Mar 22, 2023
To: Menlo Park City Council, Staff, and HCD
On behalf of the Campaign for Fair Housing Elements, YIMBY Law, HLC, and Menlo Together, we are writing to comment on Menlo Park’s 6th cycle Housing Element, adopted by City Council on 1/31/2023.
A PDF version of the below is attached.
1. Unrealistic Commercial Sites with Current Uses
* This issue has already been highlighted in previous letters here and here as well as an email sent to HCD on Nov 14, 2022. The issues highlighted in those letters persist, and some additional comments are below:
* Per Appendix 7-1, Site Inventory Table B, nearly all of our very low and low income RHNA units are projected to be built at unrealistic, privately owned properties with current uses.
* 58% of projected RHNA units coming from opportunity sites are on sites with existing office use, and an additional 12% is coming from existing restaurant or shopping use.
* Government Code § 65583.2(f)(2) requires the city to provide substantial evidence that these properties will be redeveloped in the next 8 years. This evidence has not been provided.
* The Housing Element does not include a plan for new funding for affordable housing, making this strategy even less realistic.
* The main shortcomings with the commercial sites are:
* As mentioned in our previous letters, many opportunity sites are office buildings that trade for some of the highest values in the country, leading to extremely high land acquisition costs. Also, these offices are occupied by extremely wealthy public companies (ex: RobinHood) and VC firms (ex: Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Ventures) that don’t seem likely to vacate.
* With the exception of the SRI and USGS sites and 10 projected units on sites 47 and 60, no evidence has been given that any of the commercial property owners intend to redevelop.
* In fact, the owner of Sites #4 (acquired in 2011, undisclosed price) and #49 (acquired in 2020 as part of a $610m deal) emailed in to ask to be excluded from the list. This email is included in the housing element appendix (ID #126 in Appendix 1-1). However those sites are still included in the latest element.
* Historical trends (cited in Appendix 7-3) of redeveloping commercial properties in Menlo Park do not apply to the 6th cycle opportunity sites because the trends cited don’t match the proposed opportunity sites based on type and/or geography:
* Appendix 7-3 shows that there is no historical evidence of office properties west of 101 being redeveloped into large residential projects in Menlo Park.
* Appendix 7-3 shows only two projects recently developed into large residential projects west of 101, which is where 100% of the 6th cycle sites are located. Both projects were along El Camino Real, the largest thoroughfare in Menlo Park and where almost none of the sites in the 6th cycle are located.
* Furthermore, both of these projects replaced large former car dealership lots. None of the opportunity sites in the 6th cycle are large vacant lots, rather they are expensive office buildings and retail lots with existing use.
* A majority of the previously developed commercial properties that added new low income housing were in a different city district (District 1, labeled “East of 101” in Appendix 7-3) and were mostly aging industrial use, not recently remodeled high-end office.
* Those previous redevelopments were done via specific plans in direct collaboration with willing developers and property owners. We have not seen evidence of such collaboration in this cycle.
* When calculating the expected RHNA units for HCD credit, the housing element assumes that every site on the list will take advantage of the city’s “Affordable Housing Overlay” (AHO). In Table B of Appendix 7-1, any site under 55 du/ac base density is assumed to go up to 55du/ac via the AHO. This is unrealistic because:
* The existing AHO program in Menlo Park has been ruled in conflict with state law, as per Page 7 of HCD’s memo to Menlo Park, dated Oct 21, 2022.
* An amended AHO program has not been adopted.
* There is no evidence or historical trends provided to demonstrate that every site under 55du/ac will take advantage of the forthcoming density bonus program.
2. Lack of sufficient changes to development standards
* On page 7-46 “Other Land Use Strategies” and programs including H4.I and H4.J, the city commits to increasing densities in various zoning districts. However no changes to development standards are specified.
* Keeping strict development standards would allow the city to continue to require additional steps and hearings for conditional approvals of higher density projects, which adds to development costs and project timelines.
* The city should commit to loosening development standards to encourage developments in zones where the city wants to see increased density.
3. Programs with vague commitments
* The city Housing Element makes no firm commitment to any specific tenant protections; only to “consider” amongst a set of options. As we articulated in our letters in June 2022 and in December 2022, there is consensus among county and city tenant rights advocates of the need to expand Just Cause for Eviction and Relocation Assistance policies (paid by landlords), and to implement Tenant Know Your Rights education. We wrote that these strategies have been shown to be effective policies to affirmatively further fair housing by stemming the racially disparate displacement that has occurred unchecked for decades.
* Outreach to the Menlo Park Environmental Justice Community subsequently revealed a desire among impacted residents for rent control to achieve the Environmental Justice objective of “Safe and Sanitary Homes.” Stronger rent control, that goes above and beyond the State’s minimum requirements, was not considered during Housing Element deliberations but should be.
4. Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing
* We believe the requirement to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing has not been met with the latest element submitted to HCD and adopted by the city.
* Item #1 in this letter demonstrates that a majority of our RHNA units have been assigned to unrealistic commercial sites that are likely to fail to develop.
* This means Menlo Park risks continuing the inequitable trend of concentrating lower income affordable housing in District 1 (discussed on p. 4-55, 4-82, 5-7, etc.), a historically disinvested and segregated community of color
* Menlo Park continues to have large office projects in the pipeline that will add jobs to the area, so by not building additional housing this extra demand will simply drive up costs and pressure on the housing that already exists, especially in District 1.
We request that these issues be addressed prior to housing element adoption for Menlo Park’s 6th cycle.
Respectfully,
Misha Silin, Menlo Park Resident and Campaign for Fair Housing Elements Volunteer
Cosigned:
Michael Arruza, Menlo Park Resident
Katie Behroozi, Menlo Park Resident
Michał Bortnik, Menlo Park Resident
Keith Diggs, YIMBY Law
Katherine Dumont, Menlo Park resident
Karen Grove, Menlo Together, Menlo Park resident
Pamela D Jones, Menlo Together, Menlo Park resident
Adina Levin, Menlo Together, Menlo Park resident
Jeremy Levine, Policy Manager at the Housing Leadership Council
Michael Levinson, Menlo Park resident
Margarita L Méndez, Menlo Park resident (D2)
Ken Thompson, Menlo Park resident
