'We are changing the specific plan' - Menlo Park Planning Commission

I want to take issue with a couple of Mr. Combs statements:

1. "Certainly the process of amending the plan and it being organic is something we all value, but it's not clear that if M passes, (the specific plan) is set in stone."

Clarity is absolutely essential. Sure, we could argue that Mr. Stepanicich's opinion supports the DSP and Mr. Combs supports Measure M, so maybe they're both biased. But... is this something we can risk? I'd be mighty unhappy if M passes, and then problems/issues are identified (which they certainly will be in a plan/development this large), and we get tied up in elections and/or the courts to get those issues resolved.

2. "Changing it, by default, is a statement that (the specific plan) is not working right"

This is simply naive. Any plan is just that, a plan, and it's unrealistic to think that one can think of every possible case/contingency that will arise in the future. Our commissioners and elected representatives must have the latitude (and responsibility) to execute and modify as needed to get it done.

Well, well. The Planning Commission (and maybe the City Council) seem to have hit the panic button.

Let me share my detailed response to a person on the Willows Neighborhood email list who raised some objections to Measure M.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

As a fellow resident of The Willows, let me respond
to the points you raised.

1) there may be problems with the specific plan, but what
about the fact that no one on "yes on M" is addressing:
A "yes" vote locks out the City and input from its Com-
missions and requires a vote of the City's population
to revise?

There are two parts to this response. One is that right
now, Measure M is the only tool available, flawed as it
may be, to halt the momentum of the Stanford and Greenheart
mega-projects. The other is that the current city council,
which we can't guarantee will be totally replaced in the
election next month (thought I certainly hope it will be!)
has forfeited its authority by its total sycophancy to the
developers behind these projects. They just cannot be
trusted--the proof is plain to see in the traffic impacts.

2) this pending development is adjacent to the train tracks.
How better to encourage train travel by those that work
there? Most folks who have tried public trans find the
ride on the train/ferry/bart is great - it's what you have
to deal with at the destination station to get to work
that is hard. This would not be a problem here.

I know about train commuting. I took Caltrain to S.F. for
quite a few years in the 1970s. In the late 1990s I had a
reverse commute to downtown San Jose. But you and I are
oddities. We own homes in Menlo Park. When new jobs are
created near the train stations, the people who staff them
(apart from executives) will be unable to afford to live
anywhere on the Peninsula, and hence will commute from
the East Bay or the Central Valley. In Manteca, my house
would be worth maybe $250,000 (but there aren't any that
small over there); here it's three times that. Rents show
a similar pattern. So the Greenheart planners thoughtfully
baked in underground parking. The Stanford/Arrillaga crew
just planned a pedestrian underpass from Burgess Park to
ECR so that commuters could park in the neighborhood from
Middlefield Road to the train tracks and walk to work.

3) Do I want more traffic? No. I live on Willow and it is
bad enough already.

Per my response to point 2 above, it will get a LOT worse
unless we halt these projects, full stop, right now. Once
ground is broken, it'll be too late. Another plebiscite
in a year or two could fix whatever turns out to be wrong
with Measure M, but no vote will be able to fix the horrid
traffic snarls created by these projects.

My big fear is that, once Willow Road becomes intolerable
at rush hours on account of the extra commuters, there will
be a push to revive the Willow Expressway, a notion which
had legs in the late 1960s. It would mirror Palo Alto's
Oregon Expressway and connect from 101 through to 280 via
Sand Hill Road just as Oregon does via Page Mill Road. My
wife and I fought this back in the day, going door to door
when we were young enough to have the energy to do so.

Palo Alto can tolerate Oregon/Page Mill because it does
not slash through either of its two "downtown" areas,
University Ave. and California Ave. A Willow Expressway
would be a spear through the guts of Menlo Park.

4) Do I want something built on ECR? Yes. The current
situation is terrible.

Well, lots of other things could be built on ECR, and
the cost would go down if office buildings were zoned
out of existence. Once problem I have with M is that
it doesn't go far enough. IMO we should disallow any
significant office construction downtown. Imagine how
the traffic on Willow would be if Sun Quentin (now
Facebook) had been built along ECR rather than right
at the foot of Dumbarton Bridge.

