Your Downtown.
Your Tax Dollars.
Your Vote.
Five city council members should not dictate the future of our downtown - at your expense.
Developers expect tens of millions from City taxpayers for parking garages.
$$$
Developers expect tens of millions from City taxpayers for parking garages. $$$
Our City Council wants to use the downtown parking plazas for high-density housing.
Replacing the open-air spaces with parking garages would cost the City tens of millions of dollars and drive out local businesses.
Meanwhile, there are better sites for housing that are being ignored.
In November, vote YES!
Let Voters Decide.
DOWNTOWN PARKING PLAZAS INITIATIVE
WHAT IT DOES
The initiative would establish an ordinance prohibiting the City of Menlo Park from selling, leasing, or repurposing any of the eight downtown parking plazas without voter approval. It would not prevent development on the plazas that voters approve of.
If the measure passes and the City Council wants to pursue its current plan, voters would have the final say on a later ballot.
Improvements to parking infrastructure (parking structures, EV charging, better access, etc.) would not require a public vote. The measure applies only to the downtown parking plazas. It does not affect City planning anywhere else.
THREE REASONS TO VOTE YES!
1
The Council’s Plan Would:
COST US
TENS OF MILLIONS
2
The Council’s Plan Would:
DRIVE OUT
LOCAL BUSINESSES
3
The Council’s Plan Would:
NEGLECT
BETTER OPTIONS
1 - The Council’s Plan Would
COST US
TENS OF MILLIONS
The original idea (pushed by housing advocacy groups) was for the City to provide the parking plazas for $1/year, and in return, developers would build low-income housing and replace the lost public parking.
But things changed.
The prospective developers are now saying they can't replace the public parking without City taxpayer money:
· Related/Alta is asking the City to contribute $26 million to build an 8-story parking garage at the edge of downtown.
· Presidio Bay — which isn't providing any of the requested low-income housing — still wants the City to kick in $15 million.
· Alliant Communities says the only way they can afford replacement parking is if they don’t pay prevailing wages. No other developer dared suggest that.
And it gets worse. The developers are asking the City to delay or waive millions in impact fees, which would have otherwise gone to fund city services.
Menlo Park cannot afford this plan. The City’s worsening budget deficit is already forcing difficult cuts.
If this Council gets their way, it will be you - the taxpayer - who pays for it.
2 - The Council’s Plan Would
DRIVE OUT
LOCAL BUSINESSES
Downtown Menlo Park serves 380,000 people who live within a 20 minute drive. It only functions because of the access provided by the parking plazas.
Easy access to surface parking is what makes our downtown work. Drone footage of downtown plazas 1, 2, 3.
Not all parking is equal. Replacing convenient open-air parking behind the stores with parking garages would make our downtown much less accessible.
Hundreds of apartments on the parking plazas could also create serious traffic congestion.
That is why 135 downtown businesses have publicly stated that the plan threatens their businesses - and the jobs they provide.
Small businesses don’t get a second chance. Our downtown may not either.
3 - The Council’s Plan Would
NEGLECT
BETTER OPTIONS
An inability to pay for the replacement public parking garage is only one of the reasons why the Council’s plan may ultimately fail. Others include fire safety and emergency access issues, infrastructure issues, soil contamination from decades of dry cleaners, legal challenges from the surrounding property owners who originally paid for the land to be parking lots, and a dependence on state funding for which there is a bottleneck.
By clinging to this doomed plan, the City Council is wasting time that could be spent on more viable housing sites, such as these:
Passing the ballot measure would encourage the City to pursue better ways to meet our housing goals. Other cities, including San Mateo, have amended their Housing Elements to add sites and adjust their plans.
“Until the voters have spoken.”
In his December 2025 newsletter, Then-Mayor Drew Combs captured the situation clearly:
“… there were alternative paths to pursuing redevelopment of the parking lots … I don’t think the city council should take any additional actions to move the project forward until the voters have spoken.”
And in this City Council meeting, he expressed concern about 'strangling downtown' and noted the parking lot plan was not a last resort — it was the vision of his colleagues on council.
From March 4, 2025 City Council Meeting. Watch time: 3 minutes
A once-in-a-generation decision to fundamentally transform our downtown should not be made without clear consent from the people of Menlo Park.
And that requires a vote.
Well-funded advocacy groups are fighting to keep this decision in the hands of five council members.
To Win in November,
The People of Menlo Park Will Need to Show Up
We have only one downtown.
Vote YES, and let’s get it right.
