From: Morris Brown <mbrown5_at_(domain_name_was_removed)>
Date: Tue Jan 15 2008 - 08:15:37 PST

January 15, 2008

Menlo Park City Council:

             Last Tuesday’s decision to approve the 1906 (Acron ) project only exhibits again an action that many of us have come to expect and which again leaves us disappointed and disgusted one more time.

             Here is a project that every councilperson has serious reservations about. A project that should have been rejected at the very beginning and in point of fact at the original PC meeting this project was not accepted. Yet this project gets final
approval. Surely you would have thought that the project must have undergone profound changes since the original refusal to approve at the PC and again when the original Council refusal to deny the appeal was not accepted.

             The cold hard facts are the developer hardly changed the project at all and yet last Tuesday the Council give its approval.

             What’s wrong with the project.

o Size -- the project is 15 % larger than what should have been allowed on the site using correct counting rules for FAR o Parking -- the project is under parked by at least 10 spaces – the use of administrative parking guidelines for this project is in no way justified. Parking should have been under ground. o Use -- Medical office -- a non tax generator replacing a project that did generate sales tax revenue. A use that generates more traffic than other office uses and certainly will generate more traffic than the type of restaurant it replaced.

o       Aesthetics – the building is just plain ugly.
o       The project is going to make the 
intersection, which is already a level F intersection only worse
o       The condition of approval, really the 

worst option available, an option that pushes our traffic onto the streets of Atherton, an option adopted because it is the one the developer wants and it is the only option that would not need Atherton approval to allow the project to be built.

             All of these items were discussed, yet even with the combination of all these liabilities and the developer not doing really anything to change them, the process still leads to a now approved project.

             What is the net result? Think about it. Project passed on a 4-1. Only Councilman John Boyle, who favors the project, but could not accept the approval conditions, voted against the approval. Good for Mr. Boyle.

             Why are the other 4 Council members voting to approve a project with so many negatives? How many times is this council going to approve projects with so many negatives?

             The public process on this approval was severely compromised by inadequate access to needed materials for the public. The staff report was not available on Thursday, the City was closed on Friday and the public could only get a hard copy by waiting until Monday.

             The minutes of the PC meeting were not available, even to council, until
Tuesday.(even those minutes were being adjusted by hard copy hand outs to Council and the public at the meeting). The audio/visual ( in this case only audio), never was available to the public. The hearing should have been continued, but it was not.

             I grade the Council on this action the same grade as the intersection at Watkins and El Camino -- a great big F.

             The Council has essentially said,” Park Forest we don’t give a damn about you, your are at the end of town, we just don’t care”.

             At tonight’s Council meeting any member who voted for approval can and should ask for re-consideration. Please vote to re-consider this approval.

Morris Brown
Stone Pine Lane

Received on Tue Jan 15 10:22:04 2008