic from office workers since the COVID-19 pandemic, as offices have emptied out, while at the same time dealing with full parking lots, as they say the three-hour parking limits downtown go unenforced.
“A lot of people mentioned unenforced parking limits — tons of spots are just occupied by long-term parkers,” he said. “I think with a managed parking system, you could decrease the amount of time from when you arrive in downtown to when you find a parking spot. … Everyone’s afraid of what businesses stand to lose, but there’s really something that they stand to gain.”
Van Dril says he sees Menlo Together as a partner with the downtown business community, and hopes that the council will help to alleviate some of the uncertainty and tension that downtown business owners are feeling about the project, while still prioritizing the creation of new homes in the city.
“Is there a way that we can get a solution that works for everyone — alleviates (business owners’ concerns, maybe solve some of their existing problems and help solve this imminent housing crisis?” he asked.
In addition to the petition, Menlo Together has canvassed downtown to inform residents of the pro-housing perspective. Menlo Together volunteers gathered on Jan. 4 and 5 to post flyers throughout the downtown area and talk to residents at the farmers market about the petition and the possibility of building housing in the downtown parking lots.
The group is also urging those who support the construction of housing downtown to send emails to council members to show their support. Menlo Together and van Dril have organized a pro-housing event at Mama Coco’s at 1081 El Camino Real in advance of the Jan. 14 council discussion on downtown parking. It will provide interested residents with “appetizers, an update on the pro-housing movement and a tutorial on making a public comment at the council meeting.” Following the event, the group will walk over to the Council Chambers to comment during the meeting.
See Menlo Together’s petition and learn more about the Jan. 14 event at jan14yes.org.
An event, hosted by the organization Save Downtown Menlo, for those who oppose the council’s plans will take place at 5:30 p.m. in front of the Menlo Park City Council Chambers at 701 Laurel St. Learn more about Save Downtown Menlo’s event at tinyurl.com/SaveDowntownMenloEvent.
Learn more about Menlo Park’s plans for the downtown parking lots on the city’s website: tinyurl.com/MPparkinglotinfo.
Given what is happening in LA, Newsom should suspend this affordable housing initiative and tell towns to focus on fire preparedness. This whole affordable housing initiative is tearing towns apart because you have people who are for or against it all. Also, just look at the amount of money that towns across CA have spent on lawyers and consultants as they try to put together their affordable housing plans. One thing is for certain, the cost to build houses and apartments in LA just increased dramatically. Let’s not forget that LA is hosting the summer olympics in 2028. They have a lot of work to do. The fires in Maui were bad, but they were not on this scale.