As promised, I am updating you on important developments vis-à-vis the Housing Element. On Monday night (October 4th at 7pm) there is a joint Planning/Housing Commission Meeting in which the advisory bodies will select a preferred land use strategy (where and how new housing will be sited) to recommend to City Council.
The staff report linked to in the meeting agenda highlights the housing challenge facing our city and provides an overview of options proposed to meet the state requirement. According to the staff report, city staff are providing three land use strategies for consideration (see Table 11 below from the staff report). Note that given District 3's location near services and transportation, and the availability of parcels that may redevelop, each of the proposed strategies concentrate a great deal of growth in District 3.
I highly encourage you to attend this online meeting if you can and to share your thoughts with the Housing and Planning Commissions.
Following this meeting, city staff will present the three land use strategies, and any recommendation made at the Planning/Housing Commission meeting, to the City Council for further direction. That meeting is tentatively scheduled for October 26th.
Warmly,
P.S. There is no open session City Council meeting scheduled this week. The next City Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, October 12th.
What is the Housing Element?
The Housing Element is one of seven state-mandated chapters of the General Plan, a comprehensive, long-term plan for the physical development of our city. The Housing Element, specifically, outlines how Menlo Park will meet our existing and projected housing needs over an upcoming 8-year period, and includes policies, strategies and actions to enable the construction of new housing across all income levels.
To learn more about the Housing Element you can visit the City's Housing Element webpage at www.menlopark.org/he. The City recently held a community meeting on September 23rd that provides a great deal of background about land use strategies. You may also want to check out a past newsletter of mine that summarizes key aspects of this important planning process. In addition, below is a video I created a few weeks ago related to the Housing Element and affordable housing. Please note that some of the figures have been updated by the City since I recorded the video. Finally, there is a series of online events coming up about the Housing Element hosted by San Mateo County. These cover issues of affordability, racial equity, climate change and more. For information about those talks, visit https://www.letstalkhousing.org/events.
To access the presentation slides reviewed in the video, click here.
