Yes on M saves the specific plan; no on M implodes it

Yes on M does nothing of the kind. It will likely have two results. No development, thus on going blight. Or, separate development of each separate parcel which will likely include medical offices, a high traffic generator.

No on M allows the council to continue to do what I has been doing, monitor and modify. The last traffic study and the resultant call by council for redesign proves that.

Measure M is a HUGE Mistake

I am not sure if anyone clicked on the link in Mr. Fisher's post but I found it enlightening that he included many "exhibits" from the Specific Plan. If you have the patience to read through all of this, good for you. If you have the expertise to understand all of the impacts, even better.

It is clear to me that municipal zoning and land use planning are pretty complicated. Then you throw on top of that the required EIR (environmental impact review, I think) and it is even more complex. I think I heard someone say the EIR for the Specific Plan is longer than the entire Plan itself - and that is over 100 pages!

This is a main reason I am voting NO on Measure M. I don't think that complex zoning issues with unforeseen impacts should be put on a ballot. I doubt that anyone voting for either side is going to read all 12 pages of Measure M, much less the 100+ pages of Specific Plan and EIR. But here they are just in case.

Measure M: Web Link
Specific Plan: Web Link

If you made it through all that, congratulations! You now have a very well informed opinion of the impacts of Measure M. If not (like most of us) just remember that this is a living document, we have the power to change it every 2 years through our Planning Commission and City Council, and most importantly, our elected City Council has the power to negotiate for things BEYOND what is in the Specific Plan (like NO Medical in 500 ECR which is now on the table - thank you Kirsten Keith and Cat Carleton!)

Vote NO on Measure M. Trust the Specific Plan and all the thought and input and expert opinion that went into it. And trust our elected officials (whoever you choose) to do their job and negotiate in the best interests of Menlo Park. After all, they are residents themselves.

The Final EIR for the Specific Plan is so big that it was published in two volumes:

Volume 1 has 531 pages

Volume 2 has 485 pages

Web Link

The Specific Plan is 356 pages

"Zoning is complicated" hit the nail on the head.

Redoing over 1300 page of work with 12 poorly written and totally unvetted pages is a Huge Mistake.

Mr. Fisher tried this same headline scare tactic on a neighborhood posting service, only to be politely rebuked by that same neighborhood. This is a better forum for discussion but the approach to the headline says a lot about M proponents. "Zoning" above, has it right. This is hard, detailed, time consuming work. M was prepared in haste by a handful of anti-development folks in town. Committed residents need an inclusive process to move the town forward -- that is just how hard, detailed civic work gets done. I am voting NO on M.

Like Mike Lanza, like Perla Ni, like Stefan Petry, like Kevin Vincent-Sheehan, George Fisher was completely or nearly completely MIA during the Specific Plan development. And now his confusion gets SHOUTED IN CAPITAL LETTERS non-stop at those of us who did take part. George, when are you going to tell us where you were when the rest of us were doing the actual work?

Ashley...not sure how the Stanford plan incorporates the vision of those who participated in the development of the DSP. Rich Cline said the following in April of 2013 upon review of the Stanford development proposal.

"I was very surprised that the project that was originally proposed was nothing like anything that had been discussed by Stanford in the past, at all" Cline said. "And really had very little to do with the spirit and the direction of the specific plan as we had those discussions..."

Cline said, "When I first saw the plan (Stanford), it was completely out of nowhere."

"It (Stanford proposal) feels like another city's plan," Cline said. "It didn't follow the look and feel of Menlo Park".

Web Link

Retired Teacher - Your account is very out of date. Since April 2013 Stanford has, under Council pressure, already substantially revised its initial proposal removing all medical offices, adding more residential units and committing to supporting a pedestrian and bicycle underpass. And now, with the latest traffic study in hand, the council has sent Stanford back to revise its proposal once again and also declared that there must be a project specific EIR.

The Specific Plan is working and the Council is doing its job.

Measure M would incentivize Stanford to remove all of its present commitments and to develop each of its SIX parcels separately thereby avoiding entirely the poorly thought out Measure M limit of 100,000 sq ft of office space per PROJECT. Each separate Stanford project would, because of Measure M, have a different design, be HIGHER, have its own separate ECR access and would not include any public benefits including the pedestrian/bicycle tunnel or the large plaza.

The Specific Plan is working and the Council is doing its job - Measure M would destroy that progress.

