PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE   Members of the Menlo Park City Council:  

I write to express my strong concerns with the proposal for 389 El Camino Real. Of course I support the staff's recommendation this be deferred. But I go beyond that, with more forceful suggestions both as to the project, relative to planning efforts underway, to zoning elements, and to process.

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        Inappropriate topic at this time: In light of the current ongoing work on the El Camino Real (ECR) and downtown visioning process, I think this proposal is both inappropriate and untimely. If the council were to entertain seriously any of the major elements of the proposed project, I submit it is then previewing significant changes to ECR and wiring in a set of expectations. That is the proverbial cart before the horse.

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        Inappropriate allocation of resources and priorities: Council has this as its sole meeting topic this Tuesday. For a host of reasons I outline here and I'm sure many others, this is not a good use of council's time at this juncture, that is unless candidly you want to send some strong messages this kind of proposal at this location is likely NOT going to be in the cards. Just last week during what I think is a pressing parking issue throughout Menlo Park (and not just in downtown), once again I heard the usual rebuttal that we needed to prioritize things to which the council and staff could allocate resources. I worry that has just become a stalling or deflection tactic to avoid these sorts of discussions. Yet, the very next week we find a four page staff report and a dedicated agenda to this topic, all literally in the midst of a comprehensive ECR and downtown review. On parking for example, I could suggest reducing that to a focused topic that would take four or fewer staff pages by saying all projects of 10,000 square feet or greater require a parking study to back up any proposed use of the traffic guidelines. Yet, that topic continues to have an uncertain future. Or, as a fair number of residents have noted, the council has yet to make progress on residential zoning. The last discussion for a new out of the box approach was inconclusive as I last heard it. These compare and contrasts leave me with a strong sense that as a city, time is not being allocated to the priorities we the residents and voters think are most important, and instead continues to cater to or at least be largely consumed by speculative development proposals.

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        Over the top proposal that suggests a categorical response. I am not a fan of negotiating tactics where outlandish proposals are made so that even if scaled back in a negotiating context, the proposal is still very burdensome and overly development intensive for the community. The Bohannon project also comes to mind in this regard. Rather than engage in this sort of discussion or negotiation specific to the project, I think the results will be far better and also more predictable in the long run if the council simply says no, this is just too much, and leaves it at that. Hopefully "follow the current rules" becomes the logical subtext.

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        A continued pattern that results in commercial instability rather than stability. Where the city routinely entertains proposals that do not "follow the rules," results become unpredictable and a speculative environment is fostered, which inevitably escalates (or props up) land values. This is destabilizing in the end to our business community, particularly the small business owner whipsawed by land speculation and sudden rent changes. More generally, this hurts rather than helps our city. Downtown and arguably ECR was victimized by this in a number of cases in the early 2000's, and the hangover of a mismatch between real economic value of property and desired selling prices seems to continue. Your function should not be to "cover the difference" or help "make the numbers pencil" for a project proponent, or anything to that effect. Instead, I ask you to maintain clear and consistent rules and not constantly entertain changes, exceptions and other special handling.

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        Inappropriate land use at this location. First, let me call the project what it really is-high density residential (likely more luxury condo's perhaps?) with a token commercial and office component thrown in. The commercial seems hardly enough more than another forgettable dive n drive trendy coffee chain or something similar that over promotes yet more vehicle trips in the end. I see no outlines of a proposal that would make this a serious mixed use proposal with extensive integrated commercial components. And, the development is proposed for an area of ECR that is fundamentally not residential. There is residential in the blocks behind, but nothing remotely at this scale or intensity. And this location is about as far away from the train station as you can get on El Camino, arguably to where the Palo Alto station starts to get closer, well beyond short walking distance and with a dangerous primary corridor and no alternatives for bicyclists. Thus the usual TOD arguments seem to ring hollow here. If you want the community to buy into TOD in some fashion, at least try to be rational about the boundaries rather than just have it be a slogan to package and mask intense development.

