Hello council members.
For context, my wife and I have been Allied Arts residents and homeowners for nine years, first on Creek Drive and now on College Ave. We have two children happily attending Oak Knoll. I care deeply about Menlo Park and there are many issues I would love to see the council invest in. But one stands above all: I urge you to make Building More Housing our #1 priority as a city.
In 2022 our neighbors overwhelmingly defeated a craven attempt to restrict new affordable housing in our city. That was a win for equity and opportunity, but it’s just the beginning. Now it’s time to act. It’s not enough to lift restrictions. We need to affirmatively help actual housing get built. Not just affordable housing, and not just market rate housing. We need more housing across the affordability spectrum. We should have 5+ story townhouses all around Santa Cruz Avenue. We should allow small apartment and condo complexes in far more of our city’s neighborhoods. And we should have dense apartments in certain key locations around our city as well.
The council is in a unique position to help make this a reality, through more permissive zoning, streamlined approval processes, public/private partnerships, etc. And the measure of success is actual units built.
Thank you for your consideration.
Michael Levinson
631 College Ave, Menlo Park
