Interesting opinion piece in today’s Chronicle titled This rich California city is losing its mind over a housing project — and it shows why new rules are needed. Here is an excerpt:
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Even Mayor Combs, the City Council member perhaps most willing to strike a compromise with Save Downtown Menlo, described the situation as “frustrating.” He’s being nice.
The effort is unhinged.
One of the main allegations in the group’s lawsuit, for example, is that Menlo Park doesn’t technically own the parking lots because they were paid for by assessments on nearby property owners. Only a majority vote of those property owners, the lawsuit contends, could allow the lots to be repurposed.
When I ran this by Darien Shanske, a UC Davis School of Law professor and expert on taxation and local government law, he described the allegations as “crazy,” noting that California law gives significant leeway to local policymakers to repurpose property paid for by an assessment district. “I am not sure if this complaint was just drafted to be a nuisance, or by ChatGPT, or both,” Shanske told me in an email. “For my part, the city should not be intimidated and should proceed.”
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Regards,
David Pollack
