Menlo Park: Facebook gives $250K to nonprofits

Given that the majority of supporters of the Facebook campus expansion hearing at City Hall were either 1) union members from construction trades and 2) non-profits who had received funds, it looks like Facebook got a great deal buying off neighborhood dissent for a mere couple hundred thousand. $250k would maybe buy 1 new housing unit. All the people who will experience hardship when they are displaced did not factor into the Council's decision. Shame on the non profits who are short sighted to take a little $$ now ($10k and $20k grants are peanuts) and testify in support of a plan that will effect the displacement of the community they serve. SMH.

@Transparent $$$ - first off, many people spoke or wrote in favor of the new General Plan and Facebook's expansion who fell into neither of those categories. (Me and several people I know, for instance.)

Second, you can't talk about the displacement effect of Facebook's operations without talking about their offer to build 3500 units of housing on their land. That's enough to house all of the workers on their expanded campus, which means that they won't need to be bidding up rents in the surrounding neighborhood.

When you factor in that City Council is considering requiring 15% of the new housing in the area to rent below-market (as "affordable housing"), that's enough to house one fifth of the population of Belle Haven. Rents have been rising everywhere in the Bay Area and pushing people out, and they are going to continue to rise independent of Facebook's campus expansion. I don't think we're going to find a better way to help the population of Belle Haven than Facebook is offering.

They are really trying to be the good guys here. The question is whether we - the city and voters of Menlo Park - will let them.

Bob McGrew --
Your data is off. Not a surprise given all the complexity of the Facebook & General Plan proposals. Or are you intentionally putting disinformation into the forum to serve your position?

From The Guardian, 7/20/16: "Facebook – which set up its huge campus in Menlo Park in 2011 – has proposed two new office buildings that would add roughly 126,000 sq ft to its campus, along with a 200-room hotel. The project is expected to bring more than 6,500 new employees to Facebook and the hotel, which would increase the entire Menlo Park workforce by more than 20%."

This is what is in the 7/16/16 staff report to the City Council, "If the ConnectMenlo General Plan update is approved, Facebook would commit to develop at least 1,500 housing units on the Prologis Site, which would include 15 percent BMR units and/or workforce housing units (even if the BMR ordinance does not apply to rental units)."

On 7/26/16, one week AFTER the negative press in the Guardian, the WSJ ran an article titled: "Facebook’s Answer to Silicon Valley Housing Crunch: Build Apartments Social media giant pledges at least 1,500 units for general public, hoping to gain support for its expansion." Mind you -- there wasn't any commitment before this that this housing would be for employees or the general public -- nor has it been made clear that Facebook could control who would move into the housing that they might build (though Google has apparently master leased housing in Redwood City for their staff presumably as an executive perk or visiting global staff? So perhaps that's what they have in mind.). Even CNET reported it as follows: "To accommodate plans for expanding its campus and hiring 6,500 new employees, the tech giant will build 1,500 housing units open to the general public, according to The Wall Street Journal." But again -- no written commitment that has been made despite what's being reported in the echo chamber.

Now there is a proposal in the city's General Plan update to entitle Facebook owned land with zoning which would allow them to build housing. But there is no commitment that I've seen in writing as to their plans as to what they'd actually build there. An entitlement and a commitment to build are very different things.

And, even if Facebook were to commit to build 3500 units for their own people, that is a far cry from the 6550 new employees the campus expansion would allow. Unless you expect that Facebook would require a roommate matching program maybe with bunk beds ala the old company town model?