Members of the Menlo Park (MP) City Council and Planning Commission,

I am a resident of Belle Haven and was recently informed by members of the MP Library Staff that the Planning Commission intends to meet on the 27th of February to review the study which indicates that the noise from the planned community pool heating system will exceed the current city ordinance. Further, I was provided a memo (RE: Air source heat pumps at new swimming pools) that was signed by Theresa Avedian (Senior Civil Engineer) stating that the Planning Commission would be “asked to approve an allowance for the heating equipment to exceed the overnight noise limit.”

I have several concerns regarding this issue.

1. The planned meeting in which the issue is to be discussed is scheduled to occur at the Burgess complex. This poses a significant issue for the Belle Haven community as traffic poses a significant impediment to most of the people who are commuting to-and-from work, chauffeuring children, and dealing with household chores.
Can this meeting be held within the Belle Haven community such as the current library?

2. The aforementioned memo indicates that the decision to exceed the noise limits is a foregone conclusion – yet the Belle Haven community has not been provided any voice in the matter. The meeting appears to be a method to appease the community rather than giving them a voice in what happens to their living conditions.

Does the Belle Haven community have a real say in this matter? What recourse is there if the system is put in place and exceeds the limit? Will affected property owners be given funding to erect their own sound abatement systems?

3. The aforementioned memo states that the City “has studied every reasonable way to reduce” the noise. While I assume this will be on the meeting’s agenda, I am concerned over who decided what was “reasonable,” it was not the people who live in the affected area. Afterall, the ordnances that are already in place are supposed to reflect what is reasonable – exceeding these limits is damaging to the environment and the creatures, human and otherwise, that reside in the proposed area. Also, it appears that a specific type of heating system (air source heat pump) was targeted, and the rest of the design meant to fit around it – there are other systems that offer lower noise levels than a heat pump.

Were other heating systems considered? If not, why? If yes, why were they rejected? Did the environmental impact study include noise? Where within the HUD noise standards does this project lie?


4. The aforementioned memo only addresses the exceedance of momentary or periodic day-time and nighttime sound limits – yet the more appropriate metric is the day night average sound level (DNL) as this reflects the noise that people and the environment would be exposed to over a typical 24-hour period. These values are sure to be higher during the winter months.



What is the worst case DNL posed by the system as currently planned? How is the City planning on attenuating this level?

While I am in support of the new community center and happy to be part of the Belle Haven Community that will host it, I do not think it fair for Belle Haven residents to take on more of the City’s burden than they are already asked to bear. The noise levels are already too high because this part of the community was not treated as fairly as those living on the south side of the 101 freeway as can be seen in the inadequateness of the sound wall protecting Belle Haven – it stopped at least ¼ mile short of where it should have.


Belle Haven represents the City’s most diverse population and in an age of equity and justice the City owes it to all its citizens to place value on those parts of the community historically forgotten or short changed.

Sincerely, Donald Mendoza