Dear Council members:
I have been a resident of Lorelei Manor in Menlo Park since 2004. My husband and I raised our two boys in this community. I am a public school teacher and my husband is self employed. We are active in our neighborhood community, we were active in our boys schools and served on different community boards. Our sons are 23 and 20 years old.
We are writing in support of affordable housing in Menlo Park. We were very lucky to be able to purchase our home in 2004 and in today's market like many families we would be priced out of our current home. We see homes in our neighborhood SOLD at 3 or 4 times the price we paid back in 2004. Menlo Park is completely unaffordable for working families. Thinking of my boys and other young adults who once lived in Lorelei Manor I know that if today's market continues they will never be able to live and raise a family in Menlo Park.
Six weeks ago I participated in Menlo Together bike tour of the housing element sites. I was so impressed with the group and the advocacy they are doing to create a more inclusive Menlo Park community. Menlo Park needs to change, it does not need protection, like my neighbors in Suburban Park have stated in their proposal to keep Flood School from building affordable housing. We need more, not less dense housing that is affordable to ALL different income levels. We need to support building higher density housing along El Camino, near downtown, near 280 and also in Flood Park. We can not relegate the responsibility of meeting housing element needs to east of 101. That is wrong. We need to look at ways to make our streets safer for everyone so that more residents brave the streets on bicycles, like I do to my school , 10 miles away in Palo Alto, we need housing near commercial centers so residents walk and ride public transportation. There is so much work to do in our little city. Please be BRAVE and support the Housing Element and support higher density affordable housing in our community. Menlo Park can do HARD things, we CAN do better, we SHOULD do better.
Thank you,
Margarita Mendez & JP Garcia
