Hello Menlo Park City Council,
I live in Menlo Park and I would like to comment on the RFP you are working on for possible development on the city’s downtown parking lots. The city has a vision to build affordable homes on its downtown parking lots. However, Menlo Park’s draft RFP, as the construction companies will find, is not infeasible to build. Without amendments to the RFP, Menlo Park will not be able to fulfill its housing element commitments.
These are spelled out in the provisions of the “Minimum Project Requirements” outlined
in section 3.1 of the RFP undermine the city’s stated intent to promote
affordable homes on the city’s parking lots:
- Requirement C, mandating a developer “Provide at least 556 parking
spaces … without financial contribution from the city" (pdf p. 15 from the staff report).
Requirement C does not reflect the financial realities of affordable housing development. In structure parking, parking spots cost as much as $50,000 per space.
It is unlikely a nonprofit affordable housing developer will fully cover the cost of a parking structure that might cost more than $27
million. Please see the overrun of the Palo Alto parking garage.
The citys housing element did not analyze the constraint imposed by requiring at least 556 replacement parking spaces. The housing
element never mentions mandated replacement parking at all.
Successful affordable housing projects on public lots in Burlingame and Redwood City
have used significant additional city subsidy to fund parking structure development. Selling bonds for millions of dollars is a sure fire way to pass enormous interest on to us, the residents of Menlo Park upon bond maturity.
This housing does not belong squeezed into a parking lot in downtown leaving wry little parking for local businesses. The housing will inevitably lead to excess cars parked on every possible street space- in the small town of Menlo Park.
Menlo Park council must realize the financial realities such developments face. They are not feasible to be built as high density housing in the city parking lots with expectation to build parking for its occupants.
Please consider building the housing on the city
Thank you for your consideration,
Carl