And the current situation is ugly at worst. The city
is not going broke, but the ugliness persists because
the current council refuses to mitigate it. And that
can only be because they want us to believe that the
only alternative is the mega-projects. Those clucks
won't even repave the parking lot next to Trader Joe's
downtown. Do you ever shop there? Do you ever roll
a shopping cart across that worn-to-pebbles pavement?
If you do, the noise will deafen you.

Once again, the powers that be want us to believe that
we need multi-story parking structures where we now
have perfectly adequate (but unmaintained) surface
parking, so they refuse to keep up what we have. And
then they have gall to talk about "vibrancy"?! Next
thing you know, they'll be claiming that balconies
count as open space. Oh, wait--they actually are!!

5) Is the current plan perfect? No, but why tie the
hands of our elected officials and their advisory
Commissions (full disclosure - I was a Park and Rec
Commissioner for a few years until recently.)

I think I've addressed that above. Not all of our
City Hall folk get high inhaling each other's fumes:
Vince Bressler is on the planning commission and he
makes an excellent case for Measure M. But he's in
the minority in that crowd, whereas I think we'll
find (as Palo Alto did earlier this year) that the
general public is fed up with mega-developments.

6) Why toss out all the effort and outreach that
went into the Specific Plan? If the City Council
pushed for a deal like Measure M (rushed, limited
public input) without going through the "Menlo Park
Process", everyone would be clamoring for their heads.

The product, not the process, is the issue here. I
did attend one or two Council hearings on the Downtown
Specific Plan and could certainly tell that they were
window dressing. The basic decisions had already been
made and consultants were being paid to ratify them.

"By their fruits ye shall know them."

Secular version: "The proof of the pudding is in
the eating."

7) The Council and the Planning Commission should be
allowed to do their jobs and not be constrained by
Measure M.

One more time: I have no particular brief for Measure M
specifically, but I see the Council and Planning Commis-
sion doing jobs the way politicians usually do their jobs:
with one eye on ideology and the other on campaign funds.
I'm horribly conflicted, personally, about whether to
vote for Kelly Fergusson, because even though she seems
to grasp how disastrous these mega-projects would be,
the last time she was at City Hall she gave away the
store to the public employee unions (which, of course,
funded her campaigns).

Given the nature of politics, sometimes voters just
have to take the reins back from their elected rep-
resentatives and holler "Whoa, Nellie!"

Mr. Combs stated - "Changing it (the Specific Plan), by default, is a statement that (the specific plan) is not working right,"

Clearly Combs has not read the Specific plan and, in particular, Appendix which clearly states:
"Ongoing Review of Specific Plan
The Specific Plan constitutes a significant and complex
revision of the existing regulations, and there may be
aspects of the plan that do not function precisely as
intended when applied to actual future development
proposals and public improvement projects. In order
to address such issues comprehensively, as well as to
consider the policy-related implications of various Plan
aspects, the Specific Plan recommends that the City
conduct an initial review of the Specific Plan one year
after adoption. In addition, the Specific Plan recommends
that the City conduct an ongoing review every two years
after the initial review. Such reviews should be conducted
with both the Planning Commission and City Council, and
should incorporate public input. Any modifications that
result from this review should be formally presented for
Planning Commission review and City Council action. Minor
technical modifications would generally be anticipated to
be covered by the current Program EIR analysis, while
substantive changes not covered by the Program EIR
would require additional review."

The Measure M proponents are so opposed to any change that their proposed definitions and limits last FOREVER unless changed by a city wide vote for every single one word change.
That is not the way to manage a dynamic process.

The Specific Plan is working and the Planning Commission and Council are doing their job by CONTINUALLY refining the Specific Plan.

Comb's statement is sufficient reason to vote for more enlightened and experienced candidates like Ohtaki, Cline and Keith.

Comb's statement also makes clear the the real purpose of Measure M is to freeze Menlo Park in the past as is exemplified by their freezing the Specific Plan area as it was mapped on July 15, 2008.

