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For now, Menlo Park will stay the course on the plan to build affordable housing on city-owned parking lots downtown.
The decision comes in the face of strong grassroots opposition that has built up over recent months. Some are clamoring for the city to consider other locations such as the Civic Center area instead.
During a study session Tuesday, March 4, the City Council agreed to hold off looking into other sites in favor of waiting for the results of a request for qualifications from developers interested in building units on the downtown lots.
“I personally am very eager to see the responses to the RFQ and to see what is proposed (and) how many we get,” Vice Mayor Betsy Nash said, addressing her council colleagues. “I think that at that point there will be a lot of discussion around that.”
The city and residents would see if a developer proposal “would work with our downtown and hopefully enhance our downtown,” Nash said. “I feel that that’s the time when we should be discussing any future sites that we may or may not want to look at right now.”
The deadline for developers to submit their response to the RFQ is 5:30 p.m. on March 31. The city is asking for their development and financing approach and other ideas for converting three lots between Santa Cruz and Oak Grove avenues into at least 345 affordable units, replacement public parking for a minimum of 506 vehicles and other complementary uses.
Menlo Park Principal Planner Tom Smith told council members that city staff will look over submissions, check whether the proposals pass the criteria given and make recommendations for them to discuss and eventually consider a decision. The council could start those deliberations in late spring or early summer.
The downtown plan would go toward helping the city in its efforts to see nearly 3,000 new dwellings built during the 2023-31 cycle as called for in the state-mandated planning document known as the housing element. The state certified Menlo Park’s housing element a year ago following an intensive community-engagement process of nearly three years.
During Tuesday’s meeting, staff reviewed how that process evaluated all 49 city-owned parcels to determine which could meet state conditions and city objectives for housing.
Many of the sites were removed from further study – including the Civic Center – because of existing uses and other constraints, staff said.
But those opposed to turning the downtown lots into housing have insisted that the Civic Center and other sites were not adequately assessed and remain feasible. They also contend that dense development and the loss of parking spaces would wreck downtown’s village character and jeopardize businesses there.
In addition, opponents are skeptical about the city’s ability to provide replacement parking, which could cost tens of millions of dollars.
“We can’t afford to just rip up the downtown and build whatever parking the below-market-rate units need together with replacing” the vehicle spaces lost from converting the three lots into housing, resident Rich Johnson told the council Tuesday. “It just doesn’t work. There’s no money for it.”
But the Civic Center has plenty of room for the housing and parking, Johnson said. “The Civic Center is so much more logical. … That’s where the housing should be. It should not be in downtown.”
Downtown property owner Kevin Cunningham urged the council to again study the city-owned properties outside the business district.
“Please do the right thing, take a step back (and) evaluate all sites on a level playing field that are better options than downtown,” Cunningham said. “We can’t move forward with downtown when the repercussions are so grave. The outreach that you’re getting is a direct result of a half-filled plan. That is why so many people oppose this.”
But that doesn’t mean those folks are against affordable housing altogether, he said. “Whatever side of the subject you’re on, I think we all are unified in support of affordable housing in Menlo Park. … We know it’s important. We know it’s needed.”
Leading the opposition is Save Downtown Menlo, a group of residents and business owners that has so far raised close to $117,000 toward a $300,000 goal for a possible legal fight against the parking-to-housing conversion. The group has also collected about 3,400 signatures for a petition opposing the downtown housing plan.
Other public commenters Tuesday expressed support for using the lots for housing. They also raised concern that Menlo Park’s housing element could come at risk with the state the longer it takes for the city to enact the plan for those lots.
The city should move “forward with the affordable housing on the city parking lots without delay,” resident Sarah Zollweg said. “Our community is bleeding families. I’ve lost multiple neighbors in the last two years to more affordable communities because they couldn’t afford to stay here with their growing families.”
Proceeding immediately with converting the lots “is also a way for us to comply with the housing-element laws and avoid the builder’s remedy – which I think we would all be pretty unhappy about,” Zollweg said.
She was referring to a California provision that allows developers to bypass local land-use regulations when a city or county does not have a state-certified housing element.
In response to criticism that the city’s evaluation of sites was not adequate, Council member Jeff Schmidt begged to differ.
“The city’s analysis was not haphazard (and) was not flawed,” Schmidt said from the council dais. “We didn’t leave out some big hidden Narnia-like land that we should have considered.”
But Schmidt was pleased that the council held the study session, which he requested, to recap with the community the process the city went through in considering sites and hear further thoughts from residents and business owners.
“This session to me was about making sure people really understood we are listening,” he said.