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        Inappropriate density both at this location and more generally. R4 at 40 units per acre is extremely high density. Effectively this proposal is R4, PLUS office and commercial. In practice it greatly crowds any property and results in large, bulky, looming structures almost inevitably. Not just at this location, but more generally, I raise the question about the appropriateness of the elements of R4 in general, and office and commercial add ons should be subtracts from density, not bonuses. I found in the Derry context speaking to many local residents at length that fundamentally the key elements of R4 are not broadly accepted in the community, and arguably aren't supported by the outright majority. As part of your ECR review around housing components, I would like to see a real review of what is now in R4, or alternatively sticking primarily with not more than R3. In the R4 context, I suggest if you look at scaling it downward from 40 units per acre to something in the mid 20's, and the height down closer to 30-35 feet you will find broader community acceptance at select locations.

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        Grossly inappropriate height. In plain English, 60' is ridiculous for this kind of project at this location (or most any) in Menlo Park. Derry approaching 50' was unacceptable to many in the community, and it doesn't even back up in the way this project does to immediate residential neighborhoods. And note, Derry fit four stories in at 50' in its originally approved proposal, not 60'; that in turn has been revised to 40' (and three stories) in the pending proposal. In talking with residents I found many people identify 1010 El Camino (Keplers/Café Borrone) as about the maximum reasonable height, but that comes with generous public space and plazas, and very large setbacks, all at apparently 50 feet maximum set well back from the street and with set back staggering of the higher stories. By contrast other buildings to the south that are not as well designed and encroach toward the street come off as simply big, impersonal and not inviting, and don't seem to age well either even in their relatively early years. Further, going from 3 stories to 4 is a big leap here in Menlo Park, and I submit not well or broadly accepted either, and especially where it directly backs up to conventional MP residential neighborhoods. Think of Derry as a test case for upper bounds and only where much closer to downtown and transit. Let's see what we as a community can make of it; but by no means should it become the norm or here, not even that. Indeed, this proposal would arguably undermine the many significant compromises made there to get to an acceptable proposal.

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        Yet more crowding of our infrastructure. If we choose to I suppose we could build 100 story towers too on El Camino, to use another off-the-charts example. But, we still wouldn't solve the long-term housing demand, whether we built 1, 2 or 10 looming towers. Why? Because the schools and small town feel drive essentially unlimited demand for local housing. This is a market much different I those regards than many others in Bay Area, save perhaps, Palo Alto, Los Altos, parts of Cupertino and Saratoga. But of course if we pursue this path, along the way we completely destroy what makes Menlo Park special. Returning to the proposal at hand, this project would logically overcrowd our schools yet more. Even if it only generates the occasional child, the Oak Knoll attendance area in particular is bursting at the seams now and dislocating boundary changes have been made this year. And, to meet even current projected needs, we are imposing more intense development at our local school sites already. It taxes our transportation and roads infrastructure, it taxes our parks and recreational facilities, our police and fire resources, and many other things. Yet it largely removes property from our potential commercial inventory too, reducing our chances of capturing sales or other tax income for the town.

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        Precedent for the auto dealership properties. If you entertain either high density residential or 60 feet heights, I submit Stanford's opening minimum ask becomes obvious at least on height and density. But again, how does that benefit our community and our tax base, as opposed to helping solve Stanford's land use issues?

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        Finally, what's in it for the community? I submit really nothing but more density, more traffic, more fuel for property speculation and a host of other negatives. I see no meaningful public benefit for residents (as well as business owners) here now but lots of negative externalities.

Please say strongly no to this and more generally no to project proposals out of synch with the current planning process as well as development and reasonable land use norms. I want us to find a way to say yes of course, but that should mean yes by following a predictable and stable set of general plan and zoning rules, not yes to exception cases that over time become the norm and destabilize our community.  

Regards, Elias Blawie

Long time Menlo Park Resident                

<http://www.hellerehrman.com/>                                                              

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