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A proposal to demolish the 28-room Red Cottage Inn & Suites at 1704 El Camino Real and replace it with a 68-room Hampton Inn is scheduled for review by the Menlo Park Planning Commission tonight (Monday, Oct. 8).
It’s not the first time the Planning Commission has looked at the project, nor will it be the last. In March, the Planning Commission held a study session on the proposal, and favored some changes preferred by neighbors, like changing the architectural style to “Spanish Eclectic” from a “farmhouse” style, and lowering floor heights from 15 feet to 13 feet to make the three-story building less imposing.
Since then, however, construction costs have risen to the point where the builder says it’s no longer financially feasible to build an underground parking garage. The proposal has been redesigned to have on-grade parking on the east side of the ground floor, and an entry with a lounge, lobby and a dining area (intended only for hotel guests to eat breakfast) on the ground floor on the side facing El Camino Real. There would be 68 guest rooms on the second and third floors.
The building as proposed would be 37,787 square feet, 42 feet tall at its highest point, and built at a density requiring some form of additional contribution to the public. The developer also proposes to remove all 15 trees on the site, six of which are considered “heritage” trees, and install 52 parking spaces, with room on site to fit a total of 68 cars using valet parking. The developer would also have to provide $256,480 in fees toward the city’s below-market-rate housing fund.
The project is expected to generate about $661,000 in hotel taxes per year. In several recent hotel developments in the city’s downtown area, hotel taxes have been considered to be a sufficient “public benefit” to justify the additional density being sought.
Despite previous conversations with nearby residents, a number of complaints about the project have recently come into the City Council’s email inbox. In addition, an online petition on change.org had, as of the morning of Oct. 8, 84 supporters, who demanded that the developer create a 38-foot setback boundary from Forest Lane, replace the third-floor rooms facing Forest Lane with a trellis, and add second-story landscaping.
The Planning Commission is scheduled to meet at 7 p.m. tonight at the Menlo Park City Council Chambers at 701 Laurel St. Access the meeting agenda here or watch the meeting online here.
The developer had a written agreement with the neighbors on the earlier design and he walked away from that without any notice to the neighbors.
Any public benefit bonus must be justified by an analysis of both the benefits and the COSTS of such a bonus.
The DSP states
“The study session(s) should incorporate
appropriate fiscal/economic review (with work overseen by
City staff), which should broadly quantify the benefits/costs
of the bonus FAR/density/height and the proposed public
benefit.”
Those costs have not either been identified or quantified and many of those costs will be borne by the neighbors.
So MP will allow this construction, adding to congestion on El Camino & negatively impacting the immediate neighborhood? It’s greed, folks, all about the hotel tax revenue. Greed will sink Menlo Park.
Sets backs for this three story hotel are 10 feet from the property line which is a huge impact on the homes that border this property on Buckthorn Way. The developer is putting an oversized chain hotel in the middle of an charming and unique neighborhood. The address may be on El Camino, but the hotel is not.
I don’t buy the argument that underground parking is not financially feasible. All this means is that it will take a little longer to recoup the investment. It is short-term thinking such as this that hurts the overall sustainability of our community and is drag on any “benefit” derived from increased tax revenue.
This is a prime example of what’s wrong with this city council. Only caring about the money generated by a new hotel and not giving a damn about the residents that have to use the roads around the hotel. This is an awful idea and shows how out of touch council is with the traffic problems in Menlo Park. Don’t let these elected officials back. Kick them all out and vote for those who care about the residents and quality of life in this city before it’s to late
I don’t think Hampton Inn is the option Menlo Park needs. I feel Menlo Park should get five star hotels, after all it is the gateway to the best University of the West, if not the best in the U.S., Stanford University. I think the area could easily be served well with a Hilton, or a Grand Hyatt, or even a W Hotel.
