I was happy to hear about the annexation of San Mateo County land to meet the request to have multi-family housing near Selby Lane and El Camino Real.

Is there more of such land around ?

Comments about increased Traffic Congestion ring true for me.

Schools ?

A lot of us are past that.

Shopping ?

Relatively new here, but I don’t shop near where I am.

Since the council spent most of their time building a $50M town center instead of working on this issue ahead of time to prevent resident home values from being DECIMATED, I currently see two viable choices:

1. Some sort of "lottery" process, in the sense of the short story by Shirley Jackson, will be used to rezone existing properties in residential areas for multi-family housing. (Yes, any other description of it is a euphemism, and I can guarantee that no homes will be re-zoned where council members live).

2. Turn the $50M town center into apartments, perhaps add onto it to build even more, and move the town staff to trailers in the park.

Most of the "town center" is for the police department anyway. They should be out on the streets patrolling the neighborhood to try to reduce all the crime that is happening.

Is this harsh? Not as harsh as the townhomes/apartments being built next to YOUR house.

""My God, when are people going to understand how this is affecting us?"

Seriously? You're so, so put upon on in your tens-of-million dollar properties. Life must be so hard on you. Entitled much?

Here's how a similar scenario plays out at a Menlo Park Council meeting

1. After the chamber is full to capacity, the council spends 30 minutes issuing meaningless proclamations.

2. The consultant with the list of possible sites presents for an hour or longer. Somehow, all their proposed sites are east of El Camino.

3. Because of the crowd in the chamber, council decides to limit public comment to 60 seconds per person (11 minutes? never!)

4. The first speakers are nonresidents who encourage the council to push even denser housing into more neighborhoods to promote "equity."

5. Menlo Park residents use their 60 seconds apiece to talk about the character of the city and property rights as well as impacted public amenities (like parks) and reduced safety on public streets, as traffic approaches gridlock.

6. Following these residents, housing advocates (who mostly don't live in the city) use their time to characterize MP residents as selfish NIMBys and "you got yours, so you don't care" and "what about the people who teach your kids and put out your fires?"

7. After some discussion, all of it supporting even more housing than the consultant suggested, the council votes to approve the rezoning of property to accommodate six-story residential buildings adjacent to current homes, noting "we won't talk about traffic or infrastructure because that's just a distraction"

The message is pretty clear: if you have the wherewithal to buy property in Atherton, you deserve to ask your local government to preserve your quality of life. Whereas the less affluent residents of Menlo Park should consider themselves fortunate that their relatively modest homes have not been eminent domained.

Just wait until a future SCOTUS sides with crazies like Scott Wiener. Then you can use the Constitution as toilet paper and your property and personal rights will be totally gone. You get what you vote for...

Thoughtful is correct when stated:
- Turn the $50M town center into apartments, perhaps add onto it to build even more, and move the town staff to trailers in the park.
The main part of that building is underutilized. It was built FOR and BY the staff. You could (with effort & a vision):
- Keep the core Police Offices & the Town Council Room intact
- Turn the rest into multifamily housing
- Move the remaining staff (most of which are not there most of the time) to other locations, including selected parts of the Park and into the many empty buildings nearby on El Camino.

I'd rather have the staff be inconvenienced than the town be totally changed in nature!
- .

This what California gets (and deserves) for Sacramento's one-party control with no checks or balances for these extreme, out-of-touch positions. What could be more local than controlling neighborhood zoning? What does a member of the Assembly or Senate from LA or Santa Barbara know about our neighborhood needs and requirements? Probably about the same as we know about theirs.

The residents who purchased houses, raised their families, and pay the taxes do not support these multi-family developments. This is being forced on us by a few very extreme politicians in Sacramento. Unfortunately, this not change and will likely get worse until the exodus of people, businesses and tourists from our state becomes unbearable.

"This is being forced on us by a few very extreme politicians in Sacramento. Unfortunately, this not change and will likely get worse until the exodus of people, businesses and tourists from our state becomes unbearable."

I'm not sure it will even change then. These extreme left wing politicians are all about appearing to "save the world" even if the things they do don't accomplish anything. They can say they they are "doing something" about the problems without actually doing anything. I'll be leaving the state as soon as I retire. I don't see the state ever having anything but Democratic party control.

I don't understand why the local jurisdictions don't all band together and file suit against the state. Of course, Menlo Park won't because the majority on the board are "progressives", so they think what the state is doing is just dandy.

@Frozen hits the nail on the head.

And so a new category of player is born:
YIYBY:
Yes, in YOUR backyard!

Do we know how you feel, Atherton?

If you’re going to claim that your ADUs are part of your city’s affordable housing stock, the least you can do is suck it up and rent them out accordingly. If you object to having the state, et al, determine how your private property and your neighborhoods should be used, the very least you can do is to use your considerable financial resources to challenge them legally.

