Yes on P. Of course I will continue to patronize Menlo Park downtown businesses. I vote yes because:
1. Downtown apartments will greatly snarl traffic.
2. Are out of character (up to 10 storey) and will be bare-bones construction ( what profit-minded developer would invest more than bare minimum for BMR housing?)
3. Will inevitably cause businesses to leave (even dedicated advocates of BMR housing concede this strong possibility).
4. The concerned businesses themselves oppose downtown housing, notwithstanding the present survey. They are not naive.
5. BMR downtown is being pushed strongly by outside pressure groups associated with tech and builders, who will not suffer the damage to Menlo Park life and ambience that downtown high/rise stack and pack building will cause.
6. Menlo Park taxpayers will have to pay the 10’s of million$ to replace lost parking; and are surrendering extremely valuable commercial property to developers for a pittance.
7. Near unanimity of council and planning commission to proceed with downtown high-rise BMR housing indicates ‘group-think’ (or worse) and is suspicious.
8. Earlier council’s failure to extract binding promises from Facebook/Meta to provide housing for the 10’s of thousands of white collar workers they brought into the area demonstrates why city governance cannot always be trusted to act in residents’ interest.
9. Artificial intelligence will (already has) cause significant job losses. Housing allocations need to be adjusted downward, reducing need for massive high-density building.
10. Housing assignments from Sacramento apportion housing mandates per city based on employer location in that city. This is unrealistic since workers in one municipality very often live elsewhere.
Please vote YES on P so the decision radically to alter our downtown is left to residents —not to a council that will be long gone before any construction is completed..
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