This seems like a lack of ability of the planning commission and city council.

What they've managed to accomplish is making "complying with the law" (the transient occupancy tax) a public benefit.
Someone should appeal this.

Here's the developer's winning formula:

1. Buy a property (or better yet, enter into an agreement to buy contingent on the city approving your project; that way you bear no risk)

2. Let the property sit for a few months. Erect a chain-link fence around it. Encourage weeds to grow and allow empty beer cans to pile up.

3. Submit your proposal, which includes multiple concessions from the city and perhaps rezoning because otherwise it won't pencil out for you.

4. If the city balks, threaten to leave the property as is. No need to worry that the city will enact or enforce a law requiring upkeep of vacant property. Not happening.

5. Plant a few letters in the Almanac and on Townsquare that praise you for your bravery in getting rid of the blight. If anyone objects to your windfall profiting at the expense of the public, sneer at them. They are NIMBYs, Luddites, and other lowlifes who would rather drive past weeds and old junk than your bright new project.

Works like a charm! Every time!

@ZoningWatcher why are you blaming the City Council for a Planning Commission decision?

Yea, one blight down, more to go!!!

Yes, what a sham. Allowing a land owner to develop a piece of property it owns. horrors. It is amazing that anyone would object to a former gas station being turned into a much need hotel. It will be a welcome addition to our run down downtown and ECR corridor. I can't wait to have a drink at the hotel bar!

Blame Game
Simple. Because the city council appointed the planning commission members.

I see there's more than enough koolaid to go around. Drink up, friends. By the time the impacts arrive, you'll be so numb that you won't know what hit you.

[Post removed due to same poster using multiple names.]

Money says that if your friends from out-of-town ask you where to stay, you'll suggest Palo Alto, or where to eat, maybe Redwood City.

Where to sit back, watch videos of the Commission, then write letters to the editor? Menlo Park.

Transit Occupancy Tax is one price of doing business as a hotel. You, the hotel operator, are required to collect it from guests.

Following the law is not providing a public benefit. Menlo Park is not a struggling little town in the Rust Belt. I'm guessing that most of these posts are written by the developers/their investors. At least I hope my fellow residents aren't that thick.

"not a struggling little town in the Rust Belt"
The stretch of ECR in Menlo Park has for years now made Detroit and Baltimore look positively prosperous. MP residents should be overjoyed that someone wants to take a risk on trying to bring some commerce to their city in spite of the continuous, overwhelming mood of nimby-ism that pervades there.

No Contest got it right, and Combs almost did:
The transient occupancy tax is paid by future hotel room occupants, not the develooer. So the savvy developer gets a large zoning boost and associated profits without paying any extra bonus to the city.

"The stretch of ECR in Menlo Park has for years now made Detroit and Baltimore look positively prosperous."

Read my first post on this thread.You have to agree that the developers' strategy works!

By the way, I love hotels -- the TOT is gravy for the city -- and am in favor of having a hotel on this site. However, I see no need to allow a developer to flaut the zoning and build a hotel that's about 50% larger than zoning allows -- not without public benefit or some kind of quid pro quo. TOT is not public benefit. TOT is a required assessment.

No contest:

nice try. The gas station was closing. If it hadn't been purchased it would have just sat there surrounded by fence. Not much better than an empty lot in my estimation. Were you planning on buying it and turning it into a park?

Agree with others though, TOT is hardly a "public benefit."

Why not build a hotel that conforms to zoning? Or should we just ignore the zoning when it suits the developer's interests? In that case, why bother with zoning at all? Especially if we're going to give the developer whatever he wants as soon as he whimpers a little.

NO contest:

nice try. You going to buy the property and figure out how to make a profit out of the purchase? Or just throw rocks at those that are willing to put THEIR capital at risk? If you were willing to put your money where your mouth is I might take you seriously. Don't forget, those "evil developers" probably built your house. And it wouldn't have happened if they hadn't been willing to put their capital at risk.

Everyone loves to demonize developers, yet they are the ones that actually build everything. Including the homes the demonizers live in.

The amount of entitlement in these comments is astounding! Menlo Park gets $600,000 in new revenue, and people object because the developer didn't have to, what, bleed?