However, I also missed the Menlo Park of olde. I liked when the Bevmo location was a Chili’s, and when Su Hong’s was still Su Hong’s. I missed that Ace Hardware with the Bean Stalk off of Alameda, and McQuarie’s, that other Round Table, and also that ice cream place (before Double-Rainbow and TCBY).
What should be improved is El Camino as the traffic on there has greatly worsened.
@ MP needs the transformation-
“What should be improved is El Camino as the traffic on there has greatly worsened.”
How can ECR traffic possibly be improved by building more commercial buildings which are inaccessible except via ECR? Every new building that brings customers to its location on El Camino makes the traffic worse for the residents. Hotels should be very near freeways, as the Four Seasons & Rosewood are. The visitors have nice places to stay without adding parking & traffic to an already congested thoroughfare which most of us have to use or cross to get to schools & supermarkets.
Hotels also generate regular deliveries by truck, for laundry services & to supply the bar & restaurant.
People arrive at hotels by car, either their own or someone else’s, be it Uber, taxi, or Hertz. Any hotel generates car traffic, which is the last thing we need on El Camino. Marsh Rd – Bohannon is a far more appropriate place for a hotel.
Making the intersection of El Camino & Santa Cruz Ave “No right turn on red light” would help. Cars turning onto southbound El Camino on a red light jam up the intersection so green-lighted ECR cars often can’t clear the intersection before the light changes.
“How can ECR traffic possibly be improved by building more commercial buildings which are inaccessible except via ECR? ”
Get rid of the parking on ECR or the islands (they’re not properly maintained and just function to block visibility anyway) and make it 3 lanes in both directions all the way through town. That will go a long way to easing traffic. If you want proof all you need to do is drive ECR up from Palo Alto on through to San Carlos. What you will quickly notice is that traffic jams up where ECR is reduced to 2 lanes in each direction in Menlo Park and a part of Redwood City. As soon as it opens up to three lanes traffic flows better.
Another thing that can be done is demand and force Stanford to deal with all of the traffic they put on the road. They continue to build even more and produce even more traffic. No one ever holds them accountable for mitigating that traffic.
@Steve: You’re arguing to underground parking because it’ll make Menlo Park more “sustainable”? I don’t think you know what that word means. Adding a ton of time to construction and a ton more emissions from trucking out dirt does NOT make Menlo more sustainable. It does the opposite.
All that being said, we should be fighting for less parking. It matters much less whether the parking is underground or surface level.
“I feel Menlo Park should get five star hotels, after all it is the gateway to the best University of the West, if not the best in the U.S., Stanford University.“
Let’s be honest, menlo isn’t San Francisco or even Palo Alto. Plus there is already the rosewood. I don’t think a 5 star hotel would fit in the community one bit—and no developed in their right mind would put such a hotel right on el Camino esp in Menlo park
I don’t believe that there is a substantial demand daily for 40 extra rooms and definitely not in light of the hotel additions already completed and underway. In my mind, it is not worth the traffic, tree removal and disruption on that location. Did they happen to mention what their proposed daily rack rate would be? Red Cottage is a nice place with a modest nightly rate but I fear that the new hotel would be double the price so that consideration should also be factored in.
Also, you imply a W hotel is a 5 star hotel. It is not. It barely qualifies for a four star hotel
I predict that unless the developer goes back to the previously acceptable to the neighbors underground parking plan ( which greatly reduces the above ground mass) that the granting of a public benefit bonus will be fought at the PC level, at the Council level and in the courts.
Without the public benefit bonus this project is dead.
And even if that battle not to grant a public benefit bonus is eventually lost (which I don’t think it will be because using the TOT to justify a public bonus without looking at the cost is just the city taking a bribe at the cost of the neighbors) the delay will doom this project.
PS. – Almost every new home in Atherton has a basement so claiming that this 36,410 sf lot it too small to economically excavate simply doesn’t make sense.
