City Council Meeting – Discussion Recaps

Site Selection Criteria and City-Owned Sites in Housing Element (Study Session – March 4, 2025)

Purpose:

To ensure all council members share a common understanding of how prior councils decided which city-owned sites to include in the (2023-2031) Menlo Park Housing Element. (Background: two new council members had joined in January 2025)

Key Points

  • When the downtown parking lots were included in the Housing Element, the acting Council believed affordable housing would ENHANCE downtown. Neither (a) the need to replace a lot of public parking nor (b) the risk of causing substantial harm to downtown was considered.
    .
  • The elimination of active civic facilities, parks and open spaces were Council-imposed constraints on site selections. It is unclear whether the Civic Center is on land designated as either a park or open space.
    .
  • Two council (Drew Combs, Betsy Nash) acknowledged that the specifications in the City RFQ likely are unrealistic based on what is now known. Nash indicated she might be willing to accept less housing.
    .
  • Jeff Schmidt and Cecilia Taylor expressed strong opposition to adding any new sites in District 1. It appears that the Council generally views locations east of Highway 101 off-limits. (Note: In the prior council meeting, Drew Combs said he preferred new housing be built west of El Camino and that boundary would exclude the Civic Center.)

Decisions

The Council and City lead planner (Tom Smith) discussed what it would take to study new sites, e.g. schedule, staff impacts, and the Council decided to return to this subject, if necessary, after the Council has reviewed the staff evaluation of developer RFQ responses in April. (Note: Council did not ask if additional contract workers could accelerate either the Basic or Moderate Analysis schedules. Also, if the Council were to focus on one site for the Moderate Analysis, would the schedule be shortened?)

Additional Comment

  • New housing is counted towards Menlo Park’s current housing allocation once a development obtains a city building permit, i.e., the housing does not need to be completed by 2031.

Resources

Menlo Park Housing Element – Preferred Land Use Scenario (October 26, 2021)

An excellent document for understanding how the affordable housing sites were selected for the 2023-2031 Menlo Park Housing Element. Note that Downtown parking lots were a primary focus.