2026-09-29 - City Council

00:04Menlo Park: Hello, I am Mayor Betsy Nash, and welcome to the September 29th Special City Council Meeting. This is a hybrid meeting with City Council, City staff, and members of the public participating virtually and at the Council Chambers.

00:17Menlo Park: This is a special meeting, and public comment will be taken on agenda items only. Per the Brown Act, there is no general public comment for items not on special agendas.

00:28Menlo Park: Also, please note, public speaker… public comment speaker time may be limited if there are more than 10 speakers on an item.

00:35Menlo Park: We also ask that if you are in person, please submit your speaker cards for all agenda items to the City Clerk at this time.

00:43Menlo Park: Tonight, we have interpretation services available. Please visit the table in the back for a headset.

00:49Menlo Park: For those in virtual attendance, please note that there is a globe icon near the hand feature on your screen.

00:55Menlo Park: Our interpreters this evening are Angela Thielen, Angelica Villagran de Gonzalez. Thank you all for your time and services today.

01:12Menlo Park: Okay.

01:15Menlo Park: Angela, are you able to provide that, Interpretation?

01:32Menlo Park: Angela?

01:33[email protected]: Yes?

01:34Menlo Park: Are you able to provide that interpretation?

01:37[email protected]: Yes, I am.

01:38Menlo Park: Thank you.

01:39[email protected]: I am.

01:40[email protected]: Can you hear me? Buenas noches, soy la caldeza Betsy Nash y la bienvenida a la sesion extraordinaria de la ayuntamiento del 29 de septiembre. Se tratado una sesion ibrida en la que participan el ayuntamiento, el personal municipal y miembros del publico, tanto de forma virtual como la en la sala de la ayuntamiento. Se tratado una sesion extraordinaria y solo se aceptaran comentarios del publico sobre los puntos del orden del dia.

02:05[email protected]: De acuerdo con la Leigh Brown, no se…

02:07[email protected]: Miten comentarios generales del publico sobre asuntos que no figuren en el orden del diaestra ordinario. Asi mismo, tengan en cuenta que el tiempo de intervencion de los horadores del publico puede ver se limitado se hay mas de 10 horadores para un mismo punto. Tambien les rogamos que, si estan presentes, entre en este momento, al secretario municipal sustarietas de intervencia para todos los puntos del dia.

02:30[email protected]: Esta noche disponemos de servicio de interpretacion, por favor hacergense a la mesa situada al fondo para recoger sunos auriculares. Al que atesanas.

02:39[email protected]: Para aqui en esa sistan en forma virtual, tenga en en cuenta que hay un hicono de forma de globo terraque junto el symbolo de la mano de la pantalla. No estan interpretes estan noches a un Angelica Villagrande Gonzalez. Gracias a todos por su tiempo y su trabajo el dia de hoy.

02:56Menlo Park: Thank you. I would like to introduce City Council members and staff present. In the City Council Chambers are myself, Mayor Betsy Nash, Vice Mayor Jennifer Wise, and City Council Members Drew Combs and Jeff Schmidt. City Council Member Cecilia Taylor will be joining us shortly in closed session.

03:12Menlo Park: Staff present include City Manager Justin Murphy, City Attorney Nira Doherty, and City Clerk Judy Herron.

03:22Menlo Park: Closed session. Next is the closed session item. C1, Conference with Legal Counsel, Anticipated Litigation, Paragraph 2 of Subdivision D of Government Code Section 54956.9, Significant Exposure to Litigation, One Case.

03:39Menlo Park: City Clerk Karen, please call for public comment for closed session item C1. Thank you, Mayor Nash. So at this time, if any member of the public.

03:48Menlo Park: Wishes to provide comment on our closed session item C1, Anticipated Litigation. If you are in person, please return that speaker card. If you are virtual, engage that hand feature. Calling in, please press star 9 now.

04:15Menlo Park: Okay, we currently have two speakers, so this will be the final call for public comment on our closed session item C1.

04:28Menlo Park: All right, our first speaker will be Amy Boggs, followed by Elizabeth Burr.

04:40Menlo Park: Mayor, Council, I want to thank you for your time and effort in evaluating the 80 Wheeler Road project.

04:47Menlo Park: I, feel that it's so important that

04:53Menlo Park: A project of this magnitude does not get approved under pressure or in haste.

04:59Menlo Park: And…

05:00Menlo Park: While we've been accused of being NIMBYs, I would like to acknowledge that I live equidistant from 80 Willow Road and the downtown, and I am for the downtown, and I will be voting no on Measure P, because I think that it's very important that we stick to our housing element so that we don't end up with more.

05:20Menlo Park: 80 Willow Roads.

05:21Menlo Park: Thank you.

05:24Menlo Park: Thank you for your comment.

05:27Menlo Park: Next up is Elizabeth Burr.

05:34Menlo Park: Hello, Elizabeth Burr, Woodland Avenue, nice to see you all. First, I just want to wholeheartedly tell you I support the efforts to build housing downtown, and believe that Measure P is NIMBYism, pure and simple.

05:48Menlo Park: I appreciate the years of analysis, the discussion, the hearings, and the complex decisions made by the Housing Commission, the City staff, and the City Council in order to craft and submit a housing plan, one that adheres to the often cumbersome regulations imposed on us by the State of California.

06:06Menlo Park: Measure P insults that hard work, all that hard work of my neighbors and my fellow townspeople. I know the only… I know the City Council and Housing Commission are also very keenly aware of the need to replace the parking, and to support our downtown businesses during construction. That's new news, and I know that that's a really important piece of your agenda.

06:26Menlo Park: With regard to 80 Willow, however, that is not a housing project. 665 homes do not need a 39-story tower as tall as the Great Pyramid of Egypt. That's for the luxury offices and the 5-star hotel and spa.

06:42Menlo Park: The developer is trying to build an aircraft carrier in a duck pond.

06:46Menlo Park: 5 miles from the San Andreas Fault, on a creek that floods, with no environmental review.

06:52Menlo Park: That's not builder's remedy. That's builder's catastrophe.

06:56Menlo Park: Build the housing, lose the rest. Sacramento made this mess, now they need to back the town that wants housing, not a developer who wants to build a hotel.

07:07Menlo Park: Thank you for your comment.

07:10Menlo Park: Okay, seeing no further hands or cards for item C1.

07:16Menlo Park: Mayor Nash, you may continue. Thank you. The City Council will now adjourn to the closed session and intends to reconvene at approximately 6.30pm.

1:03:28Menlo Park: Hello, I am Mayor Betsy Nash, and we are reconvening the special September 29th City Council meeting. Tonight, we have in-person interpretation services available. Please visit the table in the back.

1:03:39Angélica Villagrán: Brande 29 de Septiembre esta noche.

1:03:42Menlo Park: For those in virtual attendance, please note that there is a globe icon near the hand feature on your screen.

1:03:50Angélica Villagrán: Buenas noches.

1:03:52Angélica Villagrán: Esta noche contamos conservicios interpretacion.

1:03:56Angélica Villagrán: Si usted requiere estos servicios, por favor, visita la mesa en la parte de atras de este resinto para recoger sus audiculares.

1:04:04Angélica Villagrán: Para aquellos que estan assistiendo de manera virtual, favor de buscar el icono del globo terraqueo cerca de la mano de la pantalla de Zoom.

1:04:13Angélica Villagrán: En esta noche, encontamos con la presencia de los siguientes interpretees.

1:04:19Angélica Villagrán: Angela Tilen y Angelica Villagrande Gonzalez.

1:04:25Angélica Villagrán: Gracias por su tiempo y su participacion.

1:04:34Menlo Park: City Clerk Karen, would you please provide instructions to the City Council and members of the public?

1:04:41Menlo Park: Angela, can you, or Angelica, it sounds like you are off of mute. Thank you.

1:04:47Angélica Villagrán: Thank you.

1:04:49Menlo Park: City Clerk Karen, would you please provide instructions to the City Council and members of the public on how the meeting will proceed? Yes, thank you, Mayor Nash.

1:04:58Menlo Park: So, for members of the public who wish to provide comment on an item that is on tonight's agenda, if you are in person and have not already, please return a speaker card to me here at the clerk's desk.

1:05:10Menlo Park: If you are virtual, after the mayor calls for comment on the item, we ask that you engage that hand feature, and if you're calling in, you'll press star 9 at that time. Concludes my instructions. Mayor Nash, you may continue.

1:05:24Menlo Park: Thank you. I would like to introduce City Attorney Daugherty for a report out from the closed session.

1:05:30Menlo Park: Thank you, Mayor.

1:05:32Menlo Park: The City Council has authorized me to provide this report out of closed session.

1:05:38Menlo Park: After extensive deliberations, the City Council has carefully considered the Attorney General's July 29th, 2026 notice regarding the 80 Willow Road project.

1:05:49Menlo Park: The Attorney General has concluded that the project is consistent with the requirements of AB 2011, the Affordable Housing and High Roads Job Act of 2022, and, as currently proposed, satisfies the definition of a builder's remedy project.

1:06:03Menlo Park: This would mean that the city would be required to approve the project as proposed without any environmental review.

1:06:10Menlo Park: The Attorney General has further reached out, reached conclusions regarding the city's application processing fees, though without any factual basis to support them.

1:06:20Menlo Park: The City Council respectfully disagrees with the Attorney General's analysis. It believes the Attorney General's conclusions are incorrectly reasoned and contrary to law.

1:06:30Menlo Park: Prior to and since receiving the Attorney General's notice, the City, with the assistance of legal counsel, has carefully and exhaustively analyzed all of the issues set forth in the Attorney General's letter.

1:06:42Menlo Park: The City has taken thorough good faith positions on each of the issues raised by the Attorney General. Further, each of the City's positions is amply supported by applicable law.

1:06:53Menlo Park: For that reason, the Council simply does not agree that state law requires approval of the AD Willow Road project under the terms set forth in the AG's letter.

1:07:03Menlo Park: The Council recognizes that the financial penalties the Attorney General and applicant have threatened could impose severe consequences on the city.

1:07:13Menlo Park: The City Council considers the threat of those penalties as deeply unfair and extremely punitive. Even so, the Council maintains that the Attorney General's position is inconsistent with the legislature's intent, and that the Attorney General is wielding the threat of those extraordinary penalties to coerce the city into action.

1:07:34Menlo Park: Action that the city, in utmost good faith, believes the law does not require.

1:07:43Menlo Park: The City Council is united in its position that the Attorney General has incorrectly directed the City to approve the 80 Willow Road project under the terms of AB 2011.

1:07:54Menlo Park: The AG issued its opinion without having the benefit of the City's extensive knowledge of the property and the history of the development application, and without once inquiring with the City about the background of the application.

1:08:07Menlo Park: The Council strongly opposes approval of the project under the terms in the AG's letter.

1:08:13Menlo Park: This massive commercial development would severely compound infrastructure challenges in Menlo Park, endanger emergency services response times, and exacerbate the existing jobs housing imbalance.

1:08:25Menlo Park: The project does not deliver the housing that Menlo Park needs.

1:08:29Menlo Park: Contrary to the very purpose of the Builder's Remedy Law.

1:08:33Menlo Park: In addition, questions have been raised of potential illegality, corruption, and national security around the property owner, as outlined in Representative Liccardo's September 23rd, 2026 letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Besant.

1:08:48Menlo Park: Finally, we need to be clear with residents that the City Council does not take this position lightly, but rather it does so because we feel Menlo Park is being ill-served by the state's inappropriate position on various laws.

1:09:02Menlo Park: The City Council believes it is important to get this right, even if there are financial consequences and service impacts for the city that may be triggered by our effort to vindicate our rights and protect the Menlo Park community. Thank you.

1:09:32Menlo Park: Next is our study session.

1:09:34Menlo Park: Study sessions are an opportunity for City staff to introduce an item that will require policy direction from the City Council in the near future. City staff will provide a presentation. I will then call for public comment. After public comment, the City Council will discuss the matter interactively with staff.

1:09:53Menlo Park: The City Council will not take an action on items addressed in study sessions. The City Council may provide direction to City staff for preparation of additional analysis or information necessary when the item returns to the City Council for action.

1:10:09Menlo Park: The study session item is G1, receive presentation and update on financial review of downtown development proposals for parking plazas 1, 2, and 3, and provide direction on next steps in the process, including Surplus Land Act exemption process and evaluation criteria.

1:10:27Menlo Park: Here to introduce the item is Principal Planner Tom Smith.

1:10:32Menlo Park: Good evening, Mayor Nash and members of the City Council. I'm Tom Smith, a principal planner in the Community Development Department.

