Looks soooo good
Send it to Emily Mibach with note to keep for background info ?
All thumbs, please forgive.
On Nov 27, 2022, at 5:14 PM, Patti Fry
wrote:
City Council,
Your decisions related to Willow Village and the ConnectMenlo General Plan will communicate to our community - and to the State – your dedication to remedy the housing shortage.
Our city’s final Housing Element to be submitted to the State in January needs to be a lot more realistic - and convincing. It must describe strategies such as the five listed below that would repair ConnectMenlo’s rules that have already led to a 20% worsened jobs/housing imbalance in the six years since ConnectMenlo was adopted in 2015. Your Council can demonstrate that large projects are approved only when they improve the City’s ratio of housing to jobs.
The draft Housing Element Menlo Park submitted last summer did not include strategies that other cities have adopted to address jobs/housing imbalances:
1. Capping office growth when the jobs/housing ratio exceeds 2.0; Menlo Parks ratio was 2.9 in 2021 without a cap
2. Adjusting the ConnectMenlo Maximum Buildout so that the potential cumulative non-residential square feet is reduced when housing replaces non-residential square feet
3. Revising industrial and office zoning to reflect contemporary worker density practices by reducing the total allowable square feet
4. Enlarging mixed use zoning districts, while shrinking office-only zoning districts
5. Revising mixed-use zoning so that housing densities would exceed new demand from non-residential elements
If the pending large projects such as Willow Village and Parkline are approved as currently proposed, the State would have evidence that Menlo Park is not serious about correcting its part in the regional jobs/housing imbalance. Each project worsens the housing shortage – and you have the power to require a different result.
You will not want to have your names attached to hefty RHNA allocations that will affect every District and neighborhood of Menlo Park. You will not want to be held accountable for large projects that worsen the jobs/housing imbalance. You will not want to be blamed for inherent problems in ConnectMenlo’s zoning that have not been addressed during your tenure.
Use this opportunity to get the City on the right path by beginning to unravel the mistakes of former Councils. This is the time and this is your moment.
Sincerely,
Patti Fry, former Menlo Park Planning Commissioner