The Red Cottage Inn, in its current form, is modest and fairly innocuous with 28 rooms and primarily a single story structure. Relations with the hotel owner have been good. However, new development plans call for a 2-3X increase in scale (68 rooms and three story facility). Unlike other commercial buildings in the area, the Red Cottage Inn is not on ECR, it is tucked back about 200-250ft from the street on a “flag lot” of sorts in the midst of an historically residential neighborhood – Park Forest. Residents/private homes border the hotel on three sides. There was confirmation last night at the Planning Commission Study Session on this project that the new ECR development plan voted on a number of years ago never contemplated such a situation as this one. The owner wants to develop his property and make a better return on his land (which you can’t blame him for doing) with a much bigger facility, and we residents don’t want a big commercial hotel right smack dab in the middle in our neighborhood. Increased traffic, noise, light, and less privacy are just some of the concerns.
The hotel owner and resident neighbors had been working together for 2+ years and eventually worked out a mutually acceptable design last year, even with the minimum room and facility requirements demanded by the hotel franchisor – Hilton. However, the hotel owner, after getting a recent construction bid, materially changed his plan and design moving from underground parking to above ground parking (driven by construction costs). This change necessarily resulted in a big increase in the building’s scale and impact and forfeited most of the agreements reached on the prior plan. Hence, we now have a classic conflict between commercial developer and residential property owners.
The Planning Commission’s stance at the Study Session was that the hotel owner and the residents should try to work out something. One likely key to resolving this conflict lies is the parking – underground can facilitate a structure/design that is acceptable to both the neighbors and hotel owner… but it is apparently too expensive for the hotel owner and the numbers don’t pencil out. It looks like the Planning Commission will not be much help here and can’t (or won’t) force the developer to do much, given the City’s stance to approve projects that meet code and are “technically” characterized as in the Public Benefit (aka make the City more revenue) as written by the statute. As such, resident property owners are generally “hamstrung” (to put it nicely) in a case like this.
Any potential resolution suggestions or ideas (or prayers) from others who have faced similar issues in the past would be most welcomed. Thanks in advance…
@ Menlo Voter-
Yes, eliminating ECR street parking would definitely help but that already got shot down months ( a year?) ago by the stroller mommies who don’t want moving traffic so close to the sidewalks where they push & walk their tots. They like wide sidewalks with parked cars as a buffer.
It would also help if cars in the Right Turn Only lane southbound @ Valparaiso didn’t go straight instead of turning.
Curb cuts for left turn lanes are too short. Cars going left get stuck waiting for 2 signal sequences because they can’t get into the left turn lane. Look at what happens where Alma joins El Camino. Cars back up & block the left thru lane waiting to get onto Alma.
The public benefit bonus is NOT an entitlement and is a significant financial grant to the developer.
Unless the developer goes back to the previously acceptable to the neighbors underground parking plan ( which greatly reduces the above ground mass) then the granting of a public benefit bonus will be fought at the PC level, at the Council level and in the courts.
Scott – great summary.
The only thing I can think of is to refuse to vote for any City Council members who want the ego-strokes & have the greed that keeps them pandering to developers + taking junkets on other people’s money to help expand MP’s commercial presence along El Camino.
Planning commission is appointed by CC, chosen from volunteers. What does the CC really know about the goals of any new volunteers? A couple of planners like the proximity to CC power & actively cultivate social relationships with a couple of CCs by inviting them to birthday & holiday parties, etc.
KK particularly milks this one big time & planners with inflated-egos support her agenda. Be careful who you elect.
From the DSP EIR:
“If an individual developer proposed to exceed the base intensities/densities and/or heights as
established in the Specific Plan, the proposal would be subject to a structured negotiation
process in order for the City to receive public benefit.”
The DSP states:
“However, the Specific Plan requires a
structured process to minimize delays and uncertainty.
Projects requesting a public benefit bonus FAR, density
and/or height are required to conduct an initial public study
session with the Planning Commission, in which both the
project and the proposed public benefit are presented for
initial evaluation and comment (both from the Planning
Commission and the public).”