1:10:40Menlo Park: And with me this evening are Jake Cummings and Dina Belzer of Strategic Economics, who performed the financial review for the downtown development proposals, and they will be sharing some information about their findings shortly.

1:10:57Menlo Park: As a refresher, the project we're discussing this evening is designed to meet local housing needs by providing housing close to downtown jobs, services, and transit, and was included in the housing element as Program H4G.

1:11:11Menlo Park: The key objectives of the project are to provide at least 345 affordable housing units as part of any development. To provide public parking to replace existing surface spaces.

1:11:21Menlo Park: To ensure compliance with the State Surplus Land Act, or SLA.

1:11:25Menlo Park: To help meet the city's regional housing needs allocation and the housing element, and to improve downtown vitality by providing an increased residential base and potential community benefits, like pocket parks and open spaces.

1:11:40Menlo Park: The map on the right of this slide shows the 8 downtown parking lots, and parking plazas 1, 2, and 3 at the top of the map were the sites selected by the city for potential development.

1:11:55Menlo Park: Major highlights from the implementation of Program H4G include the release of an RFP in September 2025,

1:12:02Menlo Park: Receipt of three RFP responses in December 2025 from Alliant Communities, Presidio Bay Ventures, and related companies in Alta Housing. A May 2026 open house attended by over 100 community members.

1:12:15Menlo Park: And most recently, a June City Council study session where the three developers gave presentations and participated in a question and answer session with the City Council.

1:12:25Menlo Park: At that meeting, the City Council also directed staff to seek an independent financial review of the proposals and strategies for city funding of parking facilities.

1:12:38Menlo Park: This evening, we are returning with a financial review of proposals and seeking direction from City Council on how to proceed with the disposition process.

1:12:46Menlo Park: Staff recommends the following format for the remainder of the meeting. A continuation of the staff presentation, followed by a presentation by Strategic Economics, with more details regarding the financial review findings.

1:12:58Menlo Park: Followed by public comment, and finally, City Council discussion and direction.

1:13:05Menlo Park: This table provides a summary of key aspects of the three proposals received from Alliant, Presidio Bay, and Related Alta.

1:13:12Menlo Park: I won't go through the table line by line, but generally, all three proposals are providing the minimum 345 affordable units requested, or more.

1:13:21Menlo Park: All three proposals have a mix of unit types, from studios to 3 bedrooms.

1:13:26Menlo Park: Each proposes to provide replacement public parking with the minimum requested 556 spaces or more.

1:13:33Menlo Park: Each includes additional residential parking ranging from 182 spaces to 258 spaces, and construction of all three proposals would be phased in different ways through 2031 or 2032, depending on the proposal.

1:13:46Menlo Park: Additional details will be covered in the strategic economics presentation, and there's also a more comprehensive comparison table as attachment C of the staff report.

1:14:00Menlo Park: Depending on City Council direction this evening.

1:14:02Menlo Park: The project schedule would result in a City Council meeting around late October to receive a comprehensive overview of the proposals and determine a preferred development team.

1:14:13Menlo Park: Following that determination, the City Council would need to adopt a resolution declaring the project sites as exempt surplus land for compliance with the State Surplus Lands Act.

1:14:22Menlo Park: And the city would have to provide notice to the State Department of Housing and Community Development, regarding that declaration.

1:14:28Menlo Park: 30 days later, the city could begin the process of exclusive negotiations with the selected developer, followed by general plan compliance, determination, and approval, ultimately, of a disposition and development agreement with the developer for the sites.

1:14:42Menlo Park: These final stages of the process would continue, likely into 2027.

1:14:53Menlo Park: The Surplus Land Act is a state law that regulates the sale or lease of public land.

1:14:58Menlo Park: It requires affordable housing prioritization before disposition for other purposes.

1:15:03Menlo Park: A determination of a declaration around surplus land is at the City Council's discretion.

1:15:10Menlo Park: And declaration of exempt surplus land covers land that could be used to provide affordable housing, and allows more flexibility to ensure that any potential development would meet the Housing Element Program H4G.

1:15:25Menlo Park: One exemption path with specific affordability percentages was contemplated throughout this process, and that path was previewed and approved by HCD in late 2025.

1:15:36Menlo Park: The specifics of that exemption path are described in more detail in the staff report regarding the percentage of units that would need to be provided affordable in order to meet that exemption.

1:15:49Menlo Park: Alliant and related Alta, their proposals appear to meet the exemption requirements that were contemplated and could move forward under the declaration approved by HCD for exempt surplus land.

1:16:02Menlo Park: Presidio Bay may fit under a separate exemption path, but that exemption path would require the city to prepare a new draft exemption declaration and share with HCD for approval prior to City Council action.

1:16:14Menlo Park: The HCD process for reviewing the draft declaration could take a minimum of 30 days or more, depending on whether there are revisions requested, additional discussions, clarifications that would be needed in order for HCD to approve it.

1:16:30Menlo Park: And.

1:16:32Menlo Park: To be clear, making a surplus land declaration at a future meeting would not obligate the city to enter into an agreement to develop any of the sites.

1:16:41Menlo Park: Staff is seeking City Council direction this evening on how to proceed with a Surplus Land Act declaration for a future meeting, whether that be moving forward with only the two proposals that meet the previously contemplated exemption declaration.

1:16:55Menlo Park: or preparing an additional draft exemption declaration that could potentially cover the Presidio Bay proposal.

1:17:07Menlo Park: We're also requesting that City Council provide feedback on some proposed comprehensive evaluation factors for a future meeting.

1:17:16Menlo Park: And the staff report describes these in more detail, but generally it would be

1:17:21Menlo Park: Do the proposals comply with program H4G as contemplated? How responsive are they to the RFP priorities?

1:17:30Menlo Park: Did they consider the additional RFP development objectives and incorporate those into their designs?

1:17:37Menlo Park: Also, factoring in community feedback and the survey results from the May open house.

1:17:42Menlo Park: Additional community and City Council feedback that was received, questions that came up throughout this process, and the results of the financial review, which will be shared with you shortly.

1:17:55Menlo Park: So just to recap, we're looking for direction from City Council on a Surplus Land Act exemption path.

1:18:02Menlo Park: And preparation of a comprehensive evaluation this evening.

1:18:07Menlo Park: And now I will turn it over to Jake and Dina of Strategic Economics to provide a presentation with more details on the financial review of the three proposals.

1:18:17Menlo Park: Thank you, Tom. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. I'm Dena Belzer, President of Strategic Economics, and I'm here with my associate, Jake Cummings, who's a senior associate at the firm.

1:18:29Menlo Park: Tonight, I'm gonna kick us off, and then Jake will be, giving the rest of the presentation. Can you… let's advance these slides.

1:18:39Menlo Park: Oh, there we go, sorry. So tonight, our agenda is fourfold. One, we want to remind you of the purpose of our analysis.

1:18:49Menlo Park: We'll give you a more detailed overview of the proposals than what Tom just gave you. We'll be discussing the financial review and comparative analysis across the three proposals, and then finally, we'll talk about some possible strategies to close the feasibility gap that we identified.

1:19:09Menlo Park: So again, just to remind you that the purpose of the study is to review each developer proposal. We assessed the financial feasibility and identified funding gaps. We identified potential sources of risk and uncertainty, so we'll be talking about that. We wanted to identify issues for consideration vis-a-vis the approach to replacement parking.

1:19:33Menlo Park: And other city goals for the development.

1:19:36Menlo Park: And finally, to identify these, potential approaches to closing the feasibility gap.

1:19:43Menlo Park: So,

1:19:44Menlo Park: I'm going to hand it over to Jake now, and then I'll be wrapping us up and getting ready for Q&A.

1:19:54Menlo Park: Thank you, Gina.

1:19:59Menlo Park: Mayor Nash, members of the City Council, I would like to start by, reviewing some of the details in each of the proposals. Tom, you know, introduced, some of these earlier, but I wanted to highlight some key points related to each of the proposals.

1:20:17Menlo Park: Let's start with the Alliant proposal. You know, it's proposing 345 units, you know, in, in agreement with the city's affordable housing goals, delivering the affordable housing

1:20:32Menlo Park: Excuse me, could I ask you to move a little bit closer to the mic?

1:20:37Menlo Park: Thank you. Can you hear me okay now? Much better, thank you.

1:20:40Menlo Park: Umm.

1:20:41Menlo Park: The Alliance proposal, includes 345 units, at the affordability levels that meet the city's goals.

1:20:50Menlo Park: I'm going to talk a little bit about the replacement parking for each of these proposals as they relate to the financial review. So the important thing to remember about this proposal is that

1:21:01Menlo Park: The replacement parking is delivered as part of the residential buildings.

1:21:06Menlo Park: The Presidio Bay proposal has a similar number of units, however, this one is approached a little bit differently as a workforce project with about 40% of the units, at 80% of area median income. That's the maximum low-income,

1:21:25Menlo Park: low-income range, and the remaining 60% at 100% of area median income. That's the middle-income units for the project.

1:21:36Menlo Park: The Presidio Bay proposal includes, most of the replacement parking in a dedicated garage, with the remainder in one of the residential buildings, on Plaza 1.

1:21:47Menlo Park: The related ALTA proposal.

1:21:52Menlo Park: is a proposal that envisions, more units than the previous two. So it's achieving the affordable housing goals for the… with the 343 or 345 units.

1:22:04Menlo Park: At the… at the 15% to 80% of AMI range, in agreement with the city goals. And it's… it's, this proposal also envisions an additional residential building, with market rate units, and a little bit, quite a bit higher than the

1:22:22Menlo Park: Presidio Bay proposal.

1:22:23Menlo Park: These market rate units would be priced at around 128 to 172% of AMI per the.

1:22:32Menlo Park: per the related Alta's financial statements.

1:22:36Menlo Park: Their proposal includes a dedicated parking garage like the Presidio Bay. In this proposal, the garage would house all of the replacement parking.

1:22:53Menlo Park: Okay, I'd like to,

1:22:55Menlo Park: introduce or summarize the approach that we took to the review. Basically, it consisted of three parts.

1:23:03Menlo Park: We reviewed the pro forma assumptions in each of the proposals. This would include the assumptions about the proposals development costs.

1:23:14Menlo Park: The revenues associated with the market rate and below market rate rents, as appropriate to each proposal, as well as in proposals that get… that received investment that needs to return conventional sources of investment, the required developer return.

1:23:34Menlo Park: Next, we looked at the financing structure of each proposal. These are the sources of financing for each proposal, including conventional sources of financing, as I mentioned, and the state affordable housing sources, the variety of sources in that category.

1:23:52Menlo Park: And as part of this analysis, we identified what the funding gap was for each of the proposals. Each of the three proposals do have a funding gap.

1:24:02Menlo Park: Because each proposal does have a funding gap, there are assumptions in each about the level of city support beyond, beyond the land, beyond the land contribution.

1:24:14Menlo Park: Finally, we zeroed in on the approach to replacement parking. The funding gap is closely related to the financing for replacement parking, as the, you know, the other funding sources are generally directed to the residential buildings.

1:24:30Menlo Park: So, this is the third part of the proposal focuses on this particular aspect of the project.

1:24:40Menlo Park: So, with these three parts, we've summarized with a comparative analysis that summarizes the strengths and risks of each proposal and some of the key issues for consideration.

1:24:57Menlo Park: Beginning with the pro forma assumptions.

1:25:02Menlo Park: Generally, I, you know, I just want to make the comment that each of the proposals, assumptions was within range of industry standard averages. We compared, their… the proposal assumptions.

1:25:15Menlo Park: against, independent data that we've collected, developer interviews that we've conducted with other developers in San Mateo County.

1:25:23Menlo Park: As well as the San Mateo County, rent and income limits for, you know, for the county that govern, how affordable units are priced.

1:25:33Menlo Park: So I'm just going to highlight some of the key observations from each of these proposals. In the Alliant proposal, they have, they have assumed that one of the buildings would pay prevailing wage that's associated with higher development costs, ordinarily associated with higher development costs.

1:25:52Menlo Park: So the cost levels that they're assuming with that proposal are within the range of recent affordable housing projects, comparable recent affordable housing projects in the county, especially considering that one is paying prevailing wage. Not all housing projects do pay prevailing wage.

1:26:10Menlo Park: The revenues are consistent, the below-market revenues are consistent with, San Mateo County's schedule, and the developer return does not apply to this one, because it's not a market rate project.

1:26:23Menlo Park: For the Presidio Bay proposal, we compared, costs against, market rate developers that are active in San Mateo County, and is within the range of those costs.