Do not the Measure M caps of 240,000 square feet of office and 470,000 square feet of all commercial development (inclusive of office) prevent six parcels of 100,000 square feet of office per parcel?

Also my posting of the 2013 article was in part to show that Stanford, although a participant in the process, had no intention of developing a project that followed in any meaningful way the "vision" for the down town that was anticipated by most of the residents involved.

I have little faith that the process is working. I have little faith in most of the members of this city council.

@ retired teacher - as I read Measure M, Stanford could develop all six parcels as retail which would really increase traffic. Not to mention all the separate entrances on el Camino. That would be a nightmare if you lived in Allied Arts.

Alternatively, under Measure M Stanford could combine lots to develop 3 office buildings of 80k square foot each or 240k total, of which 30% could be used for medical. That is 80k MORE medical office than the current Stanford proposal which was negotiated by the current city council committee. I am pretty sure the neighborhood reps from Allied Arts wanted LESS medical office, not MORE.

If you really don't trust Stanford you are in better hands with the current city council than with Measure M. You may not like the current council but they are doing good work to get the project to a place that will be fit our city.

"Do not the Measure M caps of 240,000 square feet of office and 470,000 square feet of all commercial development (inclusive of office) prevent six parcels of 100,000 square feet of office per parcel?"

The poorly conceived Measure M 100,000 sq ft of office limit per parcel would do just that - limit
any one parcel to less than 100,000 sf ft of offices.

Measure M's cap of 240,000 square feet of office and 470,000 square feet of all commercial development (inclusive of office would then allow, for example, Stanford to develop each of its 4 largest parcels with 60,000 sq ft of offices and, given that Measure M separately defines Medical Offices, these could all be medical offices. And given the setbacks required for these separate buildings they would all be higher.

Measure M's concern with the SIZE of these potential development would have been much better addressed by a one sentence initiative that reduced the FAR in the ECR SE zone. However the drafters of Measure M were not adept in writing zoning ordinances so they rambled on for 12 pages and did not allow those pages to be reviewed by the citizens and vetted by planning experts.

Measure M is a poorly written,unvetted Mistake.

@retired teacher

The devil is in the details.....those footage limitations are for NET NEW footage. Stanford and Greenheart get credit for what is already there or APPROVED (in the case of Greenheart those lots come with over 100,000 feet already approved).

Stanford has a little over 40,000 of credit from Tesla's usage. They could o course occupy EVERY one of those car dealerships and get credit for them ALL. They would be WAY under the footage maximums.

Again, the devil is in the details, and quite frankly it requires a LONG read to fully understand the impacts of MINOR tweaks to the plan. Stanford can indeed develop all the lots separately. However their footage is maximized by probably doing this as 3 projects to get under the 100,000 of office rule, and using net footage from all their buildings.

Like we've been saying this is REALLY complicated.

M is a Mistake
Vote NO on Measure M

Roy Thiele-Sardina

The Roy Thiele-Sardiña argument, just like being made by Atherton resident (Carpetbagger), Peter Carpenter is so much baloney.

Stanford without passage of Measure M can divide up the parcels and do this. They can propose big box without Measure M being passed.

With the now obvious needs for each project to undergo a traffic study and then a EIR, the council can control.

These projects will all have to have council pass "findings of over-riding consideration". Council can deny projects if they fail to pass these findings.

The Specific Plan is an outright disaster. Having spent $1.6 million plus $165,000 for the Wise report to defend it, how can any MP voter not see what has happened here. (OH by the way, how about throwing $80,000 away for a new City Logo?) How about spending over $1,000,000 to "spruce up" the City Managers surroundings.

Is this the worst council ever? Good question!!

Surely we don't want another term (a their term no less) for Rich Cline, who led the discussions through this period. He has been bought off by the Bohannon interests.

To make matters even worse, this council plans a complete new General Plan; they want to give away similar concessions to developers and land owners in the M2. Will it ever stop?

Vote Yes on Measure M

Do not vote for any incumbent. We need a new Council.

"Stanford without passage of Measure M can divide up the parcels and do this"

But without Measure M Stanford has an incentive to develop the parcels as a single, integrated project with significant public benefits.

Measure M PROHIBTS this and ensures multiple projects with a total of more sq ft. and higher buildings and no public benefits.

Beware the unintended consequences of the poorly written Measure M.

Here is the exact language in Measure M which lead to the above unanticipated and undesirable outcome:

"3.3.5. After this measure becomes effective, the maximum amount of Office Space that any individual development project proposal within the ECR Specific Plan area may contain is 100,000 square."