Let's think this through- if the Commission didn't grant the bonus, what are the possible outcomes? Best case scenario is the developer builds a smaller hotel, but that just reduces Menlo Park's revenue. Happy? Worst case, the property sits vacant for years to come. What does that accomplish?

The Commission got it right. Look at the outcomes, not your dogma!

For those of you miffed by the public bonus decision, you can appeal it to Council as the ink is not dry. Put your belly-achin' where your mouth is.

As long as the beer is cheap in the restaurant, I'm all for it.

Public Benefit is not defined in the Specific Plan. So it could be some nice door handles on the entry that can be seen in traffic from ECR, or it could be a large brown envelope with $1M in it. It's up to the Council, the PC and the City Attorney to define/agree it. But look at it in terms of what the project is inherently contributing: Traffic? not much. Tax Revenue? tons. Vibrancy and Salubriousness? yep. Filling a big need? yes again.

Compare that to an office: Traffic during rush hour? Oh Yeah! Tax Revenue? zilch! Vibrancy? maybe. Fills a Need? Maybe gets people working where they live, which is a good thing.

So offices should expect the lion's share of 'money off the top' for their public benefit contribution. I think it's different with hotels.

A fair deal and a great day for Menlo Park.

If the hotel wasn't at the public benefit level, it would have been 35% smaller and paid $200k less in taxes to the city every year.

I'm pretty happy for the city to turn empty air into $200k/year in perpetuity. I can think of a lot of good that $200k/year could do for Menlo Park. Want a tunnel under the train tracks connecting Linfield Oaks to Allied Arts? Want grade separation to fix the gridlock at Ravenswood and save lives? Want to give downtown a facelift with wider sidewalks and nicer landscaping?

Now we have money to do some of those things.

Keep in mind, the TOT is not a public benefit. Any money collected will go into the general fund and -- according to the planning commissioner I asked -- will most likely be used to hire another planner or two for the planning department.

For a Rust Belt town, we sure seem to have a lot of people wanting to build new projects!

I notice that no one has ventured to answer my prior questions, so I can only infer that you are all fine with ignoring zoning as long as it brings the city money. Does the same hold true for your neighborhood, or do you think zoning should apply there? Will anyone object if I add another two stories to my home and start renting out hotel suites? I could use the extra cash and I'll be paying more in taxes too!

Great news!

Can you count the number of times in this Almanac thread (and so many others) that posters dis, mock, insult, demonize, bully and simply lie to anyone with the nerve to challenge yet another Menlo Park give-away without any proven public benefit? Just assert whatever you want. "Entitlement"? The pot calling the kettle black. You need look no further than some of these comments, where some people make it abundantly clear that their personal gain is more important than the people it impacts.

I guess this means residents are free to ignore zoning laws as long as we pay our property tax.

No Contest has it right.

The city council sets up policies around zoning and the exceptions permitted. Menlo Park residents vote for who is on the city council to decide these policies on their behalf. As with every government policy, there is no solution that will satisfy all stakeholders. The council tries to find a solution that is fair and maximizes benefits for the property owner, the direct neighbors, and the overall community.

If you do not find this exception acceptable, I would suggest bringing this subject up to the council members and city staff.

To those of you commenting on zoning, such as "No contest": you seem to be missing the point of the overly restrictive zoning requirements in Menlo Park, Palo Alto, and similar communities. The zoning regulations actually are more restrictive than what people or city government want to allow to be built. The point is to give the city control over what the developers build. Most development projects in Menlo Park don't make sense financially without zoning variances. So developers who want to do business need to petition for zoning variances. This allows city government (and indirectly, the voters who that government represents) to exercise more control over the projects than would otherwise be possible.

In this case, and almost every commercial development, the city was able to use the leverage of a zoning variance to influence many aspects of this project. You ask the question "why bother with zoning at all?" BECAUSE ZONING ALLOWS THE CITY TO THREATEN TO NOT LET THE DEVELOPER BUILD A VIABLE PROJECT AND THUS THE CITY GAINS CONTROL OVER THE DEVELOPER. The system is working exactly as intended here.