1:26:38Menlo Park: the rent, the rent levels are also… were also validated, and so one thing that I wanted to emphasize is that the middle-income rents in that proposal are within the range of market rate rents in Menlo Park.

1:26:51Menlo Park: So, you know, market rate rents are in that middle income 90 to 120% range, even for new construction building.

1:27:00Menlo Park: The developer return on this proposal is somewhat lower than we would expect to be a return threshold, and there could be a variety of reasons for this, including, you know, the developer… the development team may have

1:27:14Menlo Park: other sources of capital at its disposal that that is okay with a lower return.

1:27:21Menlo Park: Finally, the related ALTA proposal also, was within range. However, this was… this is the most expensive proposal to build, most expensive per unit.

1:27:32Menlo Park: to build, and a major, a major factor in that is that, all of the, all of the development associated with this proposal is expected to pay prevailing wage.

1:27:45Menlo Park: So again, that's, significantly higher cost than, an open shop developer, or an open shop contractor would, would cost.

1:27:54Menlo Park: So, considering that fact, the, the related ALTA proposal, is high, even a little conservative in comp… even considering that fact.

1:28:05Menlo Park: The market rate rents also checked out in this proposal and below market rate rents,

1:28:13Menlo Park: But we wanted to emphasize that these rents are relatively high in comparison to market rents in San Mateo County. They're not the highest in town, but they're priced relatively high at about 128 to 172% of AMI.

1:28:31Menlo Park: This proposal, is showing a higher than, what we would regard as an industry average return threshold. And that'll be important in, some discussion a little bit later.

1:28:48Menlo Park: As I said, next we looked at the financing structure, which is summarized here, in this slide.

1:28:55Menlo Park: In general, the financing consisted of a combination of conventional sources of equity and debt. These are sources of, that would be, gained from capital markets or from banks that loan at market rates. So that's the first category of funding, and all of the proposals include at least some of that type of funding.

1:29:18Menlo Park: The two proposals that include affordable units are also drawing upon the state affordable housing funds, the various sources that are the various programs that are available through the state, leaving a funding gap associated with each proposal. And we're defining the funding gap here as any amount assumed to be additional city support beyond

1:29:42Menlo Park: the land.

1:29:43Menlo Park: As well as any unidentified source.

1:29:51Menlo Park: The funding gap came to about 19 to 20 million… well, it was about 20 million for the Alliant, proposal, and about 19 million for the, the ALTA-related proposal. The Presidio Bay, which does not benefit from the affordable housing sources, has a funding gap of about… estimated to be about $95 million.

1:30:09Menlo Park: Excuse me, 45 million.

1:30:21Menlo Park: Finally, we looked at the cost of the replacement parking.

1:30:25Menlo Park: The Alliance plan, again, it's their plan to

1:30:30Menlo Park: Deliver the replacement parking through the residential building podiums.

1:30:34Menlo Park: is the least expensive mode according to our estimates.

1:30:39Menlo Park: At about 30 to 35 million costs. This is an estimate because, you know, we didn't have an itemized cost for that parking component.

1:30:48Menlo Park: given that the gap is about 20 million in their, in their funding plan.

1:30:54Menlo Park: That means about 10 to 15 million of that cost is, is coming from these state sources, specifically, the tax credit equity in this case.

1:31:06Menlo Park: In the Presidio Bay proposal, they have a gap of about $45 million, which is about the same cost as the cost to deliver parking.

1:31:17Menlo Park: Finally, in the related ALTA proposal, again, the most expensive.

1:31:25Menlo Park: delivery of the parking, which includes the parking garage, at $54 million. They are assuming about half of that is coming from state sources.

1:31:34Menlo Park: A portion of that, about $5 to $10 million, average to $7.5 million, is coming from additional value generated from the market rate building.

1:31:46Menlo Park: And that's leaving about a $19 million gap.

1:31:56Menlo Park: As I mentioned, the cost of the replacement parking in two of the proposals is assumed to come from the state affordable housing sources, but not the same source in each proposal. Alliant assumes that this, this, this amount

1:32:11Menlo Park: 10 to $15 million of this amount would come from tax credit equity or the LIHTC program.

1:32:17Menlo Park: They are also utili- they're also utilizing the, the what we call ASIC or the,

1:32:25Menlo Park: The Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities Program. This is cap and trade funds.

1:32:31Menlo Park: And

1:32:34Menlo Park: and the, the mixed income program, also run by the state, CalHFA. The related ALTA, the cost of the replacement parking from related ALTA, they're assuming half of this would be coming from the infill infrastructure grant program.

1:32:52Menlo Park: And the remaining of their affordable project is funded by LIHTC and, the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities program.

1:33:01Menlo Park: So the thing that we wanted to emphasize about these state sources is that they are in flux currently. And so, for example, the ASIC program, the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities is currently being restructured. It was cap and trade funds, it's now cap and invest.

1:33:21Menlo Park: The restructuring may impact how much affordable housing funding is available associated with that program.

1:33:32Menlo Park: The Infill Infrastructure Grant Program is currently exhausted of funds and, you know, may or may not be renewed. So, a lot of these sources are contingent upon the passage of Proposition 1 in November, which may or may not

1:33:46Menlo Park: replenish these various programs. But there will be more affordable housing funding if the proposition is passed.

1:34:05Menlo Park: Finally, I wanted to review with you, the.

1:34:09Menlo Park: The plans of each proposal had to fill the gap. In the Alliant proposal, the funding gap is assumed to be filled with two components, an impact fee loan and soft debt.

1:34:24Menlo Park: the impact fee loan

1:34:27Menlo Park: Could be, you know, it's open to negotiation, but it would involve some sort of deferral of the impact fee portion of city fees.

1:34:36Menlo Park: Over a period of time.

1:34:38Menlo Park: The soft debt is a type of debt that is, tends to be subsidized and is offered in favorable terms to such projects. It would not necessarily have to come to the city, come from the city, it could come from other… from another entity.

1:34:54Menlo Park: In the Presidio Bay proposal, they are envisioning that the city would waive all of the fees and offer a property tax waiver during the period of construction. They are also proposing to redirect a future community benefits contribution from the USGS project.

1:35:13Menlo Park: As well as an additional $10 million city contribution that is yet unidentified.

1:35:19Menlo Park: Finally, the related ALTA proposal does not provide details on the $19 million gap.

1:35:38Menlo Park: So, in summary, you know, based on the analysis that I've just gone through, we… you know, this… this slide I have up right now summarizes some of the key issues to consider in evaluating these three very different proposals.

1:35:52Menlo Park: We've summarized some of the strengths as well as the three key categories of risk that could be encountered for each of these proposals.

1:36:01Menlo Park: The risks include, development complexity, so, you know, higher intensity plans would have, would have a risk of

1:36:13Menlo Park: delay, or if they have, you know, additional contingencies, that could also lead to risks of delay or financial infeasibility. So, as you can see, the related ALTA proposal comes in highest on that… on that score, because that is the most intensified, highest density project of the three, most complex.

1:36:31Menlo Park: Market risk involves, the risk of essentially market rents supporting the feasibility of the project.

1:36:38Menlo Park: The Alliant, development is… or the Alliant proposal is, shielded from that risk because it's a purely affordable housing project.

1:36:47Menlo Park: The Presidio Bay, proposal, is exposed to some of that risk as a… including some middle-income units, but relatively less than the, related ALTA proposal, which would be the… would be… have the highest market risk exposure.

1:37:06Menlo Park: Due to their reliance on some fairly high rents associated with the market rate building.

1:37:11Menlo Park: Finally, we've classified financing risk.

1:37:15Menlo Park: Financing risk is the risk of either, not gaining the affordable housing funding sources that each of these projects, that two of these projects are applying to.

1:37:26Menlo Park: Or, failing to, failing to attract investment for the conventional debt and equity components of the project.

1:37:34Menlo Park: Of the two, the conventional debt and equity is, even though there is some risk associated with that, based on various economic factors, that's probably the lowest risk approach. Alliant is, you know, we've sort of rated medium because they are relying on the affordable sources, but not less so the conventional sources.

1:37:56Menlo Park: And the related ALTA, because they're kind of exposed to both sources of funding, have the highest.

1:38:02Menlo Park: are kind of contingent on both and therefore have the highest financing risk.

1:38:07Menlo Park: So, let me just briefly contrast the three proposals. The Alliant proposal, you know.

1:38:17Menlo Park: with… with that… with that approach to the development, the city would achieve its affordable housing goals, it would achieve prevailing wage on one of the three buildings, not the entire… not the entire project. And, it, you know, it has a… it has a lower funding gap and probably the most cost-effective plan to build the replacement parking.

1:38:39Menlo Park: The Presidio Bay approach is probably overall the lowest risk approach such that it is only assuming conventional sources of debt and equity as its financing source.

1:38:56Menlo Park: But it only meets some of the goals that the city has set out.

1:38:59Menlo Park: Finally, the related ALTA generally means

1:39:03Menlo Park: basically all of the goals that the city has set out, including its affordable housing goals, its prevailing wage goal, and, you know, another strength of the related ALTA proposal is that it has the highest potential to generate value from that market rate building.

1:39:20Menlo Park: Which, you know, offsets some of the risk that is experienced with that development.

1:39:27Menlo Park: And with that, I will pass it back to my colleague Dina, who will talk a little bit about various options to close the funding gap for each of these.

1:39:39Menlo Park: So, as you saw, the replacement parking requirement imposes quite a burden on the projects.

1:39:46Menlo Park: And this is very common. We see this all, all the time with transit agencies who have surface parking lots that they're trying to convert into a joint development project, so it's not a great surprise to us, and that's why we propose these additional strategies to potentially close the financing gap, and the first of which would be to reduce the replacement parking requirement.

1:40:09Menlo Park: requirement.

1:40:10Menlo Park: That's what…

1:40:12Menlo Park: That's what, that's what Bart ultimately ended up doing, and so that was a strategy. I want to also add that these strategies are not mutually exclusive, and they could be combined in a mix-and-match configuration. And some of these would require a considerable additional analysis to determine how effective they would be at closing the gap. So these are more…

1:40:37Menlo Park: Consider these as more conceptual, right? So then, you could use downtown parking demand management to reduce the demand for parking by, increasing multimodal access to downtown, mostly through biking and walking to downtown.

1:40:54Menlo Park: You could reduce your affordable housing goals and increase the rents so that the developers would be covering more of the cost.

1:41:04Menlo Park: the same way that the, related ALTA project is doing through the cross-subsidy by building the very, the higher-end market rate project.

1:41:14Menlo Park: You could establish some form of parking benefit district. This requires people to pay into this district. You would be basically floating a bond to pay for the parking garage, and then repaying the bond through charging for parking, in the garage itself. You could put in parking meters downtown, you could have property owners contribute.

1:41:38Menlo Park: also to the parking garage, and other cities have used this very effectively. Most notably Old Town Pasadena has a very active

1:41:51Menlo Park: parking district. You could form an enhanced infrastructure financing district, and in this case, the city contributes its share of the increased increment in property tax revenues that would come from the development. One of the questions here is whether or not there would be enough of an increment in property tax value to pay back

1:42:12Menlo Park: the cost of the parking garage. And, tax increment financing also takes a while to… to build up enough increment to then be able to start repaying

1:42:25Menlo Park: debt. So there might be a gap in there where you need the parking built, but you don't have a way to pay for it, and that's why, communities often pair some kind of a taxing district

1:42:37Menlo Park: like the parking district and, an enhanced infrastructure financing district. So these are not, necessarily mutually exclusive. And then finally, the city could consider passing a local sales tax measure.

1:42:51Menlo Park: And one of the advantages of that is if you have people coming into Menlo Park to shop, then they're helping to offset the cost no matter where they're shopping.

1:43:03Menlo Park: So, those… with that, we are gonna wrap up our presentation, and, I think turn it back to Tom.

1:43:12Menlo Park: Thanks, Dina. Thanks, Jake. And that concludes our presentations, and I'll turn it back to you, Mayor Nash.

1:43:21Menlo Park: Thank you very much. First of all, I'd like to find out if anyone on Council has any clarifying questions, and I really want to focus on clarifying questions at this point.

1:43:32Menlo Park: Councilmember Combs.

1:43:35Menlo Park: I think this is a clarifying question, but Mayor, you can get mad at me if it's not. Is the only bond we could float is one where it was, the cost was paid back through fees generated? Could we not just float a general… You could. You could, yeah, you would need to go to a vote for that, to do a general obligation bond, and then that would be a general increase in people's property taxes.

1:44:00Menlo Park: Yes.

