Mayor Nash, Vice Mayor Wise, and Menlo Park City Council Members, I am
writing in strong opposition to the 80 Willow Road development project
and urge you to require a completed and fully vetted Environmental
Impact Report before taking any action regarding approval of this
project. Menlo Park residents deserve a full, independent accounting of
the risks and infrastructure and environmental impacts of the project
and its construction to San Francisquito Creek, public safety, and Menlo
Park and surrounding neighborhoods /before/ any final vote.
I believe the N17 proposal for a multi-tower mini-city planned for 80
Willow Road (three towers measuring a staggering 39, 33, and 18 stories
tall) is wildly out of scale for Menlo Park, and is grossly misaligned
with the state-approved housing plan that City leaders worked diligently
to pass. It would have significant, detrimental impacts on Menlo Park,
Palo Alto, Atherton, and East Palo Alto. I live in the Crescent Park
neighborhood of Palo Alto and have frequent need to use Middlefield Road
to access Menlo Park businesses and the City Council chambers, and to
get to healthcare services in Redwood City. The intersection of
Middlefield Road and Willow Avenue is already heavily loaded with
traffic and this can only get many time worse with the 665 new
residential units and 3,100 jobs the N17 project would create.
I have also worked for nearly thirty years on flood control for San
Francisquito Creek extending from above Middlefield Road bridge to the
bay. The creek is very fragile and subject to heavy flooding every 10-20
years, including the 1998 flood of record that damaged 1500 homes and
caused ~$30M damage. Such a huge structure as the proposed towers right
next to the creek can only exacerbate the challenges in controlling the
conveyance of the creek, ground water management, and other hydrological
matters, both during construction and once the new towers and their
foundations are in place.
The three towers proposed for the modest former Sunset site have poor
access to public transportation. My understanding is that the
developers plan includes only 1,443 (17%) of the 8,357 parking spaces
required by code, pushing up to 7,000 parked cars into nearby
neighborhoods. The proposed project will worsen already untenable
traffic and safety issues for Menlo Park and surrounding towns. The
addition of an estimated 7,000 new car trips each day will delay and
strain first responder ambulance and rescue efforts. The entire area
from Marsh Road in the north to Embarcadero Road in the south, and from
from El Camino Real in the west to the Bay in the east will be deeply
impacted.
Please insist on a full, expert EIR before proceeding further with this
project.
Respectfully, Thomas Rindfleisch
