Dear Members of the City Council,
As a long-time Menlo Park homeowner and supporter of a vibrant downtown
Menlo Park, I am writing to express my concerns and urging you to hold off
on issuing any RFPs. While I understand and support the need for additional
housing in our community, I believe that utilizing these key parking and
community areas for residential development would have significant negative
impacts on the health and vitality of our downtown.
Downtown Menlo Park depends on accessible parking and open plazas to
support small businesses, restaurants, and community events. Many local
businesses rely on convenient surface-level parking to attract customers,
especially given the competition from nearby retail centers and online
shopping. Reducing this parking capacity could discourage our local
residents and visitors, harm small business owners, and diminish the unique
character that draws people to our downtown.
I am urging the city council before they go any further that they do their
due diligence on safety parking studies, infrastructure capacity, and
possible sub-surface contamination. As well as examine the 350-page fire
protection code and compliance manual. This will shed light on the major
concerns around adding multi-story housing in a compact downtown setting,
raising serious safety questions. There are significant fire safety
challenges when building high-density housing in a small, compact setting.
The limited site access and the potential for fires to spread rapidly
between adjacent or close-proximity buildings are key concerns, as well as
inadequate width on any of those lots for ingress and egress for
emergency vehicles and first responders. These parking lots were not
designed for dense housing, which would introduce additional fire load into
an area not originally intended to accommodate residential housing.
As alternative building sites have been suggested and recently more have
become available, I encourage you to prioritize and consider these sites as
viable options .
Thank you for considering these concerns. I encourage you to preserve our
downtown parking plazas as essential assets to our community’s success and
to seek housing opportunities that strengthen rather than weaken our shared
public spaces.
Respectfully,
Mary Seaton
*California Interiors and Design*
*https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.cal-interiors.com&c=E,1,2KpvfEv6IfUlGJ7ORs6Zek7Vmxi3r1OZYk456FT1heQLZpii8usPE63wBgKNholZhcc3jL0aAGsr7k-snyHnM4PdJXXsbwaMqDDUnY-mv9L2VB6l9zjlRLg,&typo=1 *
*650-477-7790*
*info@cal-interiors.com *
*Showroom Located @ 1300 El Camino Real, Belmont Ca 94002*