1:44:08Menlo Park: Thank you.

1:44:11Menlo Park: City Clerk Karen, actually, before we go to, I'd like City Clerk Karen to, call for public comment. Before we go to public comment, I want to ask that everyone to please be respectful of all the speakers. We know that there will be people who, you agree with, and people who you do not agree with.

1:44:29Menlo Park: Please, let's try and, as a community, let's, listen to everyone, and.

1:44:37Menlo Park: Be respectful. Please try and refrain from

1:44:41Menlo Park: either positive or negative comments for the speakers. Let's get through the speakers and, allow the Council to start discussing. But we are very interested in hearing from all of you. Thank you.

1:44:54Menlo Park: City Clerk Karen, do we have any public comments on this item? Yes, thank you, Mayor Nash. So at this time, for any member of the public who wishes to provide comment on our study session item G1 on the review of the downtown development proposals, financials.

1:45:11Menlo Park: If you are in person and have not already, please return that speaker card. If you are virtual, engage that hand feature.

1:45:18Menlo Park: Calling in, please press star 9 now.

1:45:29Menlo Park: Okay, so it looks like we are at 29 speakers.

1:45:35Menlo Park: So this will be the final call for public comment on our study session item G1.

1:45:48Menlo Park: Alright, we are up to 30 speakers.

1:45:56Menlo Park: Thank you. We will do a minute and a half per speaker, and we will try to keep to a minute and a half, please. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Nash. So, our first speaker…

1:46:08Menlo Park: will be A.B. Schleeper, followed by Ben Parks.

1:46:28Menlo Park: Hello, sorry, I've never done this before.

1:46:30Menlo Park: Is this correct?

1:46:32Menlo Park: Okay, thank you. Members of the City Council, first I want to say that I support the plan to build affordable homes in downtown Menlo Park.

1:46:40Menlo Park: I think it will be a lovely place for people to live. I live near downtown, and I really enjoy being able to walk downtown for errands and book shopping.

1:46:49Menlo Park: I would like the City Council to carefully consider the target percent of AMI during your evaluation of the proposals.

1:46:56Menlo Park: According to recent reporting, some cities experience high vacancy rates for affordable housing because the rents are close to market rate. People choose to pay more for market rate housing to avoid the extensive paperwork and income verification process.

1:47:13Menlo Park: Please consider plans with lower target percent of AMI favorably. It would be a waste of an opportunity to build these homes and have many of them unoccupied. Thank you very much.

1:47:26Menlo Park: Thank you.

1:47:28Menlo Park: Next up is Ben Parks, followed by Will Osler.

1:47:32Menlo Park: And for a reminder for all of our folks that are in person, do get close to the mic so everyone in here as well as on Zoom can hear your comments.

1:47:39Menlo Park: Thank you. Good evening. The first place that I lived when I moved to Menlo Park about seven years ago was in 825 Menlo near downtown. I think it was a great place to live. I think it would be great for more people to get to live close to downtown.

1:47:53Menlo Park: The various amenities and shops there with easy transit through Caltrain. So I think any of these proposals would be great additions to our downtown.

1:48:02Menlo Park: I think what we could do as a city with waiving or delaying impact fees, however we can figure out to support housing being built quickly and effectively, and for as many new people as possible, would help make Menlo Park a thriving community.

1:48:17Menlo Park: I think.

1:48:19Menlo Park: potentially lowering our parking thresholds would be another good way of support. I personally have never had trouble parking in downtown.

1:48:28Menlo Park: Even on Sunday, when there's the farmers market and a whole lot is closed, and there's a lot of extra people there to see the farmers market. I don't think we want to become a city of empty parking spaces.

1:48:40Menlo Park: And so more housing rather than empty parking, I think, would be a good goal. Thank you.

1:48:47Menlo Park: Thank you.

1:48:49Menlo Park: Next up is Will Alsler, followed by Han Lee.

1:48:55Menlo Park: Good evening, City Council. I'm Will Osler, I serve on the Housing Commission, but I am speaking tonight as a private resident. I am heartened by the financial review of these proposals. I believe a combination of developer adjustments, city fee deferrals, and other financing mechanisms can make the math work on these sites.

1:49:11Menlo Park: Full parking replacement and downtown vibrancy have clearly been a priority for this Council in how you structured the RFP and how you've assessed the replies. These issues are also of clear public concern. I ask that parking replacement continue to be a requirement as the City moves forward.

1:49:25Menlo Park: When thinking about public infrastructure funding for this project, I would encourage the Council to take a broader look at how we mitigate the impacts of needed housing across the city.

1:49:33Menlo Park: Meeting our state-assigned housing allocation isn't optional.

1:49:36Menlo Park: In conversations with my neighbors, I've heard specific concerns about needed school improvements, water, sanitation, parking, traffic, and transit improvements that go well beyond downtown.

1:49:45Menlo Park: I would love to see planning that not only finances downtown improvements, but also supports broader infrastructure needed across the city as we welcome new neighbors.

1:49:53Menlo Park: Finally, H4G selected these sites because they are uniquely suited to enable the deeply affordable housing our RHNA requires, while furthering fair housing principles.

1:50:01Menlo Park: I believe that it is important that we seek a project that can meet those original goals.

1:50:05Menlo Park: And house working families, teachers, and seniors. There are many other sites in our city capable of supporting market rate development. I hope we do not squander the opportunity this site provides.

1:50:15Menlo Park: Thank you for your time and service. I look forward to seeing the results of your work.

1:50:20Menlo Park: Thank you.

1:50:21Menlo Park: Next is Kran Lee, followed by Jia Bam.

1:50:27Menlo Park: Hi, my name's Han Lee, and I'm a business owner in downtown Menlo Park on Parking Lot 2. I've been in business since 1999, and I have a staff of 25 people who rely on our business to survive.

1:50:38Menlo Park: And speaking for the hundreds of people who will be out of a job, the faces who don't know how to speak their fears, people are already frustrated with traffic and parking here. I've already lost clients because of the traffic. We've survived COVID in 2020, but we won't survive this. There's a reason why the businesses are standing together to fight this, because it will devastate all of us. And we've been a part of this Menlo Park community, and I've been a part of it for 30 years.

1:51:02Menlo Park: Hundreds of us commute to Menlo Park, and it would be a dream to live here, it really would, but the reality is that we still won't be able to afford these houses. We're not fighting to live here, we're fighting to work here and continue to be a part of this community.

1:51:17Menlo Park: I had some questions to the developers, and I'm not kidding you, I asked one of the developers if, you know, how… if they don't have enough parking for their tenants, how are they gonna have parking for the people? And they said, oh, in the future, nobody will be driving, everyone will be using robo-taxis.

1:51:35Menlo Park: are you guys ready to give up your cars? Another question I had for them was, I'm right in the parking lot, too. How are they gonna prevent the noise from affecting my business?

1:51:44Menlo Park: And they said, oh, we can put our fences higher. And I said, oh, that's not gonna keep the noise out. And they said, oh, we don't have… and I said, where's the infrastructure for all the trucks and all the equipment? And they said, we don't have to build all the stuff on site. And I'm like, you're gonna have buildings come over? I don't think that's…

1:52:02Menlo Park: That doesn't give me much confidence in the plans that they have.

1:52:05Menlo Park: Thank you.

1:52:06Menlo Park: Thank you.

1:52:08Menlo Park: Next up is Gia Pham, followed by Mary Seaton.

1:52:15Menlo Park: Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. Thank you for hosting this study session. My name is Jia, and I'm the Senior Communications Coordinator at Housing Choices, where I work directly with folks in this community.

1:52:27Menlo Park: Last Friday, I spoke to a woman who lives on, Coleman Avenue. She is raising two kids, one is a girl, and, one is her son, who's neurodivergent. She told me that…

1:52:39Menlo Park: Quote, since I've been living here in the Bay for my whole life, I see lots of families, like, struggling, like, a lot of them. So that really… it really breaks my heart. It really does.

1:52:52Menlo Park: So, housing should be the number one priority here, especially for those with disabilities. I'm asking you to keep people with developmental disabilities and their families as part of this conversation. Menlo Park has an estimated 112 adults with developmental disabilities, like autism.

1:53:08Menlo Park: Only about 15, live independently outside their family home. That means many are still relying on aging caregivers and parents.

1:53:17Menlo Park: For these families, the question is not just, can my loved one afford housing? It's, where will they live? Will they become homeless?

1:53:27Menlo Park: Will they lose their support system that they built going through the Menlo Park school system here?

1:53:33Menlo Park: Without housing options in this community, people can be displaced. I support developing housing on the downtown parking plaza, because city-owned land is a rare opportunity to create many homes. The city should build housing before they are enforced by punitive actions. Families should be able to plan for independence and stability. Thank you.

1:53:55Menlo Park: Thank you.

1:53:56Menlo Park: Next up, Mary Seaton, followed by Shirley Chu.

1:54:06Menlo Park: Good evening.

1:54:08Menlo Park: The city and the council began with a simple financial premise. It owned the land. Land valued about $50 million, and it would lease that land to a developer for about 9 cents a month.

1:54:23Menlo Park: The developer would build the housing and replace the 556 public parking spaces. The city had no intention of offering anything else. The city has no money.

1:54:35Menlo Park: The estimates came in from Strategic Economics. I'm not going to go over them, but there are far less

1:54:42Menlo Park: The gap is far more than they are proposing. The realistic cost for parking garage is between $83 and $150 million to replace the parking.

1:54:58Menlo Park: Much larger gap than strategic economics figured.

1:55:02Menlo Park: Then, they talked about the report about closing the gap, and we already know the ways that they said extracting money from the public, from raising property taxes, assess the businesses, the properties, but what I really want to talk about is the real cost of

1:55:21Menlo Park: There's possible subsurface contamination, 500 to 2.5 million. The cost of litigation.

1:55:29Menlo Park: And if they declare it surplus land, in the HCD handbook, DD, Section 104, it says that before declaring the land surplus, you must consider its agency use.

1:55:43Menlo Park: And you must have a legally supported finding to charge that agency use, and change it. They not only need to meet the requirement, but they also need to change… Thank you. …what the current use is. Well, I… it's… this is… this is important stuff. Please write us.

1:56:02Menlo Park: Thank you, although I know you do. Thank you.

1:56:05Menlo Park: And with the audience, I request that you can wave your hands or do something that, rather than clap, please.

1:56:13Menlo Park: Shirley Chu. Mayor Nash's open letter to, has invited, Attorney General Bonta to visit the proposed 80 Willow Road project site. The intention was to let him see the negative impact on Menlo Park residents and the wildlife, will be facing.

1:56:30Menlo Park: Sacramento has made mistakes on policies such as builder's remedy.

1:56:35Menlo Park: And I'm glad to see you all on board today and pushing back such absurd policies instead of like a pinning on Drew Combs.

1:56:47Menlo Park: on that problem. We can do the same thing here today. Let's invite the state-level elected officials, like Mark Berman and Sam Liccardo, whose names are prominently displayed on P flyers, which landed on my front door.

1:57:03Menlo Park: Unlike a metropolitan city, Del Palo Alto and San Jose, where these gentlemen live.

1:57:09Menlo Park: Our downtown is unique in terms of population and geographic, geographical limitations. Let they come to see the urban housing design challenges we're facing.

1:57:21Menlo Park: Parking lot 1 and 3 already has enclosed on all sides of the streets, have no street frontage.

1:57:30Menlo Park: Parking, Lot 2, is, has a street frontage, but also is the smallest, so it has a design challenge, too. If our council, City Council, push through such a reckless, proposal, you are

1:57:46Menlo Park: putting people's life and safety in jeopardy. So, and there will be no return.

1:57:52Menlo Park: Thank you.

1:57:54Menlo Park: Thank you. Next up is Ivy Hamilton, followed by Michael DeMoss.

1:58:04Menlo Park: Hi. Hi, good evening. This is my first time.

1:58:07Menlo Park: I.

1:58:09Menlo Park: heard this proposal, it would permanently damage the society and damage the downtown Menlo Park. I have a background in architecture design and urban planning. I also have a background in finance and economics.

1:58:25Menlo Park: I have done many financial proposals and feasibility research. It's a surprise I heard there is no any.

1:58:35Menlo Park: like, risk analysis about long-term impact on the society, impact on environment, and impact on, like, we talk about the environment, we talk about caring about the Earth.

1:58:49Menlo Park: Caring about the children, caring about the generation, generation. And there is no proposal talk about the risk, about the long-term impact on economy.

1:59:01Menlo Park: You know, generation and generation. The architecture infrastructures are permanent. You are not, you know.

