BY DAVE PRICE
Daily Post Editor
Menlo Park City Council won’t have much of a City Council race this year because only three candidates have signed up to run for two seats.
That’s worrisome because the candidates aren’t talking about the biggest threat to face the city in years.
A Russian businessman, Vitaly Yusufov, the son of one of Vladimir Putin’s pals, wants to build a 50-story building on the Sunset magazine site on Willow Road, along with two shorter buildings.
As things stand, Yusufov will probably get the go-head to build these towers because of the “builder’s remedy” provision in the state housing law. It says that if a city misses the deadline for a state-required housing plan, it’s open season for developers, who can put up new housing projects that violate height restrictions and other city rules.
How did this happen?
Plainly, the Menlo Park City Council blew it by not getting the plan finished and approved on time. I know they’re going to blame others for that — politicians never take responsibility — but the buck stops with them because they oversee the city administration.
Now council needs to come up with a strategy to stop this development. So far, all we’ve heard is crickets.
The candidates aren’t offering any ideas, either. Jeff Schmidt is focused on stopping climate change. He’s aware of the Sunset towers but it’s not something he’s talking about just yet. No mention of it on his campaign website.
You’d think people in his council district, whose property values would be diminished by this skyscraper, would want some answers from their councilman.
The other race is for the district covering the west part of town, where Sharon Park is located. One candidate for that seat, Jennifer Wise, who seemed to be unaware of the Sunset tower project when our reporter reached her the other day. Later, she said she would have something to say about it in the future.
The other candidate for that seat is 91-year-old Greg Conlon, formerly of Atherton, who has run unsuccessfully for many offices. He’s 10 years older than President Biden. As one commenter at Padailypost.com said, “She knows nothing and he’s forgotten everything.”
The current council, with the exception of Drew Combs, also seems to be in the fog about the towers. Jen Wolosin, whose district includes Sunset, left for vacation when the proposal first surfaced. You’d think she would be leading the fight against this project. Instead she’s decided not to run again.
It seems council would rather spend its time on bike lanes than stopping a monster project like this. Combs is the only council member who is taking this proposed tower seriously.
Council ought to hold a public hearing to hear suggestions from residents about how to fight this proposal.
I have a few ideas:
• The city could join with other cities with “builder’s remedy” projects and fight the law in court.
• The city could negotiate with Yusufov to reduce the height of the project to a size that fits that part of town.
• Buy the project from Yusufov.
The city could pursue any of those ideas or all of them at the same time. Right now, however, it seems like the city is just waiting for Yusufov to update his initial application. Yusufov isn’t going to back down — and neither should the city. Menlo Park citizens need a city council that’s up to the challenge.
Editor Dave Price’s column appears on Mondays.
Before we all have panic attacks, let’s remember that the adjoining San Francisquito Creek is a protected migratory steelhead waterway from the Bay to Searsville Lake. That’s Dept. of Fish and Game and federal EPA and Interior Dept. jurisdiction.
Migratory waterfowl, nesting owls,etc. Endangered Species Act…and more…
Plus the long history of flooding downstream from Middlefield makes this massive project a “non starter”, due to it’s inability to not generate any more runoff into the protected creek.
That’s bi county/cities (SF Creek Authority), Regional Water Quality Control Board, State, and federal jurisdiction(FEMA, Army Corps of Engineers…), plus State Federal law.
Law mandates “Net Zero Discharge” into storm drains and waterways from development, i.e., complete runoff containment underground, on site, in huge automatically controlled underground cauldrons. That alone makes the Sunset property a tough sell to “overdevelop” with those issues alone.
Yusofov’s muscle man is formerly Texas billionaire developer Harlan Crow’s muscle man.
So, we can outmuscle them with strategic counter offensives via City/County, Regional, Federal and State agencies. Just need to think “Zelensky” and “Servant of the People” that’s giving the Kremlin sleepless nights….”We fight, we win…” And we don’t just genuflect to the Oligarchy…
As a 20 year homeowner of Menlo Park I can attest this is the absolute WORST city council I have ever seen or heard about. My council member is Combs and when we had issues he couldn’t be bothered. Wolosin seemed to be active every single day when bike lanes were discussed. A 50 story tower? Not so much. None of these people have been advocating for the people who actually pay the property taxes in Menlo. They happily take input from groups outside the city and then pay lip service to their tax payers. I still can’t believe Nash got re-elected.
There you go applying logic and common sense — but the purpose of the Builder’s Remedy projects is to ignore any mitigating factors like you cite.
Berman and Becker support these atrocities so they can bring in the huge campaign donations while ignoring what projects like this will do to traffic, emergency services, quality of life etc etc. Try getting straight answers from them — and the other like-minded candidates. T
Maybe we can get the oligarch to provide Aeroflot helicopter shuttles since this is just one of the many huge construction projects that will be done at the same time, making it transportation major roads impossible.
As you say, the buck stops with the council failing to put a meaningful housing development plan in place. The focus should be on that, rather than playing whack-a-mole with the consequences.
As someone who does actually live in this district, I support the redevelopment of SRI. I might quibble with specifics, but I recognize that the point of builder’s remedy is to relax rules that have proved detrimental to making meaningful progress on our housing crisis.
JAM, Builder’s remedy is still subject to CEQA review. That’s State Law.
Builder’s remedy is not exempt from Regional, State and Federal Agency jurisdiction.
It’s a 30 year old law that has been interpreted by HCD staff as permitting certain very low income residential developments to proceed without being.
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Its impact hasn’t worked its way up the court system in Calif, so no substantive judicial interpretations….just the control freak HCD staff…
Link to law firm Hanson Bridgett blog re: Builders Remedy is easily found with google search. It’s well articulated and notes the Developer Headsup on Using Builders Remedy.
The 30 year old Builders Remedy Law is far from “settled law” and is without any clear judicial interpretration and mandate.
Since it’s only been attempted to be used recently with the HCD pressure on communities to update Housing Elements that have Housing Needs Assessments grossly inflated by the McKinsey Intl Group, which counted “per capita” for housing needs in the State under an early Newsom admin contract. The grossly inflated housing figures of some 5 million units needed by 2025…was exposed by former Berkeley Planning Commission chair Zelda Bronstein in her careful analysis of the scary sham foisted on communities by the HCD and regional Housing agencies that are dominated by construction trade unions and big developers…Newsom has recently backed off on supporting the inflated housing needs allocation numbers…but HCD has no accountability nor transparency, and is thumbing its nose at legislative and electorate scrutiny…