BY ADRIANA HERNANDEZ
Daily Post Staff Writer
A group of Menlo Park residents will soon start collecting signatures for a ballot measure to stop the city’s plans to replace three downtown parking lots with public housing.
The group, called Save Downtown Menlo, plans to collect signatures on Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. in front of Draeger’s Market at 1010 University Drive, according to Save Downtown Menlo proponent Alex Beltramo.
The city attorney’s office gave the group the OK to start collecting signatures on Thursday.
To support the initiative, Save Downtown Menlo formed a campaign committee comprised of residents Beltramo, Caitlin Darke, Van Kouzoujian, Richard Dreager, Vasile Oros and campaign attorney Jim Sutton.
Draeger is the owner of Draeger’s Market and Oros owns Menlo Park Ace Hardware.
The committee will be organizing to gather volunteers to help collect signatures. A few volunteers met on Monday to sign paperwork to start collecting signatures on Wednesday.
“We’re confident that we’ll get the needed signatures, so we’re looking ahead,” Beltramo said.
The city received a notice of intent from the group on May 15. The group will need over 2,000 signatures for the initiative to be on the ballot.
Signatures will only be valid when collected from anyone over the age of 18, who is registered to vote and is a resident of Menlo Park.
This ballot initiative comes after the group filed a lawsuit against the city on April 14, claiming the city’s plans disregard the interest of the downtown property owners who paid for the parking lots.
Council will discuss the lawsuit behind closed doors on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. Council will also be reviewing the seven responses from developers interested in developing housing at the three parking lots.
Council voted to issue a “Request for Qualifications” or RFQ on Jan. 29 for any developers to submit their ideas for the lots. The RFQs were due on March 31. Seven developers submitted early project proposals. The city requested a minimum of 345 apartments and a space to replace public parking.
The city released the proposals on April 4 and has received 141 comments from residents expressing their thoughts, according to Community Development Director Deanna Chow’s report.
Council will discuss the seven RFQs at Tuesday’s meeting.
Good for them. The intentional destruction of a major downtown and its businesses and amenities is unconscionable, short-sighted and absurd.
Besides, with the State running a huge deficit, Federal aid drying up, big companies like Google and Meta backing out of their commitments to provide housing and big developers going broke and defaulting on their loans, who knows if there would be anyone left to provide “affordable” housing.
Jam is absolutely right! And it’s all the more unconscionable since the city has many alternative sites that can be used for Affordable Housing, none of which would force businesses to close or put employees out of work.
Menlo Park residents clearly don’t want their downtown destroyed through removal of essential parking lots, and have been pushing back vehemently since last January if not before, which raises the question: who are our Council members actually representing? The developers?
The state legislature and the Governor do NOT have authority over your first duty: You are obligated to First answer to Menlo Park Voters, not Sacramento. Sacramento has reached beyond their authority by micro-managing city functions. But: The voters are overwhelmingly demanding that you either respond to the city voters demands to find a different/better location for housing OR they will take that decision away from you at the ballot box or the courtroom. Please, save taxpayer money and voluntarily abandon the plan to build housing on OUR parking lots. There are better alternative locations for housing.
Downtown housing on the parking lots? It is quite simple:
You are trying to put a size 12 foot into a size 8 shoe.
Math exam:
There are 550 parking spaces now, that must be replaced.
You are adding 350 apartments AND Each apartment needs 1.5 parking spaces.
Total parking spaces needed for housing project on completion = 550+350+175 =1,075
NOW: How many parking spaces are the 7 developers proposing?
Between “none” and 700!
That means ( at best ) we end up with 375 parking spaces LESS than we need!
( 1,075 minus 700 = 375 )
Answer: All 7 developers have NOT satisfied the citys demand that adequate parking will be provided (replaced ).
Downtown parking lots just wont work mathematically for housing.
Please Find a better location for state mandated housing.
Historically, Menlo Park voters don’t care about development projects that impact people in other parts of town. We can expect yet another landslide vote:
• Measure V (2022): voters defeat initiative to stifle teacher housing.
• Measure M (2014): voters defeat initiative to stifle Downtown Specific Plan.
• Measure T (2010): voters support Menlo Gateway (Bohannon) project.
Karen Grove, the former housing commissioner and heiress to the Intel Corp. fortune, owns several single family homes. She should donate them to a public housing developer and put multi-story apartment buildings on each lot.
You couldn’t be more correct! No one cares until it affects them and once it does, they turn NIMBY.
Those of you opposed to the downtown parking lot plan, please tell us where you suggest this housing be built instead? Let me guess, the Burgess parking lots? To remind you, there is already the Sheridan development (90 apartments), the SRI Parkline development (800+ new homes), and the potential Sunset Towers development (currently 665+ proposed housing units) east of El Camino. So that means there are at least 1,500 new apartments/homes planned for East of El Camino. Not to mention there is talk of putting in more housing at the USGS campus next to SRI.
Again I ask you, where do you propose this housing gets built if not downtown? Take any land east of El Camino off the table and then answer the question.
Development in this town is disproportionately affecting the east side of Menlo Park. It is time to spread the wealth and develop other parts of Menlo Park
Public housing always works out well, with no crime, no jobless people hanging out — this is the definition of “equity,” giving the rich folk in Menlo Park a taste of “the projects.”