Clearly inelegant and inappropriate language in a poorly crafted initiative. Nobody thought about the unintended and undesirable consequences of this language.

How about we make a new train stop for any new offices that go up along that section, allow NO PARKING for any businesses that go in and we can avoid that horrible traffic that is going to come when we add new business along El Camino. Any afternoon activity has to be carefully planned already to avoid the mess on ECR, groceries, kids to and from school activities... NO or YES, nobody fully understands it - whichever it is, please figure out how to maintain MP and not turn it into RWC, or Sunnyvale or whatever other cities have built mountains along the ECR.
Are we really that desperate that we need to grow?
Don't like the empty space? Build a park.

To put it simply, and paraphrasing some, Measure M is a disaster that will undo 6 years of hard work, massive community involvement, consultant input/reports and large sums of city money spent to come up with a final DSP.

A small subset of the community wants to turn all that effort upside down because they didn't get everything they wanted and are using scare tactics to fool people. The WORST thing that could happen for our city would be allowing changes in the DSP to be determined only by ballot box. Even measure M supporters should know that, the developers would run massive campaigns to fool the mostly uninformed voters and would get their way without council or community input. Talk about a fast track to crazy!

For that alone, I am voting NO ON MEASURE M

It is better to allow the council, whether you like the current council or not, to have the power to force developers to go back to the drawing board. Continued community input is what's needed, not more ballot measures.

NO ON MEASURE M
NO ON MEASURE M
NO ON MEASURE M

Can I get some help with a research project?

How about if everyone who reads this (including city council members, candidates and Almanac reporters, to name a few) times their drives north and southbound on ECR based on the time of day, and records their results into one Google doc or spreadsheet. I believe the results will be revealing.

Would the Almanac consider hosting this survey?

Personally, I have found that I can get from Alma to Encinal (or reverse) in 2 to 4 minutes (depending on lights) during off-peak periods, but the same trip can take up to 20 minutes between 5-6pm.

I cannot imagine how much longer it will take to make this trip if the Stanford and Greenheart projects go through. I read about traffic in these comments, but I don't think the issue is total cars during the day as much as it is total cars during peak commute periods.

I do not see how our city council can permit the addition of so many more office workers without figuring out how to keep traffic flowing. The issue is important for residents, but also for emergency vehicles. With no alternative N-S routes, how can an ambulance quickly get to Stanford?

I understand that there have been traffic studies, but let's do our own, in real time, and then think about what the future will look like.

Traffic! above has it right. (Alma in MP is right now a total disaster)

Let me just say, traffic studies are just "projected" numbers. They are very often wrong and very often predict useless results. Who performs the study is important.

The last example of a study for MP, which was UN-believably faulty was the parking study for the Arrillega Gym, which said no problem with parking for the library. What a joke. So take all the numbers with a "huge grain of sand"

This nonsense of allowing for Telsa, now defunct and only here for a very short time is a classic case of trying to spin the numbers in favor of dense development.

Vote Yes on M

Don't vote for any incumbent.

Unfortunately, as Menlo Park residents we have to be careful with trusting the process too blindly. We trusted Menlo Park when the City pointed some of us as neighborhood representatives to meet with Stanford to try to find common and appointed a subcommittee led by Councilmember Kirsten Keith “to facilitate conversations between neighborhood representatives and applicant [Stanford] . . . to ensure the final project balances the needs of Stanford and the greater Menlo Park Community. No such conversations occurred. Councilmember Keith submarined the city appointed neighborhood representatives, ignored them, facilitated no conversations , and went out in dark of night and did a terrible deal with Stanford. She conceded Stanford 200,000 square feet of office space, and worse, gave Stanford control over Menlo park, by allowing Stanford to decide later upon a an infrastructure contribution. Unfortunately the amount would await Stanford's approvals of its project and then a subsequent project to underground a pedestrian walkway.

The neighborhood representatives did have a voice in the W-trans Stanford preliminary traffic studies. Unfortunately, the provisions on congestion cut through traffic and a complete statement of the analysis, methodologies, data and decisions to make clear to residents, decision makers, and the public, were in the contract scope of work, but not performed. In the Greenheart EIR work scope, the city included a similar catch-all to be in the administrative draft, and actually 2 such drafts for city comment, before public release.