Thank you, @Frozen, for clearly and concisely capturing Menlo Park’s approach to affordable housing.

Private Citizen & @ Frozen:

You are both correct in that a very small, but vocal & active, group of Zealots have taken over Sacramento & now are controlling more & more town Councils. I believe that the vast majority of residents agree with their general intent, but vehemently disagree with their methods & edicts.

The current HCD & Legislature actions are only making Real Estate Developers rich and creating more high-cost homes without developing the much more required middle & lower income housing. There are great solutions underway accroiss the USA and even here, but they are led by NGO's & the Private Sector & NOT the Gov't.

I believe that out best option is to:

1) Support & pass the upcoming 2024 Amendment sponsored by Our Neighborhood Voices (see -Web Link
- It will return control of the communities to their residents & not Sacramento bureaucrats
&
2) Spend the many Hundreds of Millions $$ that we would save in staff & lawyer fees across CA and focus them on developing true "Affordable Housing" by local area & NOT by each Zip Code

The residents need to take charge of their own destiny & do so NOW.

@Menlo Voter.

"Of course, Menlo Park won't because the majority on the board are "progressives", so they think what the state is doing is just dandy."

What's truly sad is that in the last election both incumbents were re-elected with a (in my opinion) pathetic low voter turnout. It's sad the homeowners of Menlo just don't care how they change the city's character.

Menlo Lifestyle:

You are correct that most local residents are NOT engaged. They do not yet see any real problem. I believe that most residents are still unaware of the seriousness & immediacy of the threat to their current neighborhoods
· There are so many “immediate existential threats to their very existence” (Climate Change, COVID, Ukraine war, Crime, Homelessness, etc.) that residents can’t focus on something like SB-9 & the Builder’s Remedy that just don’t seem as real
· Thus, we need to “shock” them into caring & then show that ONV has a solution to the threat/problem
· Further, we will need to show that stopping the HCD overreach is NOT a threat to solving the TRUE Housing Crisis
· Instead, by “taking the existing HCD requirements off the table” we will unleash the current massive $$ being spent responding to the bureaucratic edicts via consultants & lawyers and spend those $$ and efforts on a real solution

But, we must get the attention of our friends & neighbors

CyberVoter is arguing for some spirited resistance to California legislation, and I support him 100%.

But the realist in me says good luck in getting liberal California to start acting like this isn't the Soviet Union.

Before homes get decimated in value, again, the Atherton council needs to turn the $50M town center into condos/apartments.

Face the music. CyberVoter, I agree with everything you've said, but I don't think you can stop that music. We need to face it intelligently.

The only realistic choice is many homeowners lose many MILLIONS each, or some town employees who don't really occupy the town center anyway (or shouldn't, in the case of cops we are paying to patrol; they can fill out paperwork in their patrol car) should be put in trailers in the park.

Face it. Do the right thing for RESIDENTS.

Or re-zone the homes next to the five council members to start this ball rolling. Again, I PROMISE that's never going to happen.

I note the use of the slur NIMBY in comments above. Let's be clear, just like the N-word, any LGBTQ slurs, the "Commie" attacks under McCarthy, slurs used against Jewish, Hispanic, and Asian, the NIMBY slur is used to shame and silence environmentalists, people who believe the current governmental policy has FAILED the housing insecure, and those that put mental health ahead of the developers. Those who use the term NIMBY are no better then racists, McCarthy groupies like Regan, and global warming deniers. You will be remembered for your intolerance.

Thoughtful & Meg, et.al.: The growing amount of resistance to the overreaching State bureaucrats and the negative views of our current local leaders in both amazing & heartening. Perhaps we have finally reached the "Tipping Point" (like the film "Network") were we are "Dad as Hell & not going to take it anymore"

I recommend that we:
1) Endorse, donate to, volunteer & vote for the "Our Neighborhood Voice" project to have a 2024 CA Amendment to return the control of zoning back to the residents
- Web Link
&
2) Vote out the HCD supporting local Town Council members & our local State incumbents (Berman & Becker)

We will probably have spend a lot of $$ on lawyers as well, but we must do all of the above!

How are you going to get the laws to change BEFORE the homes are re-zoned and condos/townhomes start to get built on them?

How is this going to happen?

Once the home is sold to the developer, there's no turning back for that home and those neighbors. Those neighbors just had their home values reduced by MILLIONS. PERMANENTLY.

The focus needs to be complying with the law – by turning the town center into multi-family housing – and in parallel trying to get it revoked.

Once it gets revoked, and I hope it does, we can turn the town center back into the lavish staff offices it currently is.

Am I missing something with the timing?

Thoughtful:
You are correct! Atherton should resubmit by turning most of the Town Center into Multifamily Housing & moving staff to rented offices nearby in Menlo Park. The $51M+ Town Center Complex was built with NO Vision as to what the residents really want & need, but was design by & for the Staff. The TOWN Council know of the HCD issues at the time & took no actions.

