The Issue
To the Menlo Park City Council:

We, the undersigned members of the Menlo Park community, support the plan to declare three downtown parking lots as "surplus land,” enabling more sustainable housing density and affordability.

We specifically disagree with the concerns raised by other petitioners.

Their Concerns

Loss of Businesses / rebuttal: 1) Increasing the population of local residents who can walk to businesses will be a net positive. 2) Housing stock is a long-term investment, and as self-driving vehicles inevitably take over, parking will diminish in importance.

Lack of Study or Outreach / rebuttal: The "let's study it" argument is a red herring, intended to delay.

Loss of Character / rebuttal: Literally every home, retail building, and office structure was opposed, in many cases quite vigorously, by someone who came before. The very character that today's opposers want to preserve was someone else's bugbear. A stagnant city dies - let's move forward.

Our Requests

We ask City Council to:

Accelerate the declaration of parking plazas as "exempt surplus land.”
Promote these sites for affordable housing, including other city-owned land.
Conform to state mandates, which encourage us to do our appropriate and fair share to solve a true housing crisis.

Downtown Menlo Park is the heart of our city and requires careful stewardship to thrive as both a commercial hub and a gathering place. Let’s progress into the future and not be pressured by folks who are averse to progress.

[Sign this petition if you a Menlo Park resident, property owner, downtown employee, or visitor/shopper. When responding, please state why this issue affects you.]