BY AMELIA BISCARDI
Daily Post Staff Writer
Menlo Park City Council has put off a decision about putting public housing on parking lots behind the stores on Santa Cruz Avenue after getting an earful Tuesday from homeowners, business owners and shoppers.
The question will return to council on Jan. 14 when the council has two new members, Jeff Schmidt and Jennifer Wise. They’re replacing Jen Wolosin and Maria Doerr, who decided not to run again. Both Wilson and Doerr voted to make a decision on Tuesday night, but were outvoted by their three colleagues, Drew Combs, Betsy Nash and Cecilia Taylor.
Many of the 38 speakers at Tuesday’s meeting said they hadn’t heard about the plan to replace the 556 parking spaces with 345-483 affordable and low-income apartments until they saw fliers posted along Santa Cruz Avenue last week.
Businesses and property owners said they were particularly concerned about the loss of parking.
Cheeky Monkey owner Anna Chow said that while she understood the need for the city to meet the state housing mandate, she didn’t think putting affordable housing on the parking lots would work because it would be too dense.
“We need to ensure there is support for local businesses to stay open during construction, both operationally and economically,” said Chow.
“The state of California has finally managed or has finalized this (housing) crisis for what it is,” resident Dave Royce said. “Staff have made heroic efforts to comply with this process, including identifying the downtown parking lots as highly desirable locations for the development of affordable housing.”
However, the city missed the deadline to have a state-compliant housing plan, known as a housing element. As a consequence, the city is unable to stop so-called “builder’s remedy” projects, such as the proposed 50-story building on the Sunset magazine site on Willow Road.
Property owner Kevin Cunningham questioned the timing of the proposal before council. “We understand that this recommendation was made at the Aug. 27 meeting. The communication since then has been, I would say, off at best and suspicious at worst.”
Building housing in phases “would permit time for businesses and visitors to adapt to new parking locations and circulation patterns in the downtown area,” city planners said in a previous report to council. A previous city study for the downtown area recommended building one or two five-level parking garages with as many as 1,300 spaces.
Why aren’t we trying to get more businesses downtown, not housing? Our downtown is dying, and I don’t think public housing is the way to revive it.
I understand the need for more low income housing, however Santa Cruz Ave is not the place . Eliminating parking is not the answer. Very sad to see our government pushing cities to put in housing developments without going through the process hearing from local citizens .
Development will greatly impact negatively , our Mom and Pop small business owners. Downtown Menlo Park Is unique don’t mess with it.
[Comment removed — Terms of Use violation. Comment was in poor taste.]
That’s disgusting. That’s a false stereotype about public housing. The moderator should take that comment down.