Do the current Council Leadership of Menlo Park, Atherton & other areas really represent the views of the majority of residents?

I agree, move to mollify the HCD without building massive multi-family housing on residential property ASAP a "Take Back" your Town Government in 2024.

PS: Have you seen the massive amounts of empty (for sale or for lease) office & retail property all over El Camino & Middlefield that could easily be converted to residential with much less negative impact?

I wish someone would articulate how, exactly, a multifamily building next to a single family home is such a terrible, terrible thing? How will it reduce your home values? Are you afraid of looking at a building that doesn't look like your house? (A 2 story apartment isn't any taller than a 2 story mansion.) Are you afraid of the people who would live in multifamily?

@meg that is one of the most out of touch takes I've read in a longtime, I do appreciate the chutzpah to conflate NIMBY with racism and communism. Thank you very much for the laugh, I actually spilled my coffee.

Is that a serious question? Really?

Even if you disagree with the concept, I know you have heard of "neighborhoods" and people paying more per unit of housing to be in nicer neighborhoods.

if I had a neighborhood of tenement/mansion/tenement/mansion etc., would people want to buy the mansions and be next to the tenements? Of course not. I'm not saying the proposed multi-family housing are tenements, but they're not mansions, and would dilute the uniform quality of the neighborhood.

The USA is a capitalist country. Not everyone is entitled to have the same neighborhood, house, car, vacation, etc., as the next person. How hard you work, your talents, and other factors that aren't as "fair" such as luck and family background play a part. As Churchill said, it's the worst system imaginable until you consider any other.

Back in the Soviet Union, everyone had the same type of apartment in Moscow…except government officials, professors at universities, etc., had better ones.

Back in the early 1970s when Nixon visited China, and met with Mao, he challenged Nixon as to how there could be such wealth in the United States, yet people also living in poverty. He said the "class-based system" is fundamentally unfair. Nixon replied that China definitely has the "class system" also, as the government officials were living in better conditions than the people at large. Mao replied, in a huff, "We DO NOT HAVE CLASS…but we do have rank."

But let's focus on Cyber Voter's well-put statement:

"The $51M+ Town Center Complex was built with NO Vision as to what the residents really want & need, but was design by & for the Staff. The TOWN Council know of the HCD issues at the time & took no actions."

We need a solution to this issue without affecting our home values. The "Town Center" MUST BE USED to solve the issue or select residents will suffer unfair and arbitrary economic sanctions. The "rank" of the town staff must not trump the well being of the residents!!!!

Interesting article on the feasibility of converting commercial buildings to housing: Web Link

Good article. Yes, I expect the town center conversion to multi-family housing to cost money. It can either be maybe a few thousand per homeowner to do this, or select homeowners get dinged for millions (as just "phase 1", with more to come). Easy choice.

Thoughtful, et. al.:

If your Atherton Council members were truly researching all possibilities, they would put a "repurposing" of much of the Town Center to housing on the table. If you left the Police & the Council Chambers alone, the rest of the building could be re-purposed as "Age-restricted" housing that would be well received by the community. Move the staff to locations in the Park and to rented offices on El Camino. Be creative & listen to your "customer" (& boss) - i.e. the residents! How many residents are ever in the Town Center?

But don't expect the staff to come up with that option!!!

The town council members are afraid to put the Town Center option on the table for what I will call "Stockholm Syndrome". They don't want to appear like they're being mean to the people who work for them.

It's human nature.

But…COME ON…residents are going to take multi-million dollar hits to their property values now to avoid this?

Enough is enough. Someone has to call this option out. Residents need to start demanding it at the public meetings.

@Michael - what is out of touch is the lickspittle defenders of this massive land grab, while using the horrible situation of the housing insecure to justify repeated attacks on anyone who dares to suggest the current approach is failing. While I am disgusted by the lack of respect for private property, I am horrified by the use of the homeless as a vehicle to propagate this upward wealth redistribution into the hands of the states richest developers. The policies of the current DINOs in Sacramento (yes it is easy to name call) have only increased the wealth gap and the number of people living in terrible conditions. And yet anyone who has the chutzpah to point out their years of failure, while blaming everyday citizens for the housing crisis, is routinely belittled as out of touch. Why, well I would suggest it is because those in Sacramento like their donations from supper PACs more than they like low income people - unless of course the low income people can be used to grab more for the developers.
It's an historical norm for failing governments to use class warfare and name calling to distract those who don't have by blaming those who do. So the real laugh is to believe that by calling people NIMBY, California is going to house the masses. Do you like seeing homeless, drug addicted, elderly, and even children living in tents and under freeways? If not then maybe it is time to vote in some real liberals who put people ahead of donations and know better then to use attacks like NIMBY to beat down challenge to failure in government. Enjoy the coffee