Unfortunately, under the Public Records act, the city claims it does not have to produce text messages, drafts or comments thereon, and does not produce them. We aren’t allowed to know the content of any changes resulting from Menlo Park’s review of, and comment on administrative drafts, w-trans reports, the Lisa Wise Consulting report or any other consultant’s reports. Menlo Park’s anti measure M bias and politicians fear of losing power to expand office space and maximum non-residential space is clear in its website and summer brochure references to Measure M. The present politicians have banded together to prevent being challenged by voter approvals of office space limits and non-residential limits. However, 10 former Menlo Park Mayors support measure M. The Sierra Club supports Measure M.

The Specific Plan EIR only studied retail for the site of the Greenheart project, and studied no office space with toxic traffic. The City website says net new development means net new impacts, and all 220,000 square feet of office space with toxic traffic is a net new impact. That coupled with Stanford’s office space with toxic office space traffic of 181,568 means 381,568 of net new impacts, over 80% displacing the expected 91,000 sq feet of net new retail downtown in Santa Cruz area and Station area. That new retail, vibrancy, and maintaining Menlo Park Character is what we all approved in the Specific Plan vision.

Aside from open space expansion, Measure M only defines office space and limits it to that studied in the EIR, limits non-residential space to the maximum set in the specific Plan, and those are the only things requiring voter approval.

In simple language the system is not working. The residents of neighborhoods can only ask, but they have no leverage. They don't even have a staff protector such as a residential neighborhood director. The developers have a staff economic development manager on their side. Council is on the side of development and protecting their turf, even if they refused to repair the Specific Plan “turf” by making any significant revisions when it came out contrary to the Specific Plan Vision, the community stands behind.

Mayor Mueller is trying to reopen Stanford negotiations. Good Luck to him, but the horse may have left the barn. As Henry Riggs claims “Unfortunately neither architectural control nor voluntary negotiation can lower the scale of development or guarantee balanced results.” That is exactly why we need Measure M to save the Specific Plan.

Fisher claims "Aside from open space expansion, Measure M only defines office space and limits it to that studied in the EIR, limits non-residential space to the maximum set in the specific Plan, and those are the only things requiring voter approval. "

No George, see Section 3.1:
"ECR SPECIFIC PLAN AREA VOTER-ADOPTED DEVELOPMENT DEFINITIONS AND STANDARDS.
ECR SPECIFIC PLAN AREA DEFINED. When referring to the “ECR Specific Plan Area,” this initiative measure is referring to the bounded area within the Vision Plan Area Map located at Page 2, Figure I, of the El Camino Real/Downtown Vision Plan, accepted by the Menlo Park city Council on July 15, 2008, which is attached as Exhibit 1 to this measure and hereby adopted by the voters as an integral part of this initiative measure. "

Unfortunately the Measure M supporters do not/cannot read their own initiative which requires voter approval to ANY change of the "Vision Area Map".

They actually told the Fire Board to go ahead and ignore Sec 3.1 and they would not sue!!

Concerned citizens will note that Fisher and other Measure M proponents NEVER actually quote language from THEIR Measure. Why - either they don't know what is in Measure M or they know that the actual language will contradict their claims - you decide.

After watching the discussion between John Boyle and Heyward Robinson Web Link - and reading this article I have some questions. Maybe Peter Carpenter - or Henry Riggs can answer these.

My impression is that the Downtown Specific Plan was intended to develop ECR and increase sales taxes. To that end - some blend of retail and hotel was needed along with office space and residential. Is this a fair perception?

I actually like what I have seen with the Stanford and Greenheart plans - with the following caveat. Where are the sales tax generators? A small amount of retail - no hotels. what happened? Did local stores not want more retail because of competition? I could understand that. Were no hotels snapping up the land? Based on hotel margins - that could seem plausible.

It seems like something has changed - but without an explanation - some community members may feel duped by "insiders".

Thanks in advance for any information.

[Post remove. Please focus on the topic, not on other posters.]

Properties within the DSP area generate Menlo Park income through both property taxes, sales taxes and hotel (Transient Occupancy Tax) taxes.

If vacant properties are redeveloped with offices and residences then they will generate a significant increase in property taxes every year and the proposed Greenheart and Stanford properties will generate millions of dollars of increased property taxes for Menlo Park.

Retail only generates income if there are retail sales and historically retail on ECR has not been very successful.

