Honorable City Council,
I am a resident of Palo Alto but live right on the border with Menlo Park. I split my time and spending dollars equally between the two cities. I support affordable housing on city parking lots consistent with commitments made in the Housing Element.
The city needs to stick to the facts here:
* Palo Alto, San Mateo, Burlingame, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, etc. - cities with successful downtowns are all putting housing on parking lots. This isnt a new or untested idea. It works and you get gorgeous projects filling the "holes" in the urban fabric that surface parking has created.
* Affordable housing will not happen without cities providing either substantial dollars or land. In this case, the city has valuable land being used inefficiently and the city lacks sufficient dollars to contribute to housing. Providing land for affordable housing and structuring parking works!
* There are no "other sites". The city just went through a Housing Element process. If there were better sites for affordable housing, the city would have found them.
* This is a housing project NOT a parking project. If more parking downtown is a priority, then an organized parking study should take place with appropriate scope and funding to provide additional parking spaces, facilitate more active transportation, and better manage existing parking.
* Housing is for downtown workers too, which helps businesses. How many workers commute grueling distances and take a parking space for the entire day? We solve both issues with the project.
I urge you to move this project forward. Resist any temptation to make it smaller as Palo Alto did -- and they lost the ability to get more units and adequate replacement parking and put their Housing Element compliance at risk.
For the record, I have never once in 15 years driven to downtown Menlo Park. Walking or biking is faster and much more pleasant and I free up parking for those who might need it. Remember to include plentiful bike parking in this project to accommodate more people like me!
Thank you,
Amie Ashton
