Hi City Council,
Happy almost Thanksgiving. I am writing as a West Menlo Park resident and tax payer in response to the meeting tomorrow on the vote to turn three parking lots downtown into housing structures. While I certainly understand and respect the need to expand housing for low income residents and families, I strongly feel that downtown Menlo Park is the wrong location. I have lived here 20 years and the downtown has continuously struggled to keep storefronts full and bring in new retail and restaurants. We are finally at a place with the opening of The Guild Theater, the new Charlies Oyster House, Clockworks, Loretta, Anthem Home, and more, where our downtown is now vibrant and a new generation of residents want to spend their nights and weekends, and money at these new establishments. Parking has always been a struggle, it is right now every day I go to run simple errands at the post office, grocery store, pet grooming, etc. There is a major fear by many that this new housing will scare away business revenue, and stores and restaurants will eventually leave as people dont want to park far away from dinner or an errand and will therefore take their money to Palo Alto and Redwood City who also have vibrant downtowns. We cant afford our downtown businesses to shut down, we have worked so hard to bring in quality storefronts who make us feel like a community.
This proposal seems to be pushing ahead too quickly and without enough concrete research done on the impact of parking, and without enough wide spread communications to residents for feedback. One meeting tomorrow, that most have not even heard about yet, is not enough to base community or buisness feedback upon. Please consider extending your timeline to offer more of both so we can all feel like a decision was made fairly.
Thank you for your time,
Katie Rottier