If Measure M passes, the proposals from Stanford and from Greenheart will both have to go back to the drawing board and development will be set back at least two years. Our community loses over $6M for every year that these projects are delayed, according to independent fiscal impact analysis by Brion & Associates. This is revenue that would go to our schools, city services like parks, library, and traffic improvements, as well as deprive our local merchants of millions of dollars more in retail spending downtown.
Where would all of this annual revenue go?
The single largest recipient will be the schools who will get over $3.27M, including over $975,000 to the Menlo Park K-8 school district. That’s over $330 per student per year.
The Fire Protection District will receive over $800,000 and the County will receive over $825,000.
The City also collects sales tax, licensing fees, and other sources of revenue in addition to the property taxes. The annual total for Menlo Park is expected to top $1.45M -- for police, library, parks and more.

The fiscal impact analysis report estimates that these two projects alone will help generate over $22M annually in incremental retail spending in our community. That’s a lot of customer activity and vibrancy for our local businesses!
In addition, more than 2000 construction jobs will be created. Also, Stanford and Greenheart will pay more than $12 million to the City and local agencies in the form of one-time “impact” and related fees to enable infrastructure investments for bicycle, pedestrian, and traffic improvements, and to school and housing funds.

Peter Carpenter - thanks for your comment. Property taxes on commercial properties - always raises other questions for me due to Prop 13. Since Stanford has owned the property since before I was born - it's not clear to me how they would be reassessed. Also property tax allocations, as I understand it, are controlled by the state - and not by Menlo Park per se. It's not clear to me what real local revenue would be generated - vs. San Mateo county revenue. (Web Link section on local control.)

That said - I accept your statement that retail sales on ECR have not been historically high. It's too bad Menlo Park didn't accept the new Whole Foods on ECR when it was offered. It all seems to be a tricky problem to solve once you think about it.

"old timer" - I actually am on the fence. I tend to be pretty analytic about things - especially if they are unclear to me. I understood George C. Fisher's comments in this article.

Personally, I'm put off by the strident tone many on both sides of the discussion have taken. This whole thing seems pretty complicated to me. The anti-M people have signs that seem to indicate M will make traffic worse -- as far as I can see traffic is worse everywhere in the Bay Area due to the economy. It got worse and M hasn't even passed. Give me a break! (I have other examples of logical fallacy.) Just complaining that because I don't see your point of view means I am anti-M -- makes no sense to me.

Personally, I want to see ECR developed (i.e. blight abated). I hate the empty lots. I thought the Derry Project was reasonable and was disappointed that didn't go forward. I wanted to see a new Whole Foods on ECR. I was amazed at the anti BevMo arguments. That said I don't want to see office canyons on ECR either. I'd love to see more things like Kepler's - but could they be financially viable? I don't know.

My basic question still stands --- current development doesn't seem like the DSP. Why not? Am I mistaken? Did local businesses not want competing retail on ECR - office space is less threatening - and potentially has customers. OK I get that. How successful is the Four Seasons in EPA? Successful enough that other hoteliers were clamoring to build in Menlo Park - or not. If you don't have retail or hotel to fill the space - office space and residential it is. I don't know if this was the path to today or not.

" Since Stanford has owned the property since before I was born - it's not clear to me how they would be reassessed. "

The reassessment would be based on the FULL value of the new construction = HUGE.

Here is the quote from the Board of Equalization:
"Reassessment of a property is required any time new construction occurs (section 71). Thus, new construction, when not considered normal maintenance or repair, is assessable if it adds value to the property. The market value (not necessarily the cost) of the addition or other "new construction" is determined by the assessor and added to the existing property assessment. The value of the existing property is not affected.

New construction that adds value to the property represents the incremental value added to the existing property and will generate a supplemental assessment. The existing property, however, is not reappraised; its assessed value will not change except for the annual inflation adjustment of up to two percent."

@ old timer:

"If you really are looking for a truthful and knowledgeable reply, you surely wouldn't be asking P. Carpenter (an Atherton resident)"

I don't know Mr. Carpenter, but would like to point out that you and other Measure M supporters seem to attack people, rather than pointing to what your measure actually says. Are you really, truly aware of what is says and its implications?

Please quote from your measure and rely upon it to explain your position, rather than personally attacking those who voice valid concerns with specific references to Measure M's actual language.

It is worth noting that the biggest financial supporter of Measure M lives in Atherton. That is fine in my book. We are all part of a larger community here, but you really are being duplicitous when you try to attack Mr. Carpenter on that basis.

