Dear Council Members:
I have been a resident of Menlo Park for 23 years and a resident of Sharon Heights for 22 years. I am also the daughter of Cuban immigrants who came to this country in the early 1960s with little more than the clothes on their backs.
My earliest memories are of parks. Our family photo albums were full of pictures of our family in public parks: playgrounds and birthday parties, beaches and barbecues. As a child, our annual summer vacation was a long weekend at the beach in a Motel 6 in La Jolla where we played in the surf, dug giant holes and built sand castles. It wasn't until I was older that I realized why. Beaches are free. Local parks are free. And while my family was not poor, we were definitely lower to middle income. We couldn't afford admissions tickets. So we went to public beaches and parks, frequently parking on the street and avoiding paid lots.
Parks are essential to a healthy and vibrant life, to healthy and vibrant families. We witnessed this most recently during the pandemic. While we were closed off in our homes, we found community and recreation in our local parks. I live near Sharon Park (duck pond). During the pandemic, the parked cars spilled out of the Sharon Park parking lot, wrapping around the park, up Monte Rosa and down around Sharon Park Road as more and more people discovered the beauty and uniqueness of Sharon Park. Some enjoyed a stroll around the duck pond and adjacent hiking trails. Others gathered on the lawns in socially distanced circles. Many hiked around the trees along the dirt path in the open space. Children rode their bikes along those same dirt paths sharing the space with the hikers and dog walkers. People planned parties there, conducted meetings there, took graduation photos there, even got married there. All to the joy of surrounding residents.
The family my husband and I have created is not lower income like the family I came from, but we still enjoy the parks and nearby open spaces. My two sons learned to ride a bike around the duck pond, explored the "spooky forest" in the adjacent open space, climbed the play structures at Nealon, played soccer at Lyle and Kelly Park, learned to swim at Burgess pool, played basketball at the Arrillaga gym, and skated at the Burgess Skate Park. And we were not alone! We were surrounded by other Menlo Park residents! Simply stated, the parks in Menlo Park are central to the lives of its residents.
I recognize the need for more affordable housing in Menlo Park. I understand the obligation being placed on cities around the state by Sacramento's housing initiatives. But destroying parkland to achieve those objectives is not the answer. Rather the answer should lie in rezoning and redeveloping commercial and residential property that has outlived its usefulness or is not otherwise being used to its best and highest potential. Sound urban planning principles should be guiding the City Council as it embarks on this new housing element, not short-sighted political maxims like "spread the pain." As our population grows, our city should be doubling down on parks, investing in our parkland, rather than cannibalizing our parks and reducing parkland. This is because our need for parkland will only intensify and grow as our city becomes more dense. And if we destroy parkland now, we will lose it forever. Parkland is, after all, a finite resource.
Though Sharon Heights is a thoughtfully planned community with a diversity of housing options (single family residences, apartment complexes, condominiums and duplexes) I do support the idea of rezoning and redeveloping the Sharon Heights shopping center which, in my opinion, is not developed to its highest and best use for our larger Menlo Park community. While I am not an urban planner, it seems to me that installing some affordable housing there is ideal: near to public bus transportation, the 280 corridor, shopping, La Entrada Middle School, and Sharon Park.
The decisions you make in this housing element process will have long-lasting consequences on our beautiful city. I pray you are mindful of your responsibility to current and future Menlo Park residents and view these challenges with a long-term perspective by safeguarding Menlo Park parkland.
Sincerely,
Katia T. Diehl
970 Siskiyou Drive
Menlo Park, CA 94025
