Commission votes in favor of Bohannon project

Commissioner Riggs fails to understand that the property's value increases as soon as the upzoning is approved.

A real top tier office project is the Water Garden in Santa Monica...

Web Link

The rent there are less than Menlo Park.
Bohannon's project doesn't compare.

The planning commission received hundreds and hundreds of pages of documents including some complex financial analyses. It's pretty clear that at least a couple of them had no idea what they were looking at. They were afraid of appearing ignorant, and knew that if they asked any questions more complicated than "what kind of trees will you plant?" their lack of understanding would have been evident.

It is absolutely scandalous that the project was pushed through in this manner. Both Bressler and Kadvany provided solid reasons for spending more time on the effort. Let's hope the council is a little more circumspect and doesn't feel the need to kowtow to Bohannon.

This project still has a long way to go and plenty of time to be scrutinized by the city. After all, this is not an actual approval of a project, but approval of the zoning for a project.

This zoning change is an important step in moving Menlo Park forward. Bressler, Pagee and Cadvany are left overs from our no growth past that brought you the El Camino blight.

El camino blight occurred exclusively under the reign of pro-growth council majority Winkler, Duboc, Jellins. W & D wer correctly unseated after a single term.

The approval includes a developer agreement, a contract, which includes by reference, a Conditional Development Permit, that describes an actual project.

Throughout, the approvals have been a moving target, constantly changing, and neither the public nor council has yet seen the finished product which is quite different from the initial proposal.

One issue is that the project description doesn't protect the city by insuring that Bohannon will actually build the proposed, hotel, the one component of the project estimated to produce revenue for the city. council has not yet deliberated over the development agreement all it saw was a vague term sheet.

The Planning Commission has a duty to the city and council to conduct due diligence. They rushed through a review of thousands of pages in just two meetings, apparently pushed by staff. The commission spent more time working on a defition of how to count square footage than on this complex project, and new zoning.
The Almanac did not interpret correctly their vote. Even the four who voted to move the project forward recommended additional fees. They did not recommend the current agreement.