@Peter, can you point where Stanford has committed to bearing the $3M cost of building the bicycle/pedestrian underpass?

Thanks in advance.

@ Undecided.

You ask some good questions, and this is what we need right now int this debate. Unfortunately, this is not the forum to get logical, high-minded discourse on the subject.

I will only submit this. I was involved in the DSP process for six years, attended many of the meetings, and I have been an advocate of the citizen-driven effort ever since. We had a vision for what could be developed along El Camino. As a group we decided (through compromise) that we would like denser, multi-use development along El Camino and favored less dense, smaller buildings along Santa Cruz Ave (our true downtown corridor, and the center of our "village character"). I don't think anyone thinks of El Camino in when they think of the "village character" of Menlo Park, and for good reason. That is why we wanted to preserve and protect our downtown core.

Of course there were voices of dissent. Most of these came from the residents living closest to El Camino, in the Allied Arts neighborhood. No surprise that this is the same group that has been trying to change the Specific Plan from the start, and is now the driving force behind Measure M now that the Specific Plan is in effect.

Did we envision a hotel? Yes! Did we want retail in this corridor? Yes! Did we want mixed-use office and residential in this area? Yes! It made clear sense to most of us that denser development of residential and office space near our transit hub would actually REDUCE traffic over time rather than increase it.

But we do not own the land. Stanford and Greenheart and other private landowners own the land. They are not going to build a park (unless we buy it off them at market rates - expensive park!). They have decided that a hotel is not the best use of their investment, given the Stanford Park Hotel next door and other hotels that are being planned near downtown. We cannot force them to build a hotel, even though that is the best tax generator - to - traffic ratio. They are going to build what they can to maximize their investment. This is where the Specific Plan, Planning Commission and City Council come in. Our Council has already negotiated with Stanford for NO MEDICAL at 500 ECR - vs. the 30% that is allowable in the Specific Plan (and Measure M.) And the current Council has also negotiated for a ped/bike under-crossing of Caltrain at Middle, and a public plaza that is bigger than Cafe Barrone!


Trying to the landowners and developers in a box with Measure M will only force them to either (1) not develop - Stanford has a long time horizon (2) redo plans and develop years later - with $ millions of lost revenue to the city, or (3) develop now to the full potential of Measure M - max out medical, max out retail, max out all development and provide no public benefit.

You are correct to be disappointed that the Derry project did not get built. That project would have contributed $3M to our city over that last 10 years - $30M of which half would go to fund our schools and more to our city services, fire and police. But the usual suspects - Patty Fry, Morris Brown - have stirred the pot with the Allied Arts residents to kill yet another good set of projects in our downtown. Have you ever taken Caltrain and looked at what we have on the West side of the tracks through Menlo Park - acres of empty, blighted, no-tax revenue generating lots. Good thing we don't have gangs or that is where they would congregate.

Don't let the no-growthers do this to us again. Vote NO on Measure M, tell your friends, tell your neighbors. We do not want another 10 years of empty lots and no-growth in our dying downtown core.

SAVE MENLO PARK - VOTE NO ON MEASURE M.

"@Peter, can you point where Stanford has committed to bearing the $3M cost of building the bicycle/pedestrian underpass?"

The tunnel cost is not yet known so the exact amount has not yet been specified but the principle has been agreed to in writing by Stanford:

Web Link

*******************
"If you really are looking for a truthful and knowledgeable reply, you surely wouldn't be asking P. Carpenter (an Atherton resident)" - Feel free to attack me personally (rather than provide actual facts to support your position) since the Editors have determined that as an elected official I am the only poster who is NOT protected from personal attacks by the Forum's Terms of Use. This is also probably why so few other elected officials post on this Forum.

@Peter Carpenter,

"... agreed to make a substantial contribution ... amount to be determined"

As I thought. Please don't come on here painting the picture for others that a distinct public benefit was definitely negotiated. It was not. It was left in the air from the get-go when it did not have to be. Stanford responds with a TBD commitment. The reason? Because Stanford's "commitment" was packaged with concessions around medical office space which would have been allowed under the DSP otherwise. Nothing in that letter is legally binding or procedurally required.

Once again, we see how major oversights in the construction of the DSP painted MP into a position of weakness in negotiation.

Measure M might be a mistake, but the DSP was a fail -- 6 years and $1.7M+ later. I hope you understand why it's hard for people to believe that oversight under the DSP by the same parties won't result in a repeat fail.

