Dear City Councilpersons,
Congratulations on your recently negotiated reduction in commercial square footage for the anticipated Parkline project. That reduction is well-needed given Menlo Park’s excess of jobs vs housing. From my family’s perspective, this project deserves your yes vote - Why ?
Positives of the project:
* A move in a net positive housing direction with respect to the housing / jobs imbalance - more housing for the city, and less office square footage.
* FYI - a similar move to revamp SRI in 2013 with the same (not reduced) amount of office space and NO housing seemed to incur almost no objections ! This is far better.
* Location - its of the best located sites in the city for both housing and jobs, due to transit and resources.
* Great new amenities for the city.
Negatives from not going forward now:
* These terms, from an accommodating local developer seem quite good. It would be tragic to lose them.
* We’re likely to lose some of the most doable housing stipulated in the Housing Element. Lots of long term consequences.
While some reasonable people might object to this project, even with the modified square footage, on very tenable grounds, especially the dropping of employment cap, the context also tends to negate their objections:
* The project is housing net-negative, without considering the previous baseline (TRUE). Truth - this locale has always been housing net negative, at one point to the tune of 3,000 jobs and NO housing.
* There’s a better deal to be had. Truth - That’s always going to be the claim, even from people who have been in similar negotiation situations and failed.
* Ostensibly putting more jobs here is going to create a traffic nightmare. Truth - There is no better place to locate jobs in Menlo Park. 40% of the SRI workers used CalTrain and other local transit when it was at its max.
Respectfully,
Kevin & Kathryn Kranen
