Dear City Council Members-
I have been a Menlo Park resident for 20 years and oppose the development of the downtown parking lots as proposed in Agenda Item H-1. I am not opposed to multi-unit affordable housing in our community in general.
However, I am opposed to a plan to construct multi-unit housing towers in the middle of downtown on parking lots that are heavily used. Especially since there is no logical plan for alternative parking. Ace Hardware for example is a retailer where customers often buy large and heavy household items that absolutely require the ability to park directly behind and you will kill this business if customers can’t park behind it. A new Wine Shop is also planning to open where customers would need to be able to park behind or alongside when buying multiple bottles or cases of wine.
It seems the City Council & Planning Commission do not care if they effectively destroy these businesses which require parking that is not blocks away.
This plan seems to be a ill-conceived rush by the City Council to satisfy Menlo Park’s RHNA obligations. The impact on traffic and parking does not seem to have been fully considered.
There are other suitable locations—the Civic Center land and the SRI Campus. It would even be less expensive & faster to buy existing apartment buildings and convert them to low income housing as the cost of any new construction is likely to triple as time goes by & before completion. Construction time is also likely to almost double the original estimate if you track other projects in the area & the noise and road closures will significantly impact & kill other local businesses downtown. We already have a huge amount of vacant retail space. It will become a ghost town of this project is approved. Many Menlo Park residents will desert downtown & do all their shopping & dining at Stanford Shopping Center or downtown Palo Alto if this is approved.
We are finally seeing signs of life in a moribund downtown thanks to our local merchants. The Coffee Bar was a haven to may of us during the pandemic. Ali literally kept Santa Cruz Avenue alive with the outdoor dining at Bistro Vida. We are all looking forward to the grand opening of Bar Loretta., Clark’s Oyster Bar, and a new wine bar is going into the former La Boulanger pace. There is a significant risk that these and other merchants will leave Menlo Park if the present plan is appproved.
Please help Menlo Park continue to evolve rather than destroy it. Lastly, I vehemently object to the Council & Planning Commission listening to or considering the opinion of outside groups or stakeholder who DO NOT LIVE OR OWN BUSINESSES IN MENLO PARK. They have no standing to sue the City on this issue as they do not live within its borders nor own businesses within its borders. Their opinions are meaningless and irrelevant on this issue.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely
Tracy L. Van Ligten
