BY AMELIA BISCARDI
Daily Post Staff Writer
After three years of hurdles, the developers hoping to build 88 apartments for teachers and other school employees on the former Flood School site in Menlo Park are approaching what might be their final test.
City Council tomorrow (March 11) will hear an appeal of the planning commission’s approval for the housing project for employees of the Ravenswood City School District at 320 Sheridan Drive.
The project has faced a ballot measure, talk of a mayoral recall and involvement by the county’s Board of Supervisors.
The supervisors voted Tuesday to contribute $9 million toward the project, with the requirement that the parking lot needs to be set up for a future second exit and entrance. The requirement was not initially on the supervisors agenda, but instead an add by former Menlo Park mayor now Supervisor Ray Mueller.
A second exit could place a road from the back of the project to Van Buren Road, right next to the homeless shelter, Haven House, at 260 Van Buren Road. It would allow cars to leave the area through the Flood Triangle neighborhood.
Council tomorrow will consider neighbor Skip Hilton’s appeal, which argues that the developer’s transportation study contains “deficiencies and inaccuracies” and that what the planning commission was presented with at its Jan. 13 meeting did not provide “the full picture.”
Senior Planner Chris Turner recommends council deny Hilton’s appeal, saying that the project is compliant with the city’s policies. It also said state law prevents the city from imposing traffic rules on low-income housing.
“Adding more traffic to an overloaded Bay Road is going to be a real problem,” resident Charles Shenk said in an email to council.
Hilton argues in his appeal the five-way stop sign at Bay Road and Ringwood Avenue should have been included in a transportation study. The traffic consultants decided not to study that particular intersection because they felt it wouldn’t affect traffic enough to include it in the study, Turner said.
Menlo Park Mayor Drew Combs, who represents the neighborhood, does not think shifting traffic from the Suburban Park neighborhood to the Flood Triangle neighborhood is fair.
Not all neighbors of the project are against the development.
“We would like to welcome these new residents into our neighborhood,” resident Brad Foster said in his email to council. “The pushback on providing a second entrance is baffling.”
Fire officials have reviewed the plans and signed off since there will be a gate for emergency vehicles to get in and out.
Residents and Menlo Park Fire Protection Board Member Rob Silano have brought up concerns that evacuating the area would be nearly impossible.
Silano went a step further, saying he was pulling papers to recall Combs over the matter.
No paperwork was ever filed with city to recall Combs, however.
The project was also part of why Measure V, which would have required the council to ask voters to approve specific housing projects, was on the ballot in November 2022.
The measure was defeated in a landslide, 62% to 38%.
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