Bravo! What a great idea! Building housing at the library would be great for so many reasons. It's walking distance to downtown and the Caltrain. Finally an affordable way to keep our teachers and staff in our neighborhoods. Fewer commuters sounds like a win-win to me. I'd also love to see a cafe attached like the one in Palo Alto.

Karen Grove writes, "John Arrillaga has generously offered to contribute $25 million to the library renovation."

Actually, he offered to build it, covering all costs as long as the city contributes $20 million. His contribution would likely be much higher that $25 million.

What a great idea! I think this would benefit Menlo Park tremendously. I want to know that middle income families who provide our community with all the services we need for it to thrive can afford to be in our actual community - not driving in from somewhere more affordable. I hope this idea gets developed and implemented.

Great idea! I hope the City Council takes you up on it!

Amen! With or without the Arrillaga Foundation money, Menlo Park needs to provide housing that might enable some of our police, fire fighters, and other emergency workers to live in the community they serve. I don't know what legal issues might be involved in such a preference, but I would like to see it and I think the Civic Center is a logical place for such housing.

This is a great idea, especially the part about putting affordable housing in a part of the city other than BellHaven. I would also like to see priority given to "civic" employees living in the civic center. Teachers, police, fire fighters, and others who make our city strong should be given some sort of priority. What a great sense of community such a project would offer!

Building housing above a new library is an innovative idea in an area that is known for generating world-class solutions. The Burgess and Arrillaga facilities (library, gym, recreation center, gymnastic center, swimming pools, park, baseball field, skate park etc…) encourage people to come together and participate in activities. Building housing near an area that facilitates so many of the Menlo Park community activities makes sense. The location also encourages walking as it near Cal-Train and downtown Menlo Park. Building housing on top of the library meets the design ideal of achieving both form (in this case—an amazing new library) and function (the needs of the community to add housing and decrease traffic and encourage walkability).

As a fellow Menlo Park just across the tracks from the library (so 15 min walk for now), I FULLY support this. We should be putting much, much more housing near our transit center. The big development on the north side of the station is a start, but the city should put an exclamation point on their efforts by putting housing on city land.

I would disagree with one thing — why does it need to be affordable housing? Our approach to affordable housing is very flawed. My now-wife was earning <$50k/yr when she moved to the Peninsula and tried to apply for affordable housing. It was a joke. There's so little of it, and the waitlist proved useless.

Why not just have apartments run by non-profit? That way, anyone can live there without restrictions (and they don't have to relocate if they start making too much money), but they can charge something resembling market rate. And, in doing so, bring down the market rate in the area.

BAD idea. I'm sure many developers would love to turn Burgess Park into a condo development. I hope no one takes this seriously.

Why do proponents of housing developments seem to think that living close to the train satiation means that people won't use their cars? I live about as close as you can get to the MP train station and ALL of my neighbors use their cars. Many work at Stanford with access to the free shuttle but still prefer to drive. Many of my neighbors also drive to Trader Joe's, which is only a 5 minute walk from the apartment. People are not going to give up their cars. Get over it!

Great Op Ed! What A creative and innovative solution to a serious problem addressing our housing crisis. I see more and more people using bicycles and as we further evolve our transportation infrastructure, more people will shift away from driving their cars. I'm next-door in Palo Alto and it's an embarrassment that our city allows it's very vocal anti-growth residents to create barriers to developing housing that is affordable. I hope that someday Palo Alto will consider similar innovative approachs to developing housing

We need more housing in the are, but that doesn't mean housing at this location would necessarily ease traffic. What a joke! But thanks for the laugh.

You're right Hmmm.... this has got to be a joke. Never trust anyone who tells you that more housing will equal less traffic. The OP cannot be serious. And suggesting that housing be built in a public park? Crazy.

Interesting how most of the comments supporting the OP are written in a similar style: "Great idea..."

I agree 100%. Many of us have so much. It would be wonderful for our city leaders to use some of our public funds to explore creating more affordable housing for those who have less.

This makes no sense at all. How many housing units could fit above the library - one? two? And at the cost of converting one of the few public spaces in Menlo Park into a quasi-private space. How long until the residents of those apartments start asking for reserved parking spots and curfew hours to preserve their privacy? There is already a mixed retail/high-density housing development going up at the location of the former car wash and Fosters Freeze, and another proposed for the dealerships on El Camino. Look for more opportunities to put 2 to 3 story developments on underutilized land, not to fill in the scarce public open space.

More housing equals more traffic. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or a clown.

Hey, along with housing over the library, why not build a Starbucks in the duck pond so the folks living in the library housing won't have to drive too far for their coffee. They can throw their pastry scraps to the ducks. It's a win, win situation!

Judy, I like your way of thinking,

and with all due respect Mr. Arillaga , please keep your $25 million, Our library is just fine thank you, If we want to improve it we could use the $20 Million you "Require" us to spend to match your funds on our own improvements at our own discretion instead at your direction. Can you spell arrogance?

Perhaps you could apply it to a housing fund for the homeless and put your name on that.