BY ADRIANA HERNANDEZ
Daily Post Staff Writer
A group that has been fighting the proposed redevelopment three downtown Menlo Park parking lots into housing has filed a lawsuit, saying the city does not have the right to put housing on the lots.
Save Downtown Menlo has been raising funds to sue the city through GoFundMe. The group’s attorney, David Lanferman, said that because the parking lots were funded and maintained by the downtown property owners, the city needs the OK from 51% of property owners to redevelop the lots.
The plan to redevelop the parking lots with 556 spaces into 345 to 483 apartments on the lots between Santa Cruz and Oak Grove avenues has been hotly debated by residents, merchants, property owners and downtown shoppers with rivaling petitions and hours-long public comments at a Jan. 15 council meeting.
The lawsuit, filed April 14 in San Mateo County Superior Court, also claims there has been inconsistencies with city plans and policy, disregarding the interests of the downtown property owners who paid for the parking lot. The city’s general plan consists of the “preserving and enhancement of downtown’s atmosphere.”
The city has not yet been served with court papers.
The lawsuit does not name who Lanferman’s clients are. Downtown merchants and landowners have been outspoken with their unhappiness for the proposals.
Council had voted on Jan. 15 meeting to issue a “Request for Qualifications,” or RFQ, for interested developers to submit their ideas for the lots. The council received seven preliminary proposals that it is expected to review in May.
Most of the proposals are for 345 apartments and include plans to replace much of the parking that would be eliminated by the redevelopment. Respondents to the RFQ include Presidio Bay Ventures, which owns Springline at 1300 El Camino Real, Path Ventures, Alliant Development and housing nonprofits such as Alta Housing and MidPen Housing have teamed up with developers for their RFQ responses.
Lanferman has made a similar claim in Palo Alto about that city’s plan to redevelop parking lots downtown, representing a group of downtown landowners including Roxy Rapp. In that instance, Lanferman has only sent a letter to city officials.
Palo Alto spokeswoman Meghan Horrigan-Taylor responded at the time by saying that the city of Palo Alto owns the lots.
“While local businesses financed the lots decades ago, they have received the full benefit of their contribution, and will also soon benefit from a new parking garage,” Horrigan-Taylor said in January.
Good for the Menlo Park landlords for their pushback in a city that ALREADY has such a severe parking shortage people are shifting their business because we’re missing appointments wasting time trying to park.
Shame on Palo Alto for simultaneously blaming sales tax declines for their inability to fund necessities like fire engines while working tirelessly to make parking even tougher and now their insane AND costly efforts to slow traffic all over PA which will further deter us from going out to shop and dine.