1:59:10Menlo Park: Just want to tear it down.

1:59:12Menlo Park: Within one minute, no, you have to think carefully. So those proposals are totally built on fantasy.

1:59:20Menlo Park: So please care about our environment. Everyone needs affordable housing. Everyone. I need everyone need. But that limited units will not resolve everyone's problem. You know, this is a big society issue. We need to think in the long run. So that's my point of view. Thank you, everyone.

1:59:43Menlo Park: Next up is Michael Demoss, followed by Kevin Krannen.

1:59:56Menlo Park: Good evening, Council members.

1:59:58Menlo Park: And citizens.

2:00:01Menlo Park: I don't gain or lose no matter what's decided.

2:00:05Menlo Park: I think I'm unbiased.

2:00:09Menlo Park: Since January 2025, I've asked for written.

2:00:13Menlo Park: Answers to my questions about the problems with this plan.

2:00:17Menlo Park: I've received no such answers.

2:00:21Menlo Park: For example, Why did the city

2:00:24Menlo Park: Staff report on January… July 14th, 2026.

2:00:30Menlo Park: Indicate that Menlo Park has far exceeded

2:00:35Menlo Park: Far exceeded the state's housing mandate in all categories, and the Plaza Apartments

2:00:41Menlo Park: Are not needed to satisfy the mandate.

2:00:45Menlo Park: And yet.

2:00:47Menlo Park: If not needed, why are you going forward?

2:00:50Menlo Park: This is the… Report.

2:00:53Menlo Park: I'll leave it with the city.

2:00:57Menlo Park: So, in my 50 years as a commercial real estate attorney, How many?

2:01:02Menlo Park: Bench judged for 10 years.

2:01:05Menlo Park: I found in such cases where We have unchecked unreasonable misconduct.

2:01:13Menlo Park: You have to rely on a higher authority. What's the higher authority?

2:01:18Menlo Park: It's the voters.

2:01:20Menlo Park: In this case, the higher authority is a vote for yes.

2:01:26Menlo Park: In a few weeks, you're gonna send in the bell.

2:01:29Menlo Park: You need to vote yes.

2:01:31Menlo Park: There are… there are many, many indications There's law… Law.

2:01:39Menlo Park: That sets a precedent for requiring voters, To vote.

2:01:44Menlo Park: On a change to the city.

2:01:46Menlo Park: Thank you.

2:01:48Menlo Park: In addition… Thank you, Mr. Dumas. If you don't provide parking.

2:01:53Menlo Park: Foreclosure.

2:01:54Menlo Park: Mr. Demas, thank you very much. That's right. Thank you.

2:02:00Menlo Park: Next speaker is Kevin Kranen, followed by Richard Drager. Hi, hi, my name is Kevin Kranen, and I'm a 30-year

2:02:09Menlo Park: Resident of Menlo Park and I have 2 kids.

2:02:12Menlo Park: Both 20-somethings who want to live here someday, so all of… everything I'm going to talk about is motivated by that. I'm also on the Housing Commission, but these are personal thoughts tonight.

2:02:21Menlo Park: And Mike, first off, I just wanted to say something. I've looked at your accounting, and that means that accounting that you're using says a vote for downtown, or vote against… a vote for P is a vote for AD Willow.

2:02:34Menlo Park: Because your accounting requires that.

2:02:36Menlo Park: all that housing in 80 Willow to make the numbers you're talking about. So it's crazy.

2:02:41Menlo Park: I really am proud of this community because there are a profusion of no on the Mega Towers in green and no on P in yellow throughout all the neighborhoods around here. And that tells me one thing.

2:02:55Menlo Park: We really have an intelligent community that understands our big problems. Our biggest problem is housing. We have 4 jobs for every housing unit.

2:03:07Menlo Park: And… People, number one, who have those signs up, understand that housing is a problem.

2:03:13Menlo Park: Number two, they also understand that there's a difference between good housing, 100% residential, affordable housing in the right places, and a huge mega tower with 2,000 jobs and only a few hundred housing units in the wrong place.

2:03:31Menlo Park: I just want to say thank you. I'm glad that we have a housing, or a city council that looks at the big problem and looks at it from an intelligent perspective. Thank you.

2:03:45Menlo Park: Thank you. Next up is Richard Drager, followed by Alex Beltramo.

2:04:00Menlo Park: Hi, my name's Richard Drager with Drager Supermarkets.

2:04:03Menlo Park: And I'm a strong supporter of yes on Measure P.

2:04:08Menlo Park: I… The builder's remedy The builder's remedy issue is a scare tactic.

2:04:17Menlo Park: This is a decision of the City Council to simply amend its housing element.

2:04:24Menlo Park: Drew Combs asked our city attorney how difficult this was.

2:04:29Menlo Park: It's not difficult. It's a negotiation. It's been done by the City of San Mateo.

2:04:36Menlo Park: We have got exactly the same issue as San Mateo had at Bridgeport.

2:04:42Menlo Park: Where the business owners were insistent that the parking was critical to their businesses.

2:04:50Menlo Park: We've got an ideology.

2:04:53Menlo Park: That, in fact, is very dangerous here.

2:04:56Menlo Park: Everyone shares a goal of supporting teachers, firefighters, and caregivers. Calling attention to their needs doesn't make a flawed housing strategy right.

2:05:08Menlo Park: We've got 1,750 Proposed housing units. 30% more than what's necessary.

2:05:16Menlo Park: The city needs to amend its plan.

2:05:20Menlo Park: It needs to focus on these housing units that are already in the pipeline.

2:05:26Menlo Park: We don't have to have a win-lose where businesses fail due to 5 years of construction.

2:05:33Menlo Park: And lose their employees as a result, and all those jobs.

2:05:38Menlo Park: Thank you.

2:05:40Menlo Park: Thank you.

2:05:41Menlo Park: Next up is Alex Beltramo.

2:05:44Menlo Park: Followed by Rob Foster.

2:05:48Menlo Park: Good evening, I'm Alex Beltramo, I live in Menlo Park, District 3. I'm on the Yes on P campaign committee. Tonight, you're going to be diving into the details of the financial analysis, but first, I ask you to look at the big picture.

2:06:00Menlo Park: When the current housing element was approved, the plan to use the parking plazas was based on six expectations, and all of them have proven wrong.

2:06:11Menlo Park: The city presumed that the plan would have community support, yet it resulted in a citizen's initiative. Two, the city argued that it would strengthen downtown vitality, yet most businesses consider the plan to be an existential threat.

2:06:23Menlo Park: 3, the city assumed that we gave… that if we gave our plazas to developers for a dollar a year, the developers could replace the 556 parking spaces on their own dime. They cannot. 4, the city assumed that if we gave the plazas to developers for a dollar a year, the developers would provide 345 units of very low-income housing, but they are not.

2:06:43Menlo Park: 5. The city added no sites in District one, because so much was already in the pipeline. However, nearly all of that was from the Willow Village project, which is now on indefinite pause.

2:06:54Menlo Park: 6. The city argued that the housing should be that more housing should be built.

2:06:58Menlo Park: in the parking plazas because more housing is needed near downtown and near transit. However, at that time, the city was proposing… was expecting 490 homes to be on the SRI and USGS sites, but now we have developers proposing 1,750 homes there. That's 1,260 more homes near transit, near downtown.

2:07:17Menlo Park: that then were originally accounted for. The point here is that things change, and that that is why cities are encouraged to amend their housing elements as needed. I ask that you direct staff to explore amending the housing element to reflect the realities of our current situation, not the outdated assumptions that were made years ago. Thank you.

2:07:36Menlo Park: Thank you.

2:07:37Menlo Park: Next up is Rob Foster, followed by Jennifer Kuperes.

2:07:44Menlo Park: Good evening. First, I'd like to thank

2:07:47Menlo Park: All the speakers and the presenters, and the passion.

2:07:51Menlo Park: that people put into their points of view. They are deep… even though they don't all agree.

2:07:56Menlo Park: They are… are all important.

2:07:58Menlo Park: I'm here to talk about affordable housing in Menlo Park, and for a housing program that's financially feasible for the city, and there's a benefit to all of Menlo Park, both its current and future residents. I also want to remind Menlo Park, both the Council

2:08:14Menlo Park: and the voters. There's a lot that we agree to.

2:08:18Menlo Park: We agree that Menlo Parks needs affordable housing.

2:08:22Menlo Park: We agree that everyone in Menlo Park benefits from a thriving and vibrant downtown.

2:08:28Menlo Park: Menlo Park faces financial, short-term and long-term challenges.

2:08:35Menlo Park: A year ago, or a year and a half ago, when Menlo Park voters raised concerns about a project to use the downtown parking lots, City Council

2:08:43Menlo Park: You.

2:08:45Menlo Park: said, let's listen to the market. Let's see what the developers propose. So we did that. Six developers responded to the request for qualification. In fact, some of them raised concerns that public funding could not be used for public parking. You said, let's listen to the market. Let's see how the developers respond to the RFP.

2:09:04Menlo Park: So we did that. Only 3 developers responded, all need money from the city, and only 2

2:09:10Menlo Park: provide affordable housing in the 15% to 80% AMI. You said, let's wait for the analysis from the city staff.

2:09:17Menlo Park: So we did that!

2:09:19Menlo Park: The staff's number one suggestion to overcome the financial gaps is to eliminate replacement parking requirement.

2:09:25Menlo Park: I say it's time to listen to the voters.

2:09:28Menlo Park: Thank you.

2:09:29Menlo Park: Thank you.

2:09:31Menlo Park: Next up, Jennifer Kuparis, followed by Sherry Zaslowski.

2:09:35Menlo Park: Hi there.

2:09:36Menlo Park: So, my name is Jennifer Caparis, I am a co-owner of some property downtown.

2:09:42Menlo Park: My late mom…

2:09:44Menlo Park: Nancy Kuperis co-founded the Menlo Park Farmers Market and volunteered with it from its inception up until the pandemic. My dad, Yetzel Kuperis, volunteered with the farmers market for many years as well. Everybody in our family is an environmentalist, and all five of our tenants are small, independent businesses.

2:10:04Menlo Park: Our family strongly opposes development of the parking plazas, as losing several hundred spaces permanently or for several years will likely crush many small, independent businesses.

2:10:16Menlo Park: Atherton, Portola Valley, and Woodside lack downtown areas and lack public transportation. Residents of those towns must be able to park their cars conveniently in order for our downtown businesses to survive.

2:10:30Menlo Park: Otherwise, many would-be customers will simply order more items from Amazon and drive farther for their services, as not everybody is physically capable or has the time to cycle from town to town.

2:10:44Menlo Park: We can preserve our downtown businesses while also building high-density housing in other locations. And in fact, as we've heard several times tonight, there is quite a bit of high-density housing already being planned for. So I'm hoping that residents of Menlo Park will vote yes on P. Thank you.

2:11:05Menlo Park: Thank you.

2:11:06Menlo Park: Next up is Sherry Zazlowski, followed by Henry Riggs.

2:11:16Menlo Park: Good evening, Council Members, Mayor Nash.

2:11:19Menlo Park: So we've reached a moment of truth.

2:11:22Menlo Park: We went from the RFPs to the RFQs, and here we stand at the RWRs.

2:11:30Menlo Park: The remedies wrecking the residence.

2:11:34Menlo Park: By any conceivable metric, this project is a fail. And the death blow came tonight from strategic economics, proof that it is not fiscally feasible.

2:11:48Menlo Park: They recommend giving our residents and our business owners a strategic middle finger.

2:11:58Menlo Park: we are done with this fantasy, this magical thinking that we can make something work, that absolutely everything mitigates against it. And you have many, many other options. I would really… let me show you just one thing in case you're thinking about

2:12:17Menlo Park: what the strategic economics is suggesting, and I'll show everyone. Parking meters losing money.

2:12:26Menlo Park: So you're not going to go with that one. And, in closing, I just want to really thank you for taking this long to come to this particular discussion, because you've just handed the Yes on Measure P campaign a victory. Thank you.

2:12:44Menlo Park: Thank you.

2:12:46Menlo Park: Next up is Henry Riggs, followed by Sasha Krishesh.

2:12:59Menlo Park: Madam Mayor and Council members.

2:13:01Menlo Park: I'm Henry Riggs. I'm former multi-housing architect, former planning commission chair. I also once recommended in a guest opinion downtown housing on the parking lots. That was several years ago.

2:13:15Menlo Park: There have been changes.

2:13:17Menlo Park: There are economically better sites to build on.

2:13:24Menlo Park: We've heard that there is a funding gap. That's an interesting way to phrase a project that doesn't work.