In the case of this project the staff reports strongly suggest that the granting of the public benefit bonus has been assumed.
When and where will the required “structured negotiation” for the 1704 ECR public benefit bonus take place?
Will this be done behind closed doors?
Or has it already been done?
@Scott
I have an idea. The hotel could “rent” the parking spaces from the next door neighbors: Pacific Union and Cindy’s at night. Those businesses use parking only during the day. The hotel needs parking at night. Seems like a good fit to me.
THe hotel would pay Pacific Union and Cindy’s some money for the privilege. Hotel valets can move some of the cars back to hotel property before those businesses open in the morning. As a courtesy, the hotel can even let Pacific Union and Cindy’s park at the hotel during business hours.
These comments from Peter Carpenter are hilarious, given he spent many years posting about how the DSP locked in developer property rights and that whiny neighbors could shove it. Here’s one example that took 2 seconds to find:
“After long and vigorous debate the Specific Plan was adopted.
Measure M failed.
Land owners can and will develop in accordance with the limits and incentives of the Specific Plan.
The democratic sysytem of representative government is working.
Anyone who wishes to do so can decide to relocate to another community that has different plans for the future.”
SOURCE: https://almanacnews.com/news/2016/02/22/report-greenheart-complex-in-menlo-park-has-significant-and-unavoidable-traffic-impacts
I’m actually sympathetic to some of the neighbor concerns here, but Peter’s inconsistency isn’t going to help. It’s just going to turn off moderate folks like it always does!
Oh, and the “structured negotiation” is this set of Planning Commission study sessions where the public chimes in and the commissioners give their feedback, with the BAE analysis. Same process as Greenheart went through. You can disagree with the commissioners’ views on it, but the process is happening correctly!
Thank you.
Note my prescient comment:
“Land owners can and will develop in accordance with the limits and incentives of the Specific Plan.”
Public Benefit bonuses are NOT entitlements.
The neighbors would have no objections to this project being built in accordance with the base limits of the Specific Plan.
Since children presently at Encinal School will progress to Hillview Middle, I’d think that the Encinal PTA might weigh in on this. Some of those kids will cross El Camino on bikes & extra traffic generated by a hotel with or without off-site valet service will have an impact.
If valets use the PU lot, they still have to go left on El Camino & then U-turn @ Encinal to get back to the get back to Buckthorn or Stone Pine.
Target needs to open one of its small-format stores in that location:
see: https://corporate.target.com/article/2018/07/small-format-stores
Scott –thank you for your detailed and balanced account. Clearly, the situation is a complicated one with no easy answers given current already adopted council policy. The Planning Commission has to work within existing development codes and even if they halt projects, I have seen Council overrule theIr decisions. As to ideas, sounds like the MP public benefit policy needs to be examined to see where it needs revising. Can someone provide a link to the policy and more background related to its use and your recommendations for updating it? Then, concerned residents could work together to revise it and then present the recommended changes to the PC and then council. The Planning Commission could be restructured to become a true Planming Commission and not just a commission to review projects. For this development, the negotiations related to the public benefit should also take place at an open, publicly noticed meeting. Even better would be to have qualified residents involved in these negotiations and not just the staff and the developers. I would also like to see a comprehensive chart with a summary of the large development deals and the public benefit, and some way to quantify the negative impact. Residents need visibility into the collective whole so we can better argue for change. Voting carefully is needed too. Current incumbents rumning for office have a very pro development voting record.
Lest anybody think that either the staff or the majority of the Planning Commission are sympathetic to the neighbors’ concerns read this:
“COMMISSION ACTION: The Planning Commission reviewed a presentation from the applicant, asked questions of the applicant and staff, considered public comment, and made comments to inform future review of the project. Key direction included:
• Commissioners indicated the alternate plan, shown on the last seven sheets of the submitted plan set, should be the starting point for the applicant to work with the neighbors.
