Dear City Councilmembers,
I am writing once more to urge you to move forward with the process of soliciting developer plans for the poorly utilized downtown parking lots.
The four plans you have selected to further pursue out of the seven received are interesting, appropriate, and thoughtful responses to the challenges posed. They address many of the cited concerns over parking well, and include strategies to maximize parking access and minimize disruption.
The logic of “downtown is dead, therefore we must not change a single thing and that will then fix it” is… patently false, verging into delusional. I urge you to move on from the tyranny of exclusively single family homes and catch up with the rest of the real world. Apartments downtown will bring more life, more people, and more vibrancy to our town.
Menlo Park does not have a village feel, it has an abandoned retirement home feel. The only time of day the lots are busy is lunch- hardly justification for their permanent preservation.
I urge you to think past the unhappy grumbling of retirees who have made their money, bought their homes, and now have no sympathy or care to give for anyone but themselves.
I was particularly struck by one comment at the previous hourslong city council meeting- someone belligerently stating that “no one has any right to live in Menlo Park.”
Nobody has the god given and untouchable right to do business in Menlo Park. If these businesses raising such a ruckus are really this fragile and tenuous and in such peril from these plans, then so be it- failure is part of business too.
I am unable to attend tonight’s meeting, but I strongly urge you to not make development decisions based solely off parking concerns- even if the parking problem was perfectly solved from day one, I’m sure plenty would find some other issue to raise objections over.
No matter how perfect a plan based of current cited concerns is selected, a large number of people will oppose any housing that includes low income people because they simply don’t want to have to deal with or have to look at poor people.
Move past the bigotry and into what will serve the future of Menlo Park best.
I also look forward to the vigorous support from every single person who has raised the civic center site as an alternative, for an extensive development plan there, in addition to the current process and plans.
Sincerely,
Amelia Richardson
A recent college graduate, living with parents in the Willows, due to the complete lack of affordable options.
