BY ADRIANA HERNANDEZ
Daily Post Staff Writer
Menlo Park City Council has decided to put a citizens initiative to repeal plans for public housing downtown on the November 2026 ballot.
Council also had the choice of scrapping the plans or putting it to a vote in March.
The city said it would allow buildings as tall as 85 feet or seven stories.
Mayor Drew Combs said he was concerned about whether the initiative would affect developers who are planning to build on the lots. Council selected six developers, and asked them come back with more fleshed out ideas. They have until Christmas Day to submit proposals.
“It puts on pause any forward movement on any projects on the parking lot,” Combs said.
Vice Mayor Betsy Nash said having the initiative in November 2026 gives developers time to work on their proposals. Nash said she would feel more informed with the proposals from developers in front of her.
Had council decided to put the question to voters in March, such a special election would have cost between $315,000 and $378,000, according to City Attorney Nira Doherty.
Combs said he had a hard time deciding because a special election would end the divisive discussion.
“(A) special election is a quick resolution,” Combs said.
Residents said they were concerned the turnout for a special election would be low.
Karen Grove, who supports housing on the parking lots, pointed out the March special election to authorize the Board of Supervisors to fire Sheriff Christina Corpus, drew only 24% of registered voters.
Brittani Baxter said many families who have kids may not have time to go out and vote. (However, nowadays ballots are mailed to voters and can be returned in the mail, like other pieces of mail such as bills.)
“Elections have consequences, and the consequences of the vote here would be very big,” Baxter said. “In addition to the significant cost savings of not holding a special election, it’s important that this is on the ballot during your regular election in order to get the most representative sample of voters and not low turnout or only certain groups.”
The city has planned to redevelop three parking lots with 556 spaces into buildings containing 345 to 483 subsidized apartments between Santa Cruz and Oak Grove avenues.
Proponents of the measure, which is comprised of downtown business owners, landlords and some Menlo Park residents, have suggested other areas in the city where subsidized apartments can be built, such as the civic center on Laurel Street, SRI, the city’s public works yard and the Bohannon Industrial Office Park.
Ken Chan, senior organizer at the Housing Leadership Council in San Mateo County, said there are only a few areas in the city that could support the proposed 345 affordable apartments.
With the referendum in November, businesses will have plenty of time to leave. The landlords — nepo babies who inherited their properties from Mommy and Daddy — will have to settle for less rent or no rent at all. I imagine some of them will have to get real jobs for the first time in their lives. Can a nepo baby make change at a cash register?
The term “public housing” usually refers to a municipal Housing Authority that builds and operates the housing as is found in SF and Oakland. The affordable housing that the city is proposing to have built will be owned and operated by nonprofit organizations.
All housing that receives public funds is “public housing.” The reason why liberals don’t like the term “public housing” is that it conjures up images of crime, prostitution, open-air drug use. Public housing projects always go bad, so they want to call it something else to sell it to the community. I think you should call a spade a spade and not sugarcoat the language.
I too hate the white washing of this massive public/low income housing project. I moved to Menlo Park over 20 years ago because I lived in one of these “affordable” communities and I was tired of the crime and trash everywhere. On the plus side, it will create a bigger need for more police jobs.
Great article by Adriana Hernandez about the construction cost of Parking Ramp. In Menlo Park: In addition to the extreme expense of building a parking ramp, ( 565 spaces x $200,000 per space = $113 million ) the Developers, their Architects and the city council fail to admit, that a 5 story parking ramp is only used on levels 1 and 2.
Levels 3,4,5 and sub lower levels A and B are virtually EMPTY.
( the Council can go to Palo Alto’s Bryant Street ramp and see for themselves)
Why Empty? Because it is inconvenient (and scary) to get on an elevator in a parking ramp, especially with no security guards on site.
That is probably why Stanford mall has only 2 levels of parking ramps.
The city council is being driven by something other than reason.
Council members: Abandon plans to build State mandated low cost apartments on the downtown parking lots!
It will NOT work, AND there are better location for the apartments!
Just say no to destroying Menlo Park’s downtown by removing half the city’s parking and destroying the small business community? There’s already a major parking shortage causing people to go elsewhere and they want to make things worse?
Has it dawned on anyone that sales tax revenue matters??
Has anyone bothered to read how the “projects” aka low-income housing projects are doing elsewhere? Or even to do an AI search on whether shoving in more and more housing lowers housing costs AT ALL?