2:13:31Menlo Park: When I was at UC Irvine, when we received bids that didn't meet the program, we simply discarded them.

2:13:38Menlo Park: If you can't meet the program, you haven't met the program.

2:13:43Menlo Park: This is way off.

2:13:44Menlo Park: The idea that… soft funds.

2:13:49Menlo Park: are somehow available to make up for the lack of money. Those are still money that either was going to support city services or not.

2:13:57Menlo Park: State sources are in… Flux, this is mystery money, this is rainbow money.

2:14:06Menlo Park: I have to ask, The idea that the best, housing response.

2:14:12Menlo Park: from Related Alta will provide one half a parking space per unit.

2:14:18Menlo Park: But I know, as an architect doing work in Belhaven, Menlo Park, Redwood City, that people on a limited income or new to the area

2:14:29Menlo Park: all have cars. They have cars because they work construction. They work house cleaning.

2:14:34Menlo Park: I will finish by saying there are less disruptive sites.

2:14:39Menlo Park: There are sites that are better for using state funding sources. We can do better. Thank you.

2:14:46Menlo Park: Thank you.

2:14:47Menlo Park: Next up is Sasha, followed by Deb Holtzman.

2:14:52Menlo Park: My name is Sasha Hristich, I live in downtown Menlo Park, and downtown parking lots are practically my backyard.

2:14:59Menlo Park: I'm so excited about the city project to build affordable housing on 3 of our parking lots.

2:15:05Menlo Park: I… last weekend, I visited Burlingame, and I was amazed at how its downtown transformed with a huge variety of cafes, restaurants, and cute shops to, you know, be around and have fun, and I'm so much looking forward to see a similar transformation taking place in our downtown.

2:15:23Menlo Park: I would like to thank the City Council and the staff members for their comprehensive analysis of the feasibility of the three proposals for our downtown housing.

2:15:33Menlo Park: I'm relieved to see that the staff identified several ways to shrink the feasibility gap, and especially the strategies that also improve walkability and bike access to our downtown. I trust your expert judgment in picking the best, proposal and the best way to pay for the replacement parking.

2:15:51Menlo Park: And I really cannot wait for our new revitalized downtown. Thank you again for your commitment to improving our city and staying on track with our housing goals.

2:16:00Menlo Park: Thank you.

2:16:03Menlo Park: Next up is Deb Holtzman, followed by Karen Grove.

2:16:10Menlo Park: Hi, my name is Deb Holtzman, I'm a resident of Sharon Heights. I will be voting no on P, and encourage others to do the same.

2:16:18Menlo Park: I have reviewed the three developer proposals, and I strongly urge the Council to remove from consideration the proposal from Presidio Bay, as it does not include any units for AMI levels lower than 80%.

2:16:32Menlo Park: According to the July 2026 staff report, the City is on track to meet its Rhino targets in the 80% AMI category with existing projects, even without 80 Willow in the mix, so no further units at this level are needed. In contrast, we still have a long way to go to reach our very low-income Rhino target numbers in both the Alliant

2:16:51Menlo Park: And related Alta proposals would help get us there.

2:16:54Menlo Park: That said, I do like that the one firm related Alta offers a wide mix of affordability levels, from 30% AMI up through market rate, which would allow residents to continue living there if their household income level rises.

2:17:07Menlo Park: I also like that this proposal includes a larger number of units overall.

2:17:11Menlo Park: I know that the 9-story building in this proposal might be a concern to some, but I'd like to point out that just one block away from Lot 3, at the corner of University and Valparaiso, there is already an 8-story building, with address 1330 University, that no one ever seems to notice.

2:17:27Menlo Park: Thank you for your continued work on supporting affordable housing downtown.

2:17:33Menlo Park: Thank you. Next up is Karen Grove, followed by John Boyle.

2:17:45Menlo Park: Good evening.

2:17:47Menlo Park: I'm going to be brief. I really appreciate that you're moving forward with this project.

2:17:52Menlo Park: I also trust you to pick the developer and the funding plan that will work best for us. I just want to say that Menlo Park is worth us investing in.

2:18:02Menlo Park: that we need city infrastructure.

2:18:04Menlo Park: And we should invest in it. Downtown needs people, and people need homes. I do look forward, like Sasha does, to a downtown that is more vibrant and lively and has people at all hours of the morning and the evening. And it…

2:18:20Menlo Park: will heal my heart to know that we are providing homes for all the members of our community. It is really painful when I hear about people who are driving 2 hours.

2:18:31Menlo Park: to do things for us who live here, and then driving 2 hours to get home.

2:18:37Menlo Park: And I can't do anything about it. But you can, so please do. Thank you.

2:18:43Menlo Park: Thank you for your comment.

2:18:47Menlo Park: Next up, John Boyle, followed by Jenny Michel.

2:18:55Menlo Park: Honorable Mayor and City Council members and staff, I want to give my sincere thanks for all your efforts ongoing, tonight, and all the meetings. I'm speaking to you tonight, representing just myself.

2:19:08Menlo Park: I have been, and continue to be, on multiple corporate boards, nonprofit boards, community organizations, even a few elected roles. And like you, when you're in that position, you have a responsibility before you start a project to really weigh all the

2:19:23Menlo Park: financial and legal obligations, and so I want to speak to that a little bit tonight, because it is a study session on that economic

2:19:30Menlo Park: feasibility and issues. The number one rule that certainly I've learned over the years, never start a project unless you're highly confident that you're going to have enough finances to be able to complete it. And I'd respectfully ask you tonight to consider what happens if these developers

2:19:46Menlo Park: fail if they get partway in, and they run out of money, or they realize they're not getting the grant they wanted, or things are costing more than they expected. What position does that leave the city in, economically and with respect to our housing mandates?

2:19:59Menlo Park: And I believe there are several issues. Never take at face value, with all due respect, a study by a consultant up front as gospel. And I'm sure you don't, I'm not disparaging it in any way, but there are always issues and risks.

2:20:15Menlo Park: For example, first off, as you've heard before, the structured parking is typically much more expensive than is being contemplated tonight. I've spoken with a number of construction experts.

2:20:27Menlo Park: And they say 75 K is low end. Boy, I've run out of time. But trust me, these projects always end up costing considerably more than you expect at this point in time. The developers will be struggling. And where will that leave the city council?

2:20:41Menlo Park: Thank you.

2:20:43Menlo Park: Thank you.

2:20:44Menlo Park: Next up, Jenny Michel, followed by Michael Barclay.

2:20:49Menlo Park: Dear Mayor, Councilmembers, honorable staff, I'm Jenny Michel, native and resident of D3, recovering homeless teacher who supports deeply affordable housing downtown at the Transit Center.

2:20:59Menlo Park: Personal comments on G1. Our son could not join me tonight, but he says he does not want to be homeless like I was as a young person. Our children are counting on us to move forward with H4G program as contracted with this state.

2:21:12Menlo Park: I agree we should not burden the developer or investor with modern, well-managed parking program. We should shoulder the burden. If we can buy a $100 chicken dinner and a $1,600 bottle of wine, paying for parking is a welcomed opportunity. Hashtag parking is never free.

2:21:31Menlo Park: Have you read 15 Minute City by Carlos Moreno? Amazing.

2:21:37Menlo Park: It opens on Audible with a sustainable future via 15-minute city. Lifestyle changes will not be easy, as it is imperative we are to meet the challenges of climate change and ensure a sustainable future for our cities.

2:21:52Menlo Park: This requires collective awareness, ambitious policies, environmental education, and individual efforts

2:21:59Menlo Park: To adopt a more environmentally friendly behavior.

2:22:02Menlo Park: Proximity plays an important part in that lifestyle change and city's transformation. The approach is to bring living, working, education, leisure, services, and nature close together, thereby reducing dependence on motorized transportation. We have an urgent need, and arguably a mandatory need, to solve the housing employment crisis today. Thank you for your consideration.

2:22:26Menlo Park: Thank you.

2:22:28Menlo Park: Next up is Michael Barclay, followed by Sue Kayton.

2:22:34Michael Barclay: Hi, I'm Michael Barclay. I've been a resident of Menlo Park District 5 since 1993. I want to just make some additional comments following up the email I sent the Council earlier today. This is at least the second time this year that the City Council is being asked to

2:22:52Michael Barclay: Go ahead with a project that everyone would like to see happen, if you could wave a magic wand.

2:22:59Michael Barclay: but which is economically unfeasible. Earlier this year, you approved going ahead with the design of the Middle Avenue bike tunnel, even though there is a $40 million funding gap for that one that can never possibly be met, and you approved spending a million dollars to go ahead with that.

2:23:18Michael Barclay: This housing on the lots 1, 2, and 3, if you could wave a magic wand and have them happen all of a sudden, that would be great. But the fact is, if you just look at the numbers, the funding gaps for each of the three proposals is in the rough order of magnitude of the amount of the replacement parking costs.

2:23:38Michael Barclay: If the developers are unwilling to pay it, the city should not have to figure out a way to come up with the funds, nor should the city have to give up all of the replacement parking in order to make any of this housing work.

2:23:51Michael Barclay: Please consider this going forward, and in terms of how you approach what to do next. Thank you.

2:24:00Menlo Park: Thank you.

2:24:02Menlo Park: Next up is Sue Kayton, followed by Paul Chua.

2:24:09Sue Kayton: Hello, City Council. My name is Sue Kate, and I've been living in Menlo Park for more than 30 years.

2:24:15Sue Kayton: This is not a practical proposal to get rid of all the parking, or most of the parking. Many of the people who shop at downtown, such as myself, we can't bike. We're carrying too many groceries or too many things from the hardware store. Just today, for instance, I bought some stuff at Menlo Park Hardware. I parked right in the back, walked in, got my stuff, walked out. If I couldn't have parked in the back, I would have gone to Palo Alto Hardware and

2:24:40Sue Kayton: given them my business. Our downtown businesses cannot survive the lack of parking. If it's not convenient, we're gonna go someplace else.

2:24:48Sue Kayton: Some people, they're too old to bike, they have 2 or 3 kids that they're carrying around with them if it's raining. Biking is not practical.

2:24:56Sue Kayton: You talk about multimodal bike access, multimodal access. Are you gonna give free Uber rides to everybody so they can go shopping and go parking? Please do not kill downtown. Our businesses are having enough trouble. We have enough empty buildings downtown. Please do not get rid of our parking. Thank you.

2:25:16Menlo Park: Thank you for your comment.

2:25:19Menlo Park: Next up is…

2:25:23Menlo Park: Paul, it looks like you might have lowered your hand, Paul Chua. So if you do want to make a comment, please do re-raise that hand, and we will go next to John McKenna.

2:25:39John McKenna: Hello, can you hear me?

2:25:43Menlo Park: Yes, go right ahead.

2:25:44John McKenna: Okay, well, thank you. My name is John McKenna. I serve on the City's Environmental Quality Commission, but I'm speaking as an individual. I'm here to express continued support for housing in downtown parking lots. Affordable housing with the requisite replacement parking is a much higher and better use than a surface parking lot.

2:26:03John McKenna: Inclusive housing brings more people and more customers, which I believe is good for business.

2:26:10John McKenna: A diverse population creates opportunity for more diverse businesses.

2:26:15John McKenna: While there are certainly some trade-offs, ultimately, I believe this housing will result in a more vibrant and prosperous downtown.

2:26:22John McKenna: I trust the city.

2:26:24John McKenna: with input from the community, which I'm confident you are hearing and incorporating into your decisions.

2:26:30John McKenna: I'm confident the city will select the best proposal and modify it as needed.

2:26:34John McKenna: Thank you.

2:26:36John McKenna: For continuing to move this forward despite a vocal and what I hope and believe is a minority opposition that is resisting change and is trying to teach others to fear it.

2:26:47John McKenna: By the way, it was 14 degrees above the daily average today. Our planet is feeling more and more like an oven.

2:26:55John McKenna: Dense, affordable, all-electric housing near mass transit and amenities is one of the most impactful climate actions that the city can enable. Thank you.

2:27:07Menlo Park: Thank you for your comment.

2:27:10Menlo Park: Next up is Katherine Dumont, followed by Robin Severns.

2:27:27Menlo Park: Katherine, you should be able to engage your microphone at this time.

2:27:32Katherine Dumont: Got it. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, Council and staff. Katherine Dumont, District 3.

2:27:38Katherine Dumont: I serve on the Housing Commission, and I'm, representing my own views here. I appreciate the financial review, the… of the development proposals for the parking plazas for 3 of the 8 parking plazas, as well as the recommendations put forth.

