Guest Opinion: Linfield residents like housing idea Guest Opinion: Linfield residents like housing idea (July 06, 2005)

By Jane and Boyd Paulson

As Linfield Oaks home owners for over 31 years, we commend your June 22 editorial for bringing objective insight to the debate over the proposed new housing near our home.

Based on our long-term perspective, we take exception to the exaggerations we have seen from opponents to these developments, who use terms or labels like "high density," "destroy our neighborhood character," "overwhelm our schools," and "generate excessive traffic."

The proposals are far from high density even by suburban standards. The recent condominium developments in Palo Alto might approach that, but not these detached homes. They are less dense than their adjacent garden apartments on Waverly Street, which buffer the new developments from existing single-family homes in the neighborhood. Given the high cost of land, the proposed homes are of low enough density to be compatible with our neighborhood.

The new homes will not destroy our neighborhood character. As you note in your editorial, we have seen no negative impact from the late 1990s Burgess Park development. The proposed housing developments, while small, could block commercial redevelopment with greater impacts. In the decades we have lived here, the only substantial threat to "destroy our neighborhood" was the state's Willow Road freeway proposal to connect the Willow from the Highway 101 interchange to the Sand Hill Road Interstate 280 interchange, much like 380 does in San Bruno. The "Willow Freeway" remained on state highway maps through the1970s. It proposed to cut a wide swath of eminent-domain demolition of homes and businesses up Willow Road, East Creek and Sand Hill. By comparison, all subsequent squabbles over neighborhood development seem like "tempests in a teapot" that nonetheless blow disproportionate political steam.

Two opponents now see seven kindergarten students at Laurel School where they saw only two around 1980, and link that to development and population growth in Menlo Park. According to U.S. Census figures, Menlo Park grew from 26,957 people in 1960 to 30,785 in 2000, or just 14 percent in 40 years.

Perhaps these opponents are unaware that existing parts of Menlo Park transferred into the Menlo Park School District, grade distribution has been restructured among the district's schools, class size limits imposed by state legislation led to the use of modular buildings, or that demographic swings are normal. Those factors, not new housing, mainly caused changes in the number of school-age children. Furthermore, whether or not they have children, people moving into the proposed new homes will pay much more money into the school districts via high impact fees and higher property taxes than most current residents pay.

The proposed housing developments will probably generate less traffic than currently-zoned office uses once the office market recovers and increasingly derelict buildings are replaced by modern structures built to the current C-1 zoning limits to offset the land costs. The traffic studies confirm this. When it comes to traffic, Linfield Oaks residents have far more to fear from SRI's proposal to rebuild for 1,000 more jobs without enough homes nearby to house them, so most of those 1,000 new employees will most likely be added to our commuter traffic burdens unless there are new developments like the Linfield housing proposals to enable some of them to bike or walk to work.

It is human nature to fear change, to fear the unknown, but once they gain a broader perspective of the context of these developments and their likely benefits relative to commercial alternatives, we think that many in our neighborhood will support the new housing. Thank you for your editorial that improves this understanding.

Jane and Boyd Paulson live on Sherwood Way in the Linfield Oaks neighborhood of Menlo Park.

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