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Honorable Menlo Park City Council,
I’ve been a resident of the Willows neighborhood for 9 years and I’m writing in support of building new affordable homes downtown.
I attended the first two hours of today’s City Council meeting and appreciated the way you managed the crowd and gave everyone a chance to speak. Though you are likely aware, I think it’s worth pointing out that older residents who have more time to engage
in local politics (because they are retired or their kids have moved out of the house, etc.) are much more likely to attend these sorts of meetings than younger folks or parents with kids still at home, and this demographic tends to be less receptive to development
and change in general than the overall community. So it’s easy to get a false impression of the overall sentiment around an issue based on the audience reaction.
Personally, I think increasing density downtown is a great idea for current residents, businesses, and future residents alike. Parking concerns can be met by replacing street level lots with parking garages. Building parking garages is not cheap, but it’s
a lot cheaper than acquiring more land in a high value area with access to schools, amenities, and transit. Some people personally concerned with disruption to downtown favor developing the civic center site instead, but I suspect there would be just as many
opponents to that option if it were actually brought forward to the public. It’s not an obviously better option that warrants slowing down the effort to evaluate the current option. And while construction will certainly disrupt downtown temporarily, the long
term impact will be to generate substantially higher foot traffic to stores and restaurants and increase the hiring pool for local businesses.
Please vote "yes" to new affordable homes downtown and continue to fight the good fight for housing abundance in Menlo Park.
Sincerely,
Paul Kreiner
Paul
California