Just remember the PC can only recommend. Council has the last word. Council on several previous occasions reviewed the Specific Plan and said everything was just fine and dandy. Council's decision to ignore numerous faults led to SaveMenlo, drafting, gathering signatures and now placed on the ballot Measure M.

Present council is totally arrogant, out of touch with the community, and needs to be replaced -- period. Don't ever believe a PC action will ever carry through with action.

Vote Yes on M.

A correction to Old Timer: Save Menlo Made no such requests of the City Council during the first review of the Specific Plan. Instead of trying to work with the Council to amend the plan, Save Menlo turned their back on the public process and went out to gather signatures. (Look it up, it is a matter of public record.)

As had been said, the proposed Measure M is flawed in many ways. Save Menlo continues to say they want lower building heights. Does Measure M lower building heights? Nope. In fact, restricting open space (which is NOT public open space as misstated by Save Menlo and Commission Bressler)to the ground level only forces buildings higher, not lower.

The Planning Commission and City Council are trying to use the public process to affect positive change, not "ignore" the public. They are conducting their business in the light of day, just as they did in putting the Specific Plan together over the past six years. To suggest otherwise flies in the face of the facts. Save Menlo, by their own admission, ignored the public process and joined a vocal minority of dissenters and no-growth advocates.

No matter limiting medical offices, the Planning Commission still allows for way too much office space being developed that will create huge traffic issues and provide no community benefit. Planning Commission and City Council are offering too little too late. The only thing that will get them to stop and pay attention to the needs of the community is a YES vote on Measure M. Still not seeing the Planning Commission committing to requiring developers to provide an open space benefit for the community or making substantial changes to the flawed Specific Plan. Balconies and Rooftops are not open space and need to be excluded. With more and more children in the area, our community desperately needs more public playgrounds and real open space.

"Still not seeing the Planning Commission committing to requiring developers to provide an open space benefit for the community "

Please READ the Specific Plan before making such unfounded comments - start with Table G1 if you are pressed for time.

And do not confuse the Specific Plans requirement for PUBLIC Open Space with the Specific Plans very appropriate requirement for PRIVATE Open Space - both are necessary to a vibrant community.

Even Measure M recognizes the importance of Private Open Space:
"3.2.2. As adopted on July 12, 2012, the ECR Specific Plan’s Appendix includes the following definition of “Private Open Space”: “An area connected or immediately adjacent to a dwelling unit. The space can be a balcony, porch, ground or above grade patio or roof deck used exclusively by the occupants of the dwelling unit and their guests.” The foregoing definition is hereby adopted by the voters. "

Wow, the Specific plan recognizes the "importance" of private open space. They seem have have lost the importnace of PUBLIC OPEN SPACE though. All of which means absolutely nothing in terms of the amount of actual public open space that is required, and how the Specific plans took what was supposed to be public open space and decided that the private open space would fulfill that requirement. Listing a definition doesn't change a thing.

The second Stanford proposal, as a result of tough negotiations by the Council, has more PUBLIC OPEN SPACE than any project in the history of Menlo Park. And the Council has already called for an even better proposal.

If Measure M passes that PUBLIC OPEN SPACE and the pedestrian tunnel will DISAPPEAR.

Measure M is a huge Mistake.

"The Specific Plan requires open space breaks within
new development, particularly along portions of El
Camino Real north and south of downtown."

"The Specific Plan proposes increased public
spaces, including widened sidewalks, pocket parks
and plazas, that accommodate a variety of public
gathering opportunities."

"The Specific Plan proposes increased public
spaces, including widened sidewalks, pocket parks
and plazas, with enhanced landscaping, particularly
in the downtown area."

"Create a welcoming, publicly-accessible open
space plaza at the terminus of Middle Avenue,
integrated with the pedestrian promenade along El
Camino Real, that provides seating and shade and
allows for small, informal gatherings."

" Provide pedestrian and bicycle linkage across the
railroad tracks between El Camino Real, the new
open space and Alma Street at Middle Avenue. The
precise confi guration of such a linkage will depend
on the fi nal confi guration of the high speed rail."

etc., etc., etc. ......

Read the Specific Plan

It was clearly a mistake to appoint Mr. Combs to the Planning Commission.