2:27:55Katherine Dumont: I fully support the city's plan, as set forth in the housing element, to redevelop the parking plazas and build the affordable homes we need to meet our RHNA obligations and affirmatively further fair housing obligations.

2:28:13Katherine Dumont: Further, I really do support a revitalized downtown with modernized and managed parking systems, as well as improved safety and mobility infrastructure.

2:28:23Katherine Dumont: To accommodate all users, the people who work there, the people who visit, those of us who walk and bike, those folks who get around with, who have disabilities.

2:28:39Katherine Dumont: And I understand that financing is always a challenge for affordable housing projects. I've seen this. Fortunately, there are multiple sources of funding for housing.

2:28:49Katherine Dumont: And the report provides some really creative and viable options for closing the funding gap for a public parking garage. Public parking is not part of affordable housing in general.

2:29:00Katherine Dumont: Paid parking is one of the most common things we've ever seen, and it's in other jurisdictions.

2:29:08Katherine Dumont: Anyway, thank you for supporting H4G, keep going, and keep us in good standing with HCD. Thank you.

2:29:19Menlo Park: Thank you for your comment.

2:29:22Menlo Park: Next up is Robin Severns, followed by June Shin.

2:29:30Robin Severns: Hi, thank you, I'm Robin Severns, I've lived in Menlo Park for an awfully long time. I'm very strongly in favor of downtown housing, although I don't think that we need to necessarily put all of our… well, we're not putting all of our required housing, but perhaps

2:29:44Robin Severns: not on all of the parking lots on one side of the Santa Cruz Avenue.

2:29:49Robin Severns: However, saying that I favor it strongly, I also want it to work for everyone, and I want to know who will be negotiating on the city's behalf.

2:29:57Robin Severns: The.

2:29:58Robin Severns: the developers should be footing more of the bill. I mean, I know they say it's not affordable. What is their payback time? Is it 5 years? I mean, a lot of people pay for on their mortgages for 30 years. I know maybe that's.

2:30:13Robin Severns: not what commercial developers do, but I still think that we need to have somebody who will do more than just say, oh yeah, this is typical for the area. We need to have someone who really knows the business and can say to the developers.

2:30:27Robin Severns: it's not working the way for us, the way you've got it right now, and see if we can come up with something better. One of the things that was pointed out to me, and I hadn't realized this, but

2:30:37Robin Severns: the storefronts on Santa Cruz Avenue are a little dated-looking. Can the developers put money in to do that? Can we build directly over those buildings so that the, or take some of those buildings out and build on those sites?

2:30:51Robin Severns: So that we don't have such a shortage.

2:30:56Robin Severns: of parking all the time, for the time. And I really think we need to get our businesses through the construction period. We need to have a plan for that.

2:31:08Menlo Park: Thank you.

2:31:11Menlo Park: Next up is June Shin, followed by M. Jackson.

2:31:19June Shin: Good evening, members of the Menlo Park City Council. My name is Jun Shin, and I'm the Menlo Park Community Builder with the Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County. We work with communities and their leaders to produce and preserve quality, affordable homes.

2:31:34June Shin: I'd first like to thank the City staff and Strategic Economics for all their work in putting together their report and presentation regarding the downtown homes. We at HLC fully support the City's efforts to plan for downtown housing.

2:31:48June Shin: To meet our housing needs and housing element goals, we need a project that can break ground without delay and maximizes affordable homes for incomes between 15% and 80% AMI.

2:32:03June Shin: To close the funding gap, we urge you to support strategies that are realistic and immediate, such as parking demand management, where smart management could shave millions off the funding gap.

2:32:15June Shin: A city-funded loan, which could provide a revenue-neutral loan for the parking structure, paid back over time.

2:32:22June Shin: And impact fee waivers, which could save over $10 million immediately. By focusing on housing needs and realistic funding, we believe the city can create a project that boosts affordability and vibrancy downtown for decades to come.

2:32:39June Shin: Thank you.

2:32:43Menlo Park: Thank you.

2:32:47Menlo Park: Okay, next up is M. Jackson, followed by Katie Baruzzi.

2:32:55M Jackson: Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. Marie Jackson here. I've been a 40-year homeowner within Menlo Park, and I'm very much involved in a number of different programs and nonprofits that support

2:33:10M Jackson: Housing. However, I look at this, and math is a universal language. Tonight's presentation identifies large financing gaps in the double digit millions.

2:33:22M Jackson: Your RFP was specific.

2:33:24M Jackson: Seeking 345 income qualified affordable homes and the replacement of our parking spaces financed and built by the developer.

2:33:33M Jackson: Instead, what we're seeing tonight changes your initial RFP and suggestions of reducing parking, reducing affordability, and a need to raise public revenue. How can this seriously be considered a viable project? Closing those gaps and at whose expense is an important question.

2:33:52M Jackson: Additionally, as I understand it, Menlo Park property owners paid through assessments to create the parking plazas in the 1950s, and it appears we will probably need the community to pay again. And with completion extending into 2032 and 2033,

2:34:09M Jackson: We've all been there. When something extends, there is cost escalation.

2:34:14M Jackson: How is that being budgeted? Who will be paid? The numbers don't work. We need numbers that have commitments that we can hold someone accountable for, since you will all be gone from the council by the time this is built.

2:34:26M Jackson: This is a, this project needs to be considered financially. Thank you.

2:34:32M Jackson: Thank you.

2:34:36Menlo Park: Next up is Katie Baruzzi, followed by an iPhone user.

2:34:42Katie Behroozi (she/her): Hi, Council, it's Katie Behrouzi, serving on the Planning Commission, but speaking for myself as an individual. I do agree that there's been some magical thinking happening.

2:34:52Katie Behroozi (she/her): I support us building affordable housing on public land in Menlo Park.

2:34:57Katie Behroozi (she/her): And I'm honestly not sure why we ever thought that as a community we were not going to need

2:35:03Katie Behroozi (she/her): To pay for public facilities to be replaced.

2:35:07Katie Behroozi (she/her): in the process of doing that. We've been talking about building a parking garage downtown since the original downtown specific plan and parking is not free.

2:35:16Katie Behroozi (she/her): garages aren't free, there's not a garage ferry that comes and distributes them to well-deserving people, and as Jenny Michel mentioned, we're a wealthy community, and if we want public facilities.

2:35:27Katie Behroozi (she/her): I think we should invest in them. I also believe that we've been doing a poor job of managing our existing parking. I'm aware, for example, that we haven't had parking patrols downtown since the pandemic, and that a lot of our time spaces that are ideally suited for customers are being occupied by people who are parking all day and not paying for that. And we have a half empty garage on the corner.

2:35:52Katie Behroozi (she/her): of Oak Grove and El Camino, I suggest that we start considering managing our parking, and then decide as a community.

2:35:58Katie Behroozi (she/her): How much do we want to spend on additional parking? And what's worth it to us?

2:36:03Katie Behroozi (she/her): And above all, let's not pretend that there's some other magical vacant lot somewhere where we can build affordable housing. This is a wonderful location for it. We have some good developers that we can work with to do something we can be proud of, and let's continue to move forward. Thank you.

2:36:20Menlo Park: Thank you for your comment.

2:36:25Menlo Park: Okay, next up…

2:36:31Menlo Park: Give me one moment, there we go. Is Ethan Hoffman followed by Laura Milan?

2:36:40Ethan Hoffmann, Ph.D.: Hi, I'm Ethan Hoffman, I live in downtown. I just wanted to thank the City Council for continuing to thoroughly study the issue of how to finance and build downtown. I really…

2:36:55Ethan Hoffmann, Ph.D.: appreciate that we are moving forward with this effort, and would just echo what Katie said. This is…

2:37:02Ethan Hoffmann, Ph.D.: probably the cheapest option we have in order to meet our housing goals, and I would really not want to see the city have to spend even more to put housing in a less optimal place.

2:37:14Ethan Hoffmann, Ph.D.: this is close to public transportation. It's good for the environment. It's good for the community. And I think it's going to be great for downtown businesses. Thank you.

2:37:25Menlo Park: Thank you.

2:37:28Menlo Park: Okay, next up is Laura Malone.

2:37:34Menlo Park: Hello, hello. Formerly iPhone user, but I made it here by running. Thank you, City Council. I'm Laura Milan, Chair of the Finance and Audit Commission, and co-founder of Downtown Menlo Fund, speaking for myself.

2:37:46Menlo Park: We all want the same thing. Affordable homes built in Menlo Park, and I always show up with solutions.

2:37:52Menlo Park: Our certified housing element books the Parkline site at 400 homes, with zero of them very low income. The project actually in front of us is now more than 1,000 homes, which is wonderful progress, and its affordability agreement is being rewritten right now.

2:38:09Menlo Park: That's more than 600 homes the state has never seen. But not one of them is very low income.

2:38:16Menlo Park: A lot of voices tonight are asking us to amend the housing element, and others are saying an amendment is too hard. So, I wrote it for us. An HCD-ready amendment is drafted and published at TeamMenloPark.com, and it can be accomplished without a supertower.

2:38:32Menlo Park: It keeps every one of the 345 deeply affordable homes we promised. It puts them near transit, in the highest resource part of our city. It's financially achievable, and it keeps downtown planning in Menlo Park's hands.

2:38:48Menlo Park: No matter which way the vote goes on Measure P, Program H4G will not make its 2027 deadline.

2:38:55Menlo Park: During the Council discussion tonight, can you please discuss our plan to keep that foreseeable miss

2:39:03Menlo Park: from threatening our housing element certification. Thank you guys for all your work.

2:39:08Menlo Park: Thank you.

2:39:11Menlo Park: Okay, seeing no further cards… Or hands on Zoom for public comment on our study session.

2:39:22Menlo Park: Mayor Nash, you may continue.

2:39:24Menlo Park: Thank you. I guess I'd first like to call, Laura Milan, our last speaker, up to take another minute and a half to tell us about the plan you're talking about.

2:39:39Menlo Park: Yes, I would… I would love to. So the plan that I'm talking about, which everyone can read, essentially looks across Menlo Park and says, where are we missing and why are we missing? And we don't struggle to build,

2:39:56Menlo Park: all homes, we struggle to build affordable homes. And so, I looked across all of our projects and asked, how can we get more affordable homes at a financial level that we can achieve? And so, if we look at Parkline.

2:40:11Menlo Park: which is the SRI site, and USGS together, and we look at where the affordability level is in those projects, they don't go below the 60%, area median income.

2:40:23Menlo Park: And we can buy down that notch to 50%, which is a very… which is a much more affordable home, and which is the type of home that HCD has us on the hook for. And we can, for less than the cost of rebuilding a parking garage, we can convert

2:40:41Menlo Park: expensive homes into affordable homes to achieve our goals without needing to, continuously expand our skyline with a supertower.

2:40:52Menlo Park: And what is the cost of that? The cost would likely be… there are estimates, there's a model online, which you can see, but it would likely be, for all 345 homes, between $12 and $35 million, compared to $35 and $60-plus million for the… to build the parking lot.

2:41:11Menlo Park: Any thoughts?

2:41:13Menlo Park: Is that deed restricted? Yeah, it would… the model has it deed restricted for 55 years, which I believe is how HCD calculates these things, at a 5.5% discount rate, which is, I believe, market.

2:41:27Menlo Park: Thank you.

2:41:30Menlo Park: Thank you.

2:41:36Menlo Park: All right, thank you to all the speakers. It is really good to hear from community members and, the…

2:41:45Menlo Park: variety of ideas and opinions. Also, thank you so much to Strategic Economics, for the excellent report that you gave us, which is, it really gives us something to, grasp and, discuss now. So…

2:42:02Menlo Park: I thought it was very well formatted, very easy to understand, and very much appreciated. Thank you. I'd now like to open for Council discussion.

2:42:12Menlo Park: And would anyone like to start?

2:42:15Menlo Park: Okay.

2:42:17Menlo Park: Councilmember Combs.

2:42:19Menlo Park: Okay, I'm actually not starting. I have a question for you. There's lots of different topics covered.

2:42:27Menlo Park: this is a study session, I want to understand from you, Mayor, what you want to accomplish, or what you are looking for in this discussion, because it could go a lot of… a lot of different ways. Whatever we do here doesn't change Measure P, that's…

2:42:44Menlo Park: in the domain of voters, and so certainly we can touch on that, but it probably is not most effective, but again, like I say, I want to understand how you want to frame the discussion.

2:42:56Menlo Park: Thank you. I guess I would, like to respond to some of the comments that have been made, and just some of the.