By the way Peter, do you know why it took 10 months to release the recently released DSP traffic report/analysis? If you don't know about this, you should look into it. If you care about propriety, you should care about this. Again, thank you in advance.

I'm getting a bit confused by the pro-M and anti-M arguments as they both seem to say that voting their way will reduce traffic, etc. But today I received a mailer (anti-M) saying that Measure M would hurt our local schools because Measure M will ensure that more housing will be built. It was my understanding that Measure M does not change the targets or caps on residential units in the DSP. In any case, one thing we desperately need in Menlo Park is more housing. As I understand it, isn't there some mandate for Menlo Park to facilitate development of more housing in our city? Wouldn't new housing units directly or indirectly fund schools through re-assessed property taxes? I can see where excessive urbanization is a bad thing, but again...we need more medium-density housing, and we shouldn't just be looking at Belle Haven as the place to put it.

Now that both the Almanac and the Post have endorsed No on M it is clear that any independent analysis of Measure M will lead to that conclusion.

@George Fisher,

I would like to correct a couple of your statements with facts.

Correction #1: Your 80% usage of allowable footage is an often quoted LIE from the save menlo people. Greenheart, Stanford, Mermaid Inn, Marriott Residence Inn, and 612 College Avenue COMBINED use only 57% of the usable non residential square footage in the DSP. Here is the Staff Report showing that: Web Link

The reason is that the totals are for NET NEW footage, and all of the projects currently have buildings that they get credit for. But you knew that, and wanted to exaggerate the effect. Shame on you. So is that clear to you now?

If fact if Stanford chose to occupy the GMC and Ford dealerships they would receive ADDITIONAL credit which would be added to the maximum footage they are allowed.

Correction #2: Your assertion that Retail would provide large tax benefits to Menlo Park are not true. Retail taxes provide a miniscule portion of the taxes collected in Menlo Park. The majority of the taxes collected in Menlo Park (over 70%) come from two Stanford Properties: The Stanford Hotel and The Rosewood Hotel. Retail is less than 10%. In fact since the Auto Dealerships left ECR, retail shrinks every year.

By delaying the development of 500 El Camino and 1300 El Camino the city could lose $6 Million in public benefit per year. The taxes would benefit our schools, fire department and city. Here is a pointer to the economic impact study sent to Menlo Park regarding lost revenue. Web Link

Menlo Park residence have an important decision to make in three weeks, and telling them the CORRECT facts about the measure and it's draconian impacts to the vibrancy of our great city is paramount.

The Almanac today should be commended for their wise and thorough analysis of this measure, and their endorsement of a NO VOTE on Measure M. They id all the research, looked at all the FACTS and are telling voters to Vote No.

M is a Mistake
Vote NO on Measure M

Roy Thiele-Sardina


Menlo Par

Thanks to everyone for the discussion points. It's beginnon to remind me of the Eisenhower quote "... pland are useless plans but planning is indispensable."

My take so far - the pro-M people are correct - current development on ECR doesn't look exactly like the DSP (no hotels - limited retail).

Since Stanford Park and Rosewood generate 70% of tax revenues it initially seems another hotel would be good. On the other hand, Stanford could build another hotel on their land if the felt that was the best investment - and I notice that neither Stanford Park or Rosewood are fully booked. So I'm guessing that Stanford has analyzed this an feels office space is a better ROI generator than another hotel. Office and retail close to the train doesn't seem that bad - compared to a vacated lot.

I'm guessing the same argument goes for Greenheart.

Retail on ECR seems potentially problematic - since it competes with retail on Santa Cruz Ave. If it only generates 10% of tax revenue - again offices (with long term leases) mixed with residential seem to be a good choice - with the caveat that there are vacant offices on Willow and Middlefield. Do we really need more offices?

Regarding traffic - as far as I can see traffic seems more dependent on the overall economy than specific development. Drive 101 during rush hour and compare to 2010. Traffic is bad every where. Development seems to be secondary to me. M passing or failing - to me it's a wash.

Currently traffic in the Willows seems more impacted by people leaving Palo Alto for 101 and avoiding University Ave than anything else.

Regarding impact on schools. I don't see this as a big issue. A couple hundred new residences on ECR - a couple hundred school children spread out over different grades - I would have to believe property taxes would cover this.

It seems to me the DSP has adapted for reality. This is complicated stuff. I'm sure others will point out the errors of my perceptions.

Thanks.