Dear Mayor Combs and Menlo Park City Council members,
As a 30-year resident of Menlo Park, I strongly support the building of
affordable housing on the downtown parking plazas, housing that is so
desperately needed by the essential workers in our community. The draft
RFP from your staff, however, includes a poison pill that will make it
very difficult for any developer to build this housing. Specifically,
the requirement that at least 556 replacement parking spaces be financed
and constructed by the developer at no cost to the city will
significantly complicate the ability of a developer to finance such a
project.
Anyone who has paid any attention to urban planning policy in the last
20 years should know that there is no such thing as "free" parking.
Palo Altos relatively recent construction of a 600+ space parking
garage near California Avenue cost significantly more than $40 million.
If the city of Menlo Park would implement a policy of charging a
market-based price for storing the cars of those who choose to drive to
downtown Menlo Park, the need for replacement parking spaces would
decrease significantly. Arbitrarily mandating that an affordable housing
developer provide replacement parking is simply shameful, not to mention
that it undercuts the citys long-term goal of decreasing traffic by
encouraging walking and biking.
It is sad to think that the citizens of Menlo Park would consider the
subsidizing of car storage to be more valuable than the housing of
workers. Please do not include the requirement for 1:1 replacement
parking in the RFP.
Respectfully,
David Roise
