The good and bad of new zoning ordinance The good and bad of new zoning ordinance (December 24, 2003)

Council majority rammed it through, despite protests

Editor:

" Houses could get bigger." So said senior Menlo Park planner Tracy Cramer in response to questioning from Paul Collacchi at the December 16 City Council review of the home-building ordinance.

Yet, City Council member Mickie Winkler insists that her ordinance protects Menlo Park from oversized homes. Since last September, hundreds of people, in one way or another -- through letters, emails, public addresses or by volunteering to add their names to a list of opponents -- articulated their grave concerns about the ordinance and about the unsavory process that led to its adoption.

Economists, geologists, political scientists, solar experts, engineers, even the odd architect and developer, all applied their considerable professional know-how and warned against adopting this ordinance. Their warnings fell on deaf ears. Unmoved, council members Nicholas Jellins, Lee Duboc and Ms. Winkler predictably approved the proposal by a 3-2 vote with members Chuck Kinney and Paul Collacchi opposed.

The process leading up to the December 16 vote was shrouded in unseemly secrecy. In contrast to meetings about traffic issues, which have been trumpeted time and time again, no notice was ever sent out to inform the public about any City Council discussion of the radically different residential ordinance. One would think that changes affecting the neighborhood one bought into would be a subject of interest to the entire community.

Perhaps the ordinance sponsors did not want an informed constituency. The powers that be studiously avoided any public input. At best misguidedly and at worst deliberately, the city itself failed to do any kind of outreach. Open, public education was done exclusively through the Almanac and through individual residents who follow the issue consistently.

Supporters of the council majority (Jellins, Duboc and Winkler) repeatedly disparaged the Planning Commission because five of seven commissioners (with an unmatched combined expertise on the matter) opposed much in Ms. Winkler's proposal. Neither Mr. Jellins nor now-Mayor Duboc ever asked a single question seeking enlightenment on the ordinance during any of the public hearings.

Is it conceivable that approval of the ordinance was a foregone conclusion? Sadly, Menlo Park's residents will be paying the price for the council majority's blindness to the consequences of the proposal.

Ms. Winkler agrees that two-story homes create impacts on single-story neighbors and, instead of suggesting compromises, tells us: not my problem; go purchase your own protection (through shades and hedges.). Certain neighborhoods need protection, she agrees, but they must get it themselves -- through an overlay process that requires a grasp of architecture that few possess. (If you don't meet the requirements for an overlay, you're out of luck.)

This ordinance benefits few and discounts everyone else. Each year, out of Menlo Park's 30,000 residents, only about 130 households are able to undertake a major remodel or rebuild; fewer yet actually wish to disregard their neighbor's rights. Yet it is that tiny group, the rabid individualists and some outside profiteers, whom this ordinance caters (kowtows) to. Ms. Winkler and her supporters suggest a trial period. Who will volunteer their neighbors as guinea pigs for the experiment?

For better or worse, the best solution for any community lies in a system of checks and balances that thoughtfully considers the welfare and the rights of all. By this measure, the new residential ordinance in Menlo Park is a dismal failure.

Catherine McMillan

San Mateo Drive, Menlo Park

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