• The applicant agreed to make multiple bids for the construction of an underground garage available to the Planning Commission and interested neighbors.
• Commissioners indicated the applicant has made several compromises and the neighboring property owners should also make compromises so an agreement can be reached.
• Commissioners commented that the residences on Buckthorn Way appeared to be most impacted by the current and alternate designs.
• Commissioners indicated most of the design comments from the March study session have been incorporated, improving the overall design.
• Commissioners also indicated the western property line facing El Camino Real should be considered for the purpose of calculating sign area. ”
The very idea that Patel can walk away from his agreement with the neighbors on an earlier design and then put a totally different design forward without any neighborhood support and that the Planning Commission would then dare to say that we now have to compromise with this new much more intrusive design is a travesty.
I continue to fully support the previous underground parking design and I will do everything possible, including a lawsuit, to prevent the granting of a public benefit bonus for the current design.
The Planning Commission’s job is to represent the community not to be a shill for a developer.
It is indeed unfortunate and legally problematic that the Menlo Park ECR plan did not fully consider a property that has an ECR address but is really not on ECR and is nestled within a low density residential neighborhood – like the Red Cottage Inn property. The Planning Commission needs to take this location specific issue into consideration as it approves the plans of this project.
Moreover, there is a real legal question as to whether the Public Benefit Bonus can apply in this situation. The Planning Commission needs to VERY carefully review this consideration before granting such a benefit. There are some 100 homes in the neighborhood – that’s a lot of property taxes/tax payers vs. one developer. Even if just 25% of the homes in the area are directly affected or impacted in some way, how can 25 properties be subjugated to just one property owner? No doubt having a large hotel staring you in the face as you look out your window or down the street or across your park, when there isn’t one now, can’t be great for one’s property value as well as one’s view. And once the hotel is built, it won’t be going away anytime soon – its presence and impact will be long lasting.
We asked the Planning Commissioners, in the recent Study Session on this project, how many of them had actually visited our neighborhood and looked at the potential impact from all vantage points, including the second story of a resident homeowner. Only one Commissioner said they visited the neighborhood with the project in mind.
Additionally, none of the Commissioners have talked directly with any of the affected homeowners in the area. They’ve only been in touch with the hotel’s developer until last Monday’s Study Session when a number of resident neighbors addressed the Commission. One would think more due diligence should be exercised here, particularly when there was a large group (~25) from the neighborhood that showed up for a Study Session at 8pm on a Monday night and 115 people signed a petition against the current design/plan. The Planning Commission cannot rush to judgement and rubber stamp the project at this stage when the new design, as currently configured, could have a material detrimental impact on many individual properties and their property values.
Consider this… if a large three story hotel was going to be built next to your home when there was no reason to believe that such a scaled building could be built, how might you react? No one foresaw this type of event happening nor does it seem that it was properly/adequately provisioned for in the ECR statute. Additionally, when you had an agreement with the developer and all of a sudden that agreement was withdrawn when construction costs rose and a much more intrusive building was going to be thrust upon the neighborhood and your property without much further compromise because the underground parking now doesn’t financially pencil out for the developer and his investors… AND the Planning Commission then said “You neighbors have to be the ones to compromise,” how would you feel?
All sides in this situation need to compromise/collaborate and that includes the City. The Planning Commission can’t push off everything to the homeowners. All parties, including The Planning Commission, have a lot at stake on this project. Given that underground parking is the key to a smaller footprint/impact hotel acceptable to both developer and residents alike, the City could provide incentives to the developer to build underground parking. There are a number of possible ways this might be done.
This project is only going to get more complicated, prolonged and problematic if the Planning Commission doesn’t listen to and collaborate with the resident neighbors, as well as the developer, and come to the table to help make things work between all parties.
The sequence of events described in this article and detailed in Scott Barnum’s very informative comments makes me outraged and angry on behalf of the residents who will be affected by this out of scale development. It’s unbelievable that City Council and the Planning Commission would treat residents’ entirely valid concerns in such a cavalier manner.
