Honorable Mayor and Council Members -
It is vital that there be a strong focus on the non-residential components of the proposed Parkline project. Menlo Park does not need more Office space, yet this proposal includes "flex" space for office/R&D uses that have very different profiles of impacts on traffic and the need for new housing beyond what exists today. SRI proposes to replace total non-residential square feet ("SF") with the same amount, but the proposal inherently could bring dramatically more people to the site, and increase dramatically future requirements for additional housing beyond what is already being demanded of our town.
IMPACT ON HOUSING REQUIREMENTS
Menlo Park needs net new housing, not the potential requirement for even more housing for substantially more workers. This project alone could bring more than 8,100 new workers to Menlo Park! Think about the impacts of such an increase beyond the current SRI employee count of 1,100 people!
Calculation: Using the contemporary ratio of 150 SF per office worker (think Facebook), divide by 150 the 287K of existing space plus 1.1 million of new office/R&D = 9,247
and then subtract the 1,100 current employees = 8,147 additional workers
The proposed 450-800 housing units would not even meet the new demand for housing from this project alone.
RECOMMENDATION: CONTINUE AND LOWER THE WORKER CAP
So that the net new demand for housing does not increase as a result of this project, the city needs to retain and lower the current worker cap for this project.
Rationale: Historically, SRI has been subject to a worker cap. While the cap has been set at 3,308 since 2003, the staff report states that the headcount has fluctuated between approximately 1,400-2,000 workers. The cap traditionally includes a formula that distinguishes SRI and non-SRI employees, presumably because of the difference in SRIs ability of SRI to manage hours and means of commuting of employees and non-employees.
This cap has been lowered in the past when SRI reduced its campus for the McCandless and Burgess Classics projects. So it makes sense to lower the cap when the campus is again being repurposed.
Now is a time when Menlo Park needs to rebalance its housing with more housing relative to new job to address the current housing deficit, not increase the demand with this project as proposed.
Patti Fry
former Menlo Park Planning Commissioner
