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Menlo Park has determined that the application for the controversial “Willow Park” development at 80 Willow Road, the site of the former Sunset Magazine headquarters, is not consistent with city development standards.
As the project was submitted under the “builder’s remedy” provision of state housing law, this determination does not amount to a denial of the project. Consistency review is a required step under state housing law, even if it does not necessarily change the outcome of the project.
The builder’s remedy provision prevents municipalities that do not have a state-certified housing element from denying housing projects that meet certain affordability criteria, even if those projects are not consistent with the municipality’s zoning standards or general plan. Menlo Park’s housing element had not been certified at the time that the application for this project was submitted to the city.
The proposed project would consist of three towers that contain 665 housing units, more than 350,000 square feet of office space, a Montessori school, a 130-room hotel and nearly 40,000 square feet of retail space.
As required by state law for buildings submitted under builder’s remedy, 20% of the housing units planned for the project would be affordable to households earning less than 80% of the area median income. This would amount to 133 affordable units for the project.
Now that the city has completed its review for consistency, the next step in the project is California Environmental Quality Act review.
According to Menlo Park’s Community Development Director Deanna Chow, the city plans to issue a request for proposals for a potential CEQA consultant sometime in the week of Jan. 19. The chosen consultant would be tasked with preparing an environmental impact report for the proposed Willow Park project. The environmental review process will include opportunities for public review and comment.
The preparation of an environmental impact report for a large project such as Willow Park can take more than a year.
During the environmental review process, the city will also determine if any special historical statuses apply to the property. The site has been nominated to the National Register of Historic Places by the Menlo Park Historical Association. The State Historical Resources Commission will consider the nomination at its May 9 meeting. The meeting was originally set for Feb. 7 but was postponed.
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It would be helpful to know how the project was “inconsistent” with what applicable standards. I have been wondering if the BMR units as proposed are consistent with the city’s BMR policies. None of the Penthouses are BMRs even though BMR units are supposed to be “substantially similar” to all other MR units. It would be wonderful if the developers had to allocate one of the Penthouse units to a low-income family.
Also, it strikes me as odd that the city would proceed with the EIR before the project was brought in compliance. It seems clear the city is resisting as much as it dares, and if there is an opportunity to require completion of any step in the process prior to any next step, I’m sure they would do that.
this style of development should be the only one allowed, not the one banned.
Mixed use development projects such as 80 Willow create far more jobs in the office space than housing units. It will make the jobs/housing imbalance worse, which will help increase local housing prices. That seems counterproductive. Pure housing projects make much more sense.
What is the area’s median household income?
I think its $187k for San Mateo County.
Thank goodness for CEQA.
Didn’t MP submit the Housing Element on time after working with the state on its draft first, and then the state took months to respond before it said it wasn’t good enough? The state process looks like the Charlie Brown scenario of Lucy moving the football.
@Iris, the city played a role in the delays as well. Remember, it took 4 iterations of the Housing Element for the city to meet the written feedback from the state.
https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2023/10/13/menlo-park-takes-a-fourth-swing-at-its-housing-element/
There were a few places where some of the council members felt they didn’t need to meet the full letter of the state’s requirements (i.e. 30% buffer). The city should have paid more attention to Jen W’s invectives to speed the process along.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2gayUEttvc
The hypocrisy of the same Menlo Park brain trust simultaneously using taxpayer dollars trying to stymie a commercial developer from using private investment funds to develop the 80 Willow project at the same time they are trying to use taxpayer dollars to develop lower density housing on tax payer purchased land, in downtown is laughable.
No doubt the CEQA “consultant” they hire for 80 Willow will find ancient burial ground, historical significance to the dirt, an endangered species nesting sites and a dozen other reasons to prevent private investors from risking their money to move forward.
@self evident,
You need some remedial math. 80 Willow only achieves 133 BMR (below market rate) units on 6.7 acres. The downtown plan puts at least 435 BMR units into a 5.8 acre footprint.
Then there is the additional math beyond meeting Menlo Park’s BMR needs – 80 Willow will also include 532 luxury units, but more problematically almost 600,000 square feet of office / hotel / retail space that is likely to bring in 3,000 or so new jobs. That makes 80 Willow horribly net negative when it comes to housing, the last thing we need right now.
Try using a calculator that doesn’t do woke math. 80 Willow is 665 units of housing or 99 units per acre versus 75 units per acre for taking away surface parking in DT Menlo Park. But sure, if your goal is to make Menlo Park residents commute to work in some other city so that they can subsidize people to live downtown, your woke math is brilliant.
Hi Oisoin / N17,
Thanks for revealing yourself. It’s only in a developers fever dream where creating office / hotel / retail space that drives 3,000 new jobs, but only generates 665 new housing units can be considered helpful for housing, Give us something that is strongly housing positive or get lost !
ps: You’re also useless compared to the downtown project, unless you create 435 units of Very Low Income housing, not just the measly 133 BMR units you needed to weasel you way into the Builders Remedy.
Kevin, It’s great to see a member of team housing finally get the *NET* housing math of projects.
Now here’s the problem. SRI is the worst, increasing deficits between 1000 and 1600.
SRI is Jen’s folly.
She carried the developer’s water for a project that should never have been processed, only to learn, too late, that its a bit “officey”. Yes, Jen its a brand new 1.1M sf office park with an amuse bouche of housing on the side.
So I hope that you and Jen are among the loudest voices calling for less office and more housing. And no, keeping 1.1M sf of housing and shoehorning more housing won’t do. The existing CDP effectively limits non-SRI office on the site to well below 400k sf. That cap should never be lifted.
Apart from the question of a Russian oligarch laundering money via a Menlo Park development, and the fact that this project is out-of-scale for a densely-populated residential neighborhood, the 80 Willow project exacerbates the jobs:housing imbalance, adds traffic to streets that are already congested, overburdens a stressed power and water supply system, and threatens the environment.
If the project were only about housing, as is the downtown parking lot project, many people would feel different. As long as the city can ensure that there’s adequate parking for new downtown residents and downtown shoppers, adding housing downtown is a win-win.
As for preventing “private investors from risking their money” — we residents have already invested in Menlo Park. For many, our homes are our primary asset. Don’t we have any right to protect our assets? If it’s too risky for private investors, they can walk away!
I totally agree that Menlo Park residents should get to decide what Menlo Park looks like, but for the decree from the state telling us what to do. I’m reminded of the speech Kevin Costner’s character givens in the final season of Yellowstone where he cancels all new development as he wants his state to look the same in 100 years, recognizing that it will tank property values.
As to your comment about the downtown project, “as long as the city can ensure that there’s adequate parking…”, best case is multi-level parking garages like DT Palo Alto.
Hey @Self Evident (Oisin / N17),
Maybe you hadn’t noticed, but there is plenty of planned residential-centric development distributed around Menlo Park over the next 8 years outlined in the Menlo Park Housing Element. So your Yellowstone analogy is a pathetic joke. It’s only your ill-planned, housing negative development that’s purposefully missing from the city plan – get lost, you’re not wanted.