When dozens of residents of Menlo Park’s Belle Haven neighborhood showed up March 21 to protest the Menlo Park Fire Protection District’s plans for a new fire station in their neighborhood, the fire district’s board and chief quickly put a hold on the plans — and promised a public meeting to talk about the station’s future.
That meeting will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, April 29, at the fire station at 1467 Chilco St.
The future of fire- and emergency-response services in the Belle Haven and the M-2 (industrial) areas of Menlo Park will be the focus of the meeting, the fire district says.
Fire Chief Harold Schapelhouman said he will talk about how the fire district currently supplies emergency services in Belle Haven and the importance of the existing location of the Chilco Street station.
He will also discuss the impacts on fire district services of current and future development in the industrial area, and why fire station location options are limited.
Attendees will learn how to get involved and give feedback to the district about the future of local emergency and fire services delivery, the district says.
More than 50 people attended the March 21 fire board meeting, which had on its agenda a hearing on an environmental impact report on plans to expand the district’s Chilco Street station.
Many speakers were upset that one of the area’s most beloved families, the Hoermanns, could be displaced by the expansion. The plans for the new station showed the Hoermann’s 3,000-square-foot home and a rear cottage on Terminal Avenue, built with lots of sweat equity over the past 10 years and occupied by two teachers, four children and an engineer, were to be replaced with a driveway.
Several speakers suggested instead of enlarging the fire station, the district build a new station in the industrial area, where most of the additional need for services is originating.
Speakers also protested plans to access the rebuilt station via Terminal Avenue, a street with a 25 mph speed limit and speed bumps, and the main access to the neighborhood’s community center and a school.
The fire district was considering using eminent domain to acquire at least two of the residential properties identified in the fire station plans. After the outcry, the board voted to drop the idea of using Terminal Avenue to access the expanded station.
Although the district is no longer planning to acquire the Hoermanns’ property it is still considering acquiring a residential property on Chilco Street and the station’s current site, which the district is leasing from the city of Menlo Park. Chief Schapelhouman has said the district has not ruled out using eminent domain to acquire both properties.
Residents were also upset about the way they, and the property owners who could be displaced, had learned about the project. The first notice of the environmental report, and the plans for the station, came on Feb. 17.
The owners of the affected properties also first heard from the fire district around that date, receiving notices that the “project may require the acquisition of your real property” along with a brochure about the eminent domain process, which allows a public agency to force a landowner to sell his or her property.
The chief’s report on the project for the March 21 meeting said it would “require the acquisition of residential properties to allow for the station expansion, parking, and site access.”
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