Seizing a shared public good for low income housing in downtown Menlo Park is unproductive and harmful.
- There is an infinite demand for subsidies; so, low cost housing as proposed is not a solution, instead, it exacerbates the problem it purports to solve. If we build 483 units, there will be demand for twice that. If we build 1000 units there will be demand for twice that, etc.
- Even if you believe low cost housing is a solution, it should be built on low cost land in order to maximize the amount of subsidies that can be provided, not high cost land like that being considered.
- Seizing a valuable, widely shared community resource that is critical to supporting the welfare and vitality of our community (especially our job-providing merchants) in order to benefit a small number of people who dont even live in our community and the housing developers, harms the community and is immoral in many ways.
- Parking is an extremely valuable, scarce resource in our community. Calling it excess land is purposefully disingenuous and shameful.
- There are many better, more efficient ways to serve more ultra low income people than building expensive units that are used by a small number of people. Those units would be a severe tax the environment and community.
Dan Beltramo
Menlo Park Resident
