Dear Menlo Park City Council Members:
I am a Palo Alto resident who frequently shops in Menlo Park - so I think my opinion has some value.
I do come in my car (its a bit too far to bike for my 79 yr old body).
What i read about the proposal says that there are NO plans about replacing the parking spaces that would be eradicated, and no plans to provide parking for residents of the new housing. Those seem to me to be HUGE omissions.
Yes maybe the people who buy the new low-income housing wont need TWO cars per family, but they will need at least one because the peninsula does not have complete coverage of all areas by practical mass transit. (The only city ive been in that DOES have adequate transit is Manhattan - New York City - and you still need a car to get OUT of the city.)
So I ask you to reconsider your planning with those realities in mind.
An additional note about why the parking lots are there:
Between 1945 and 1965, the City used assessments on surrounding properties to fund the acquisition of land to create parking lots for the adjacent businesses. The City now claims these lots can be re-purposed because the properties have “received the long-term benefit of the financed improvements."
I respectfully disagree: parking spaces to benefit shoppers at the adjacent businesses will continue to be needed so long as there are any businesses there! There is no "end" to that benefit.
If you were to build a parking structure on one of the lots that could hold as many cars as all 3 lots now hold, and include parking spaces (maybe underground?) in the housing plan for its tenants, I could support the housing idea on the other 2 lots.
cheers - virginia smedberg
441 Washington Ave
Palo Alto
EARTH without ART
is just EH