I would hope that the Planning Commission considers it a priority to protect residents from this type of intrusive development, especially since certain Council members don’t seem ever to have met a hotel or office project that they won’t rubber stamp.
It’s time for a change in leadership, before Menlo Park is well and truly transformed into Menlo Office Park. I hope someone pumps the brakes on this project before it’s too late.
I attended the Planning Commission’s study session on October 8 on the Red Cottage Inn expansion. I have lived in Menlo Park since 1995. My first home was in West Menlo Park. I have been a resident and homeowner in the Park Forest community since 2014.
With all of the building under way in Menlo Park, especially along the El Camino Real corridor, has there been any tally of the number of structures that are incorporating underground parking? Is that decision (and approval and support by the City) to use underground parking guided by policies of the City of Menlo Park?
In other words, has the City Planning Commission undertaken, or even considered, anything akin to a “policy” that would require new commercial building projects to put parking underground? The benefits of such a policy would be enormous and long-lasting.
As a long-time resident, this idea is akin to adopting a policy regarding placing utilities underground — a forward-thinking plan that I’m guessing a majority of residents would love to find a way to make happen for the safety of every neighborhood.
Just as there are so many good reasons to place utilities underground, there are equally strong, and forward-thinking reasons to plan for parking underground for commercial projects. As you heard from the cooperative and collaborative presentations made by Park Forest residents at the October 8 meeting, none of us wants to force the developer of the Red Cottage Inn expansion, Mr. Patel, to bear an inappropriate burden, or to become the test case for an onerous city building policy. But I’m asking why the City of Menlo Park commissioners won’t take a forward-thinking position in this immediate opportunity to get creative about how to incentivize and reward a plan for the Red Cottage Inn developers that includes underground parking, which will support our city values and quality of life for the Park Forest residents and our entire community.
With respect to the Red Cottage Inn expansion, say, ten years down the road, all of us — the 30,000+ residents of Menlo Park — will be grateful to our City leadership if they have the foresight to protect the quality, values, and privacy of our residents with support for underground parking. It’s just smart.
Both the Station 1300 project and the Park James Hotel have underground parking – and both received a Public Benefit bonus.
There is NO reason that 1704 ECR should not go back to the neighborhood approved underground parking design.
If the developer cannot afford underground parking then he should not ask for or receive a Public Benefit bonus.
1540 ECR has underground parking.
500 ECR has underground parking.
Why should 1704 ECR be expected to do less?
All of the Park Forest townhouses are 3-story boxes with at-grade parking. Sure, the hotel would be somewhat taller, but these neighbors are just failing around for a valid point. Try these “But I got here FIRST!” arguments out on your grandchildren and see how hard they roll their eyes.
Oh, and on the “what about my PROPERTY VALUE?” cry, look at Zillow at a random property in this area. 151 Forest Lane for example was sold in 2011 for $950,000, and is now valued at $2,261,726. That’s insane! Even if the hotel made it go down in value by 10% (which I doubt, given how constrained supply is and how little of the hotel you could see from that street), that’s still a crazy windfall profit for something that also provided shelter for years.
But sure, Scott/Peter, tell us about what property value you DESERVE…
Reva – Look at the plans for 1704 ECR.
“E.3.3.02 (Height; Vertical Building Projections Standard): 42 feet is the maximum permitted height
including parapets/mansards given the 38 foot maximum height limit. Previously, the corner tower
element measured about 44 feet at its peak from natural grade. The tower has now been reduced to
42 feet from natural grade, and the proposal now complies with all height limitations.”
This massive structure will tower over the immediately adjacent residential buildings with very small setbacks:
” The main plan set shows a rear setback along the eastern property line of approximately 24 feet, five inches, while the alternative proposal included as the last seven plan sheets, shows a site layout where the proposed hotel is shifted west, resulting in a rear setback of slightly over 26
feet, seven inches”