Menlo Park City Council and Staff,
I’m writing in support of moving forward with housing on Menlo Park’s
downtown parking plazas.
Our community needs housing, and particularly affordable housing, in places
where people can live close to transit, shops, restaurants, schools and
other services. Our downtown is exactly the kind of place where housing
makes sense. The City’s adopted Housing Element recognizes this,
identifying the downtown parking plazas as an important opportunity to
deliver affordable housing in a high-resource area of Menlo Park.
We also need to take seriously our responsibility to follow through on the
commitments in our Housing Element. Menlo Park is already experiencing what
can happen when a city loses some of its ability to control its own
planning decisions. Projects asserting Builder’s Remedy status, including
the proposal at 80 Willow Road, should remind us of the importance of
maintaining a compliant Housing Element.
I understand why longtime residents and downtown property and business
owners are concerned about what redevelopment will mean. Construction will
be disruptive. Parking patterns will change. Patience will be tested.
Businesses may face several difficult years while projects are underway.
Those concerns deserve attention.
But they should not prevent us from making progress that can benefit Menlo
Park for generations.
Instead, I would encourage the City to proactively begin planning for that
disruption now. Consider creating a downtown business task force, working
group, or new commission charged specifically with developing a plan to
support merchants before and during construction. A coordinated “Shop
Downtown” campaign, events and programming, wayfinding, communications and
other creative efforts could help keep customers coming downtown throughout
construction.
There may even be an opportunity here to turn some of the division
surrounding Measure P into collaboration. There are smart, committed
community members on both sides of this issue who clearly care deeply about
downtown Menlo Park. Regardless of the outcome of the Measure P campaign, I
hope we can harness some of that energy around a shared question: How do we
make sure our downtown businesses thrive as Menlo Park evolves?
This debate has become unnecessarily divisive at times. We can acknowledge
the legitimate concerns of people who value our existing downtown while
also recognizing that preserving Menlo Park cannot mean preventing it from
changing. We can build housing, support our downtown businesses, plan
carefully for the disruption and preserve the qualities that make Menlo
Park special. Those goals do not have to be in opposition.
I encourage the Council to keep moving forward.
Sincerely,
Julie Hartstein
Menlo Park resident
