Housing on Downtown Parking Lots?

1. Menlo Park’s Housing Element designated downtown parking lots as potential sites to meet the state-mandated housing allocation.

2. City staff, led by Principal Planner Tom Smith, proposed that Parking Plazas 1, 2, and 3 (the lots north of Santa Cruz Avenue comprising 556 spaces) be used for a minimum of 345 units for low income residents.

3. Typical restrictions relating to density, height, and parking would be waived because it’s affordable housing near the train station. Buildings as tall as 10 stories, with no residential parking spaces legally required.

4. There is no good answer for replacement parking. A multi-level parking structure has been suggested, but there are no plans for funding, location, or timeline. Parking lots are already near capacity, and many people who shop in downtown Menlo do so specifically because they don’t have to deal with parking garages.

5. No studies have been conducted to assess the potential impact on traffic, congestion, and infrastructure.

6. Most residents, businesses, and downtown property owners were unaware of these plans until recently.

7. Increased congestion, less accessible parking, and years of construction could devastate our businesses and the jobs they provide.

8. Alternative locations for affordable housing, such as the Civic Center, were not adequately considered, with the housing element stating that the parking lot housing would be good for “the vibrancy of downtown.”

9. On Nov. 19th, City Council planned to vote on declaring the parking lots as “exempt surplus land” (a required legal step to begin development). However, the overwhelming turnout of residents, businesses, and downtown property owners opposing the plan led Council to postpone the vote till Jan. 14th and direct staff to conduct more public outreach.

10. On Jan. 13th, a statement of opposition by 112 businesses located adjacent to the parking plazas was submitted to Council.

11. Competing petitions were done. Menlo Together, an advocacy group which has been working on this issue for many years, did a petition in favor of the plan. (345 signatures on Jan. 14). Save Downtown Menlo, a loose collection of residents and business owners which coalesced after the Nov. 19th meeting, did a petition against the plan. (2,900 signatures on Jan. 14)

12. At the Jan. 14 Council meeting, Council Chambers were overflowing with people, with many left standing out in the cold. The vast majority of the audience opposed the housing plan. Nonetheless, Council voted to continue the process by issuing an RFQ (Request for Qualifications) to solicit credentials and designs from prospective developers. Council stopped short of declaring the parking lots as “exempt surplus land”, a step which would need to be done before selecting a developer. Council stressed that issuing the RFQ does not commit them to development, but is needed in order to have something specific to decide upon.

13. At the Jan. 28 Council meeting, public comment was filled with speakers reiterating the desire for alternative sites to be considered. Mayor Combs suggested that he RFQ for the downtown be paused, but other councilmembers disagreed, saying that the RFQ is important for information gathering and should not be delayed. However, Council did approve a motion by Councilmember Schmidt for a staff report explaining why the downtown parking lots were our Housing Element’s only City-owned opporutity sites.

14. A special March 4, City Council meeting was held to go over the staff report reviewing the previous evaluations of City-owned sites for housing. According to the report, the Civic Center was eliminated from consideration due to “active civic facilities” and a desire to protect city parkland (even though the Civic Center parking lots are neither civic facilities nor parkland). Once again, residents expressed strong opposition to the use of the downtown parking lots and asked for other sites to be explored. Mayor Combs wanted to ask staff to further explore the feasibility of City-owned sites, but he received no support from the other councilmembers, who wanted to wait to see what the developers submit in response to the RFQ.

15. On March 22, the results of the annual City Priorities Survey were released by the City Manager’s Office. When asked “Do you have additional input on priorities for Menlo Park?” 126 of the 544 respondents (23%) expressed opposition to the use the downtown parking lots for housing. (while 13 responses, or 2%, expressed support for it.) You can read all the responses starting on page 12 of this staff report or see a summary on pages 14-25 of this presentation.