This is the TEXt of the Daly Post article.
Summary: STOP !!!!!
OPINION
Vote yes on Pto save downtown
Menlo Park voters face a critical decision regarding the economic survival of our local businesses and the long-term character of our community.
Measure P offers a common-sense solution to a poorly conceived city initiative. By requiring voter approval before the city can sell, lease, or permanently alter our eight downtown parking lots, this measure establishes a vital safeguard for our vibrant commercial core.
The citys current plan to replace Plaza 1, 2, and 3 with high-density public housing is a gamble Menlo Park cannot afford to take. Wiping out 556 essential parking spaces would hand a death sentence to the mom-and-pop storefronts, hardware stores and restaurants that are already struggling with rising vacancies.
A recent report by consultant Strategic Economics confirms the financial volatility of these proposals, revealing massive funding gaps ranging from $19 million to $45 million. To close these gaps, consultants are already suggesting the city scale back its parking replacement requirements — a move that completely betrays local merchants and visitors.
Photo:
PUBLIC PARKING
Paid long-term parking (3+ hrs)
First 3 hours free
Good alternatives exist
We can fulfill state-mandated housing targets without sacrificing the economic lifeblood of our downtown.
Viable, logical alternatives exist that dont threaten our local businesses.
The spacious City Hall campus on Laurel Street is an ideal location for higher-density projects. Other underutilized areas, such as the VA campus on Willow Road, the former U.S.
Geological Survey site, or the Bohan-non Industrial Park, provide expansive footprints that can easily accommodate the states housing quota.
We must also be realistic about the unintended consequences of high-den-sity public housing concentrations.
PARKING PLAZA - One of the downtown Menlo Park parking plazas that would be replaced by public housing if City Council has its way.
BCN photo.
Historical data from urban centers across the nation - from Chicagos Cabrini-Green to various projects in San Francisco - demonstrates that dense, insulated pockets of public housing frequently struggle with elevated crime rates and subsequent declines in surrounding property values.
Shifting this environment directly into our primary shopping and dining corridors threatens to transtorm a welcoming downtown into an unstable area that deters regional consumers and devalues local real estate.
City Council has consistently rushed this process, routinely tavoring aggressive outside advocacy groups over the taxpaying residents and merchants who built this community. Vote
"Yes" on Measure P to protect our businesses, preserve our parking, and demand a smarter approach to housing growth.
Please Abandon the " Surplus Land " issue, and Look at other locations, IF needed.
Michael DeMoss, resident
Commercial Real Estate , Attorney
Sent from my iPhone
