This development makes the current City Council's push to replace the parking lots downtown with affordable housing appear even more nonsensical.

Wow, I hate to be a naysayer but this seems completely out of touch. Seriously? This is not what Menlo Park needs to revitalize our downtown. This makes me sad. Menu park city council, didn't we have better alternatives?
- a concerned resident

Let's see, who would I rather be coming into my community? People shopping at luxury stores or the folks flocking to the dollar store? Another reason to keep low income housing out of Menlo Park. Most of us sunk out life savings into this city because it's well to do and quiet. Don't change that.

Council: Let's build housing that low income people can afford
Also council: Let's devote precious retail space to super high-end trinkets

Kind of a mixed message, you think?

Maybe instead of aspiring to build a miniature Stanford mall, the council could consider the needs of residents, most of whom have little interest in $50,000 watches.

@Frozen Or it's been a sham all along and they have no intention of building low income housing, but higher income housing that will keep the money coming in.

Frozen:

You forget, Menlo Park is Atherton's defacto downtown. Part of the reason there are so many rug stores. Who do you think buys that stuff? Since Atherton is too good to allow an business other than the Circus Club in their town, those folks have to go somewhere else to buy those $50,000 watches. Might as well be in MP where we at least benefit from the sales tax on it.

Menlo Lifestyle:

Apparently it's not a sham. Wasn't it you over on another thread complaining about low income housing being built near you? Clearly the council has the intention of seeing some of it built. Frozen is correct, there's definitely a disconnect between the two things. But as I said, I'll take the sales tax revenue. Also, other than the Flood Park housing, it's unlikely you will see it anywhere else in MP. That site is a one off because it is owned by the Ravenswood District. Land and construction costs are simply too high to build anything "affordable" in MP. So, when it comes to "affordable" housing anywhere else in MP besides Flood Park, Council is just virtue signalling.

Menlo Voter,
What makes you say there will be no otheraffordable housing in Menlo Park besides Flood School? There are many other MP projects that include affordable housing in the pipeline. Am I misunderstanding you?

private citizen:

What I'm talking about is more projects like the Flood project. Where the entire project is designed to be "affordable". Higher density housing has almost always been required to provide some BMR units as a condition of approval. And typically those units, even though below market rate, still aren't "affordable". One that comes to mind is the Menlo Square development. Condos on Merrill street. the developers were required to provide four BMR units as a condition of approval. The developers ended up having to buy the units themselves and rent them out at BMR because no one could qualify to purchase them even though they were "affordable".

Flood is an outlier because it is already owned property, there's no acquisition cost. The one area in MP that might see projects like this is Belle Haven since the land values are lower. You certainly won't see any "monster apartment buildings" anywhere in west Menlo. The land value it too high.

That's why "affordable" housing in MP is a myth. Yes, it's less expensive than other things in MP, but that doesn't mean lower income people can actually afford to buy them.