It was healthy for Downtown merchants and allied residents to questions why the downtown parking was chosen as a set of Opportunity Sites over Burgess / Civic Center parking, but that question has now been asked and answered in a detailed way by staff and council:
* There was substantial resident outcry about using park land for housing, when the Burgess/Civic center was originally considered. There was a petition garnering thousands of votes and a stream of city actions to preserve Sharon and Burgess Park areas. That outcry might even be louder nowadays given the huge development already in the pipeline for SRI/Parkline.
* The Burgess / Civic Center is an undivided, single parcel, with possible deed complications – rendering it impossible to develop per the suggestion by downtown merchants and others, without going through the long process of subdividing.
* Any change in Housing Element plan would require state-level HCD re-certification, a time-consuming, painful off-cycle process.
All three of these issues would take substantial time and cost, plus community input to resolve. If the downtown merchants and others want to see a subdivided Burgess / civic center developed as a replacement or supplement for downtown, they really should apply their energy and financial muscle into helping the city do the required preparations, instead spending on PR and possible litigation, to stop the long-planned and state-sanctioned project. In the meantime, the clock is running and the city must continue expeditiously with the downtown plan in order to steer clear of possible Builders Remedy implications (SB423).
Delay is not an option and it really feels like the Burgess housing advocates have don’t little to make the option more possible – all their spending and energy has been on delays.
The fact the residents came out and 90% of verbal and written communication was in opposition, and the city council voted to proceed shows how out of touch the city council is with their constituents. We went from vacant lots on el Camino for 20 years with City Council saying “no” to every proposal. To now the City Council trying to jam a proposal down our necks. What is motivating the City Council other than the rush of “power”. Time for a recall. Let’s get the public voting and force these ungrateful non-community supporting people off the council.
“This session to me was about making sure people really understood we are listening,” he said.
And then the council just ignored the taxpaying residents. Business as usual.
Yup. A fake listen and then push forward with what “they want” vs what those that voted them in want.
“In response to criticism that the city’s evaluation of sites was not adequate, Council member Jeff Schmidt begged to differ.” “The city’s analysis was not haphazard (and) was not flawed,” Schmidt said from the council dais. “We didn’t leave out some big hidden Narnia-like land that we should have considered.”
Jeff, including housing downtown in the “potential site list” in the Menlo Park Housing Element is NOT the same as performing a rigorous evaluation of individual sites, i.e., weighing.the positive and negative impacts, including City costs paid by residents.
To build on @DanaHendrickson’s comment, the Civic Center was excluded from the Housing Element’s list of potential sites as it was considered a park or green space. That was the extent of the analysis. Additionally, it was disheartening to see Council Members Wise, Nash, and Taylor all openly refuse to engage in the discussion to consider alternative sites after weeks of protests from residents and business owners. It was an incredible display of weak leadership and poor representation.
@DanaHendrickson, @MP Homeowner, @Meeting Attendee,
Given your comments, I would question your intellectual honesty. The city provided clear answers why the Burgess / Civic Center was not chosen as an opportunity site, and why it would be a challenge to include in this cycle, articulated as simply as possible in my comment above. Loud protests, petitions, and your desires for a different answer, don’t change the validity of the original rationale and decisions.
If the opposition to the downtown housing spent half it’s energy and abundant cash on expediting the readiness of the Burgess / Civic Center by helping the city remove the barriers, instead simply trying to delay the city’s long held plan for downtown, you would have an much more legitimate claim to supporting the alternative.
@Kevin Please don’t confuse common sense with opposition to downtown housing (BTW, the Civic Center is downtown too). We all know housing is needed. I am not going to re-list here all the reasons why the prioritization of the parking lots is flawed – a concept that Mayor Combs basically admitted to at the Mar 4 meeting. To understand why, please go back and watch the last few City Council Meeting videos and listen to the comments from business owners and the majority of the residents. The parking lot concept is an overly idealistic concept that is flawed. This will be realized when we receive back the RFQ’s.
@Meeting Attendee,
There are definitely challenges with the Downtown plan, mostly business continuity during construction. Other raised issue are addressed by the RFP, so you’re right – we’ll see how possible the downtown plan is as the proposals come back.
But if the downtown parking lot concept is overly idealistic and flawed, the Burgess / civic center proposal is doubly flawed. It has all the same economic and parking replacement challenges as downtown, with the added problems the staff clearly pointed out. But Burgess / civic center advocates like to pretend that some magical happens to the economics if the housing were built there instead. And the advocates for Burgess / civic center have done zilch to constructively help the city enable that site for subdivision and possible development, just petition, protest and threaten lawsuits.