Opinion: Plan to use downtown parking for housing should not be rushed

Yesterday City of Menlo Park staff held an informational meeting for the downtown business and property owners about their intent to put very-low-income housing into the downtown parking lots.

Forty business and property owners showed up (which is extremely large for a staff meeting!) and feedback was universally negative, in large part due to the City’s lack of communication or performing studies to understand the potential impact on traffic, parking, and existing downtown businesses, etc.

At this coming Tuesday City Council Meeting — item G1 — the City may declare Parking Plazas 1, 2, and 3 as exempt surplus land and begin the process of reaching out to developers to build housing on it.

Here’s a link to the staff report for Tuesday’s meeting.

The report lists the many concerns that were expressed at yesterday’s meeting.

It also says that the recent parking study suggests that those three lots could have 50 fewer spaces. It does not appear to account for the fact that there are four restaurants/bars that are opening soon, and several other vacancies that will be filled in the future (if there’s enough parking, that is!)

Most business and property owners only just learned of it. It’s important that the word get out, so that the people of Menlo Park can speak up before irreversible changes are made.

Alex Beltramo is a lifelong resident of Menlo Park.

Editor’s note: The Almanac published a comprehensive article about this issue in August in which City Council members were quoted.