2:43:06Menlo Park: the

2:43:08Menlo Park: ideas that we can build elsewhere, and how that would happen. And I also want to have us have a robust discussion about, what it is that we're looking for in the project, what our thoughts are as far as the economic.

2:43:26Menlo Park: models that have been… proposals that have been, put forward. And then also, we have… certainly have the question of whether or not, we want to look at the additional surplus land.

2:43:43Menlo Park: the additional way to look at surplus land, because Presidio Bay does not, fall under the, standard.

2:43:52Menlo Park: proposal and… or the standard, Land Act, and then, also want to know what, additional, issues we want staff to explore when they are, look at when they are, doing the analysis, and, which will then come back to Council.

2:44:11Menlo Park: So, I guess I'm looking for… is there anything else that anyone or that staff would like to get from us at this point?

2:44:22Menlo Park: Okay. Would anyone like to, start.

2:44:33Menlo Park: And I guess, what I'd first like to address, and, would welcome anyone else starting with this, is just.

2:44:45Menlo Park: the option of… Why we are using downtown, and whether or not there are other sites that will

2:44:54Menlo Park: Work, and why we're pursuing a model that has, the…

2:45:01Menlo Park: Financial impacts, the funding needs that.

2:45:06Menlo Park: Have been laid out by the report.

2:45:13Menlo Park: Councilmember Schmidt.

2:45:14Menlo Park: Thanks, Mayor Nash.

2:45:18Menlo Park: I… Yeah, I want to.

2:45:22Menlo Park: I want to add one thing before I start, with a perspective about building elsewhere.

2:45:28Menlo Park: So all due respect to the alternative plan, did anyone go to planning last night and watch planning?

2:45:36Menlo Park: No, yes.

2:45:38Menlo Park: Okay, so that was… so I'm gonna caution against inventing stuff on the fly.

2:45:46Menlo Park: you know, I think staff was at planning, they heard the discussion as the liaison. It was an interesting conversation, but.

2:45:55Menlo Park: Taking something as fact based on, sort of an addition from the side is…

2:45:59Menlo Park: Probably not the best way to meet our housing goals. So, I'd encourage you to take a look at Planning Commission last night, just to see how that discussion unfolded with more detail.

2:46:12Menlo Park: Because I don't think it's a credible plan. So… Second thing I'd say is… Part of what…

2:46:20Menlo Park: Part of what I've been saying all along and I think is important when we talk about alternative sites is

2:46:25Menlo Park: We often, as council, look at the longer term perspective and

2:46:29Menlo Park: What I mean by the longer-term perspective is we're in the middle of a current

2:46:32Menlo Park: RENA cycle, where we have a certain number of units allocated, but people often forget

2:46:39Menlo Park: We have another one coming up right after this, and there's been reporting out that the number of allocated units we're likely to get is gonna be

2:46:50Menlo Park: Probably equal or greater than what we have today.

2:46:53Menlo Park: So, I know a couple of members of Council will be leaving, but that's going to be a debate that I think we're going to be starting as a Council to understand

2:47:03Menlo Park: To the mayor's point that,

2:47:06Menlo Park: This idea that we can build elsewhere is mostly going to be consumed by that next.

2:47:11Menlo Park: housing element. And I will say, I respect Alex a lot, but Alex and I have been discussing this for a long, long time. We've had multiple conversations in Cafe Barone, and I've always made the case, and I'll continue to make the case.

2:47:24Menlo Park: that… When you take those two housing cycles in aggregate.

2:47:30Menlo Park: we're going to need to do something downtown, and we're likely going to need to do something in Civic Center, and in other districts, and I think we'll have to have the District 1 discussion again, even though that might not be popular, I think it's a fair point that Willow Village has changed that. So, I want to just say that this idea that we can build elsewhere is not a…

2:47:49Menlo Park: two- to three-year discussion. It's this cycle plus the next cycle, and as Council, I know we know that, but I don't think we say that enough to residents to say, we're going to be growing the population of Menlo Park by 10%, if not more, whether we like it or not, because that's the way the state's mandated the process. So, when I think of…

2:48:09Menlo Park: Where we can build elsewhere,

2:48:12Menlo Park: we're going to be building lots of places elsewhere, and I think downtown, if we magically removed it this cycle, we would seriously have to consider it again next cycle. And I hate to deliver that as hard fact, but I think it's hard fact. I don't think our Rena numbers are going to go down next cycle. So, that's just one perspective to kick us off.

2:48:31Menlo Park: Thank you.

2:48:34Menlo Park: Others at this point.

2:48:37Menlo Park: Councilmember Combs.

2:48:40Menlo Park: I mean, so if I… if I'm…

2:48:43Menlo Park: Taking you up on that, because I don't want to have a discussion about building elsewhere.

2:48:48Menlo Park: either. I think the question is, is it viable to build here?

2:48:53Menlo Park: I agree, that's the thing before us, and…

2:48:57Menlo Park: Are we being transparent and truthful with residents about all that entails?

2:49:03Menlo Park: And so, I appreciate the financial analysis, which I've

2:49:06Menlo Park: If I recall, I requested. Because when the developers presented here some months ago.

2:49:14Menlo Park: Their financial calculations were all over the place. And it was not clear to me what the North Star was exactly, or whether they were operating with the same math, and so at least now we get some semblance of everyone using the same math.

2:49:31Menlo Park: But so, at minimum, I'm not even gonna get a discussion about whether it's an underestimate… underestimate or not. At minimum.

2:49:38Menlo Park: There's… there's $20 million that needs to come from somewhere.

2:49:44Menlo Park: And so, my question is, or for what I want to do, is have a discussion with residents about where that comes from.

2:49:53Menlo Park: Because I don't know, like the, some of those options to me were not realistic.

2:50:00Menlo Park: things like charging for parking, are just not… you know, in some cases, you can charge for parking. I don't know that our downtown is the one that you want to sort of test that out.

2:50:14Menlo Park: a specific bond covered by revenue generating from parking is just not serious. Creating some sort of assessment district where you charge extra property taxes specifically is… or it's dependent on

2:50:28Menlo Park: Additional development, not realistic.

2:50:31Menlo Park: To me, what's realistic is you reduce the parking requirement.

2:50:35Menlo Park: You say that we won't replace all of the parking. You reduce the affordability mix, or you look to some sort of revenue-generating measure in the form of a general interest bond or sales taxes.

2:50:49Menlo Park: That's what you have to do. And so that is, to me, the discussion that I want to have with the community.

2:50:56Menlo Park: Because I promise you, we can move forward, but

2:50:59Menlo Park: ICU is moving forward into a brick wall.

2:51:03Menlo Park: Because at some point, we'll have this discussion, and the piper has to be paid.

2:51:09Menlo Park: And if people don't feel that Council had a true and transparent discussion with them about that, then they're gonna be really upset.

2:51:17Menlo Park: Whoever's on council. And so, for me, that's…

2:51:21Menlo Park: That's where I am, like, right, where does the money come from?

2:51:26Menlo Park: And are we saying here as a council that, like.

2:51:30Menlo Park: Yes, we're open to reducing the parking.

2:51:34Menlo Park: We're open to reducing the affordability mix, or yes, let's begin the conversation with With residents that you will have to pay for this.

2:51:44Menlo Park: Which is not what we've said.

2:51:47Menlo Park: We said the developers would pay.

2:51:49Menlo Park: We said that they would get the land for free, and that they would pay. And we actually told developers, if you weren't willing to pay for the public parking, don't respond to the RFP.

2:52:02Menlo Park: And so, and I'm not… again, I'm talking at you, I'm talking at myself here. I was… I was… I was… I was there for all those processes, and that's the only thing I'm saying. It's like, I don't want to have a discussion about

2:52:12Menlo Park: the other places. I say yes, I am… I think that some future with, a future with, with housing, downtown

2:52:24Menlo Park: is right.

2:52:25Menlo Park: And this is the direction we should be going in.

2:52:28Menlo Park: My whole thing is that we currently.

2:52:32Menlo Park: Don't have the fare necessary to go in that direction.

2:52:35Menlo Park: And no one has told me or explained to me clearly, like, how we get there. And I think what I am concerned about is that at some point.

2:52:43Menlo Park: We're gonna have this discussion, and we're gonna go to voters when we need the money, and they're gonna say no.

2:52:51Menlo Park: Yeah, you can… How do you recommend we have… I don't know. Okay, because, yes, I mean, it's in this moment, I don't know, like, that's why I said that, like, I don't want to discuss other sites. Or I don't want to… or the viability of other sites. I mean, at least for me, obviously, anyone can talk about whatever they want to, but…

2:53:11Menlo Park: It's just I don't understand, like, how… how this site is viable. Like, right? Because I do really have concerns that it's dependent on us getting money from voters, and they're gonna say no.

2:53:28Menlo Park: So I guess I will. I will.

2:53:32Menlo Park: say that, yes, I agree that our initial, request and our thought when we went out

2:53:40Menlo Park: for the RFQ and all, was that it would be something where we just, provide the land and others come up with.

2:53:50Menlo Park: funding for the parking as well as the housing. And I think we are all up here

2:53:56Menlo Park: Appreciative of the analysis that has been made and sort of,

2:54:02Menlo Park: It… Disappointed.

2:54:06Menlo Park: That is what it's going to take.

2:54:09Menlo Park: it is not surprising, but I agree that this is where we are, and the situation that we, need to

2:54:19Menlo Park: Work on.

2:54:21Menlo Park: I do want to say something first about, the housing, the different sites, and that is… and the housing numbers. And I guess, first of all, the housing numbers

2:54:34Menlo Park: the capacity that has been discussed, from the July 14th meeting is something where it was, A discussion about…

2:54:48Menlo Park: Both, permitted, approved, and pending

2:54:52Menlo Park: Sites. And then also thrown in there was the available site inventory.

2:54:59Menlo Park: was added to the total, and that essentially is potential housing sites

2:55:05Menlo Park: that were identified by the city in the housing element. So when you look at what the total capacity is, that is not reflective of where we are today. That is reflective of the housing element and all the sites that were identified, plus the projects that we are working on.

2:55:27Menlo Park: And I guess I will ask.

2:55:30Menlo Park: City Clerk Heron to pull up the, status.

2:55:37Menlo Park: slide, please.

2:55:45Menlo Park: And what I've done, it may be hard to see, but what I've done is, essentially, I took that July 14th report. And I backed out the available site inventory, which is…

2:55:57Menlo Park: the potential housing sites identified by the city in the housing element.

2:56:03Menlo Park: So the bottom line, which is in the bottom line in green. July 2026 surplus above Rena includes the available

2:56:12Menlo Park: site inventory, and that is what people have been quoting as saying, we don't need housing any, because we've got plenty. In fact, if you look at the yellow.

2:56:23Menlo Park: Those are the numbers.

2:56:24Menlo Park: Of what we need.

2:56:27Menlo Park: according to the July 14th plan, and I have to admit, I just did this. Staff has not seen this. It has not been…

2:56:36Menlo Park: approved. It may turn out there is some… there is some flaw in it.

2:56:41Menlo Park: But the way… we have a huge number of… we still need 584 units of the very low

2:56:51Menlo Park: income housing.

2:56:53Menlo Park: It's, right now, and we still need 297 units.

2:56:59Menlo Park: of the moderate housing. In other words, even if you don't look at the exact numbers, which may… be wrong, we have a great need for housing. When we look at the park line and the USGS, of which

2:57:16Menlo Park: Some of the park line has been approved. There is still, about 300 units that are pending.

2:57:25Menlo Park: There is, and that plus park line. We're getting lots of housing there. It is not affordable housing.

2:57:33Menlo Park: in that slide we are getting

2:57:39Menlo Park: Well over the number of… we're getting, 1,341 units.

2:57:45Menlo Park: of… market rate housing.

2:57:50Menlo Park: We are not getting enough of the other of the very low, low, and moderate housing.

2:57:59Menlo Park: I guess what I'm trying to say is, we have a great need to do this housing, and it needs to be done somewhere, and downtown was identified through a rigorous process.

2:58:13Menlo Park: It is close to transit, it's in… there's services around, it's in a good performing school district.

2:58:21Menlo Park: And there is, the other sites that are available, if you go to private land… private land…

2:58:31Menlo Park: is not… we cannot count on private land for affordable housing. The developers build to maximize profit, not community need. It is…

2:58:43Menlo Park: It does not make sense to try and.

2:58:46Menlo Park: Put more affordable… get more affordable units.

2:58:50Menlo Park: in places that are built for-profit developers, by for-profit developers. The proposal that's being discussed and, for reducing the

2:59:02Menlo Park: affordability at Parkline. I have, we need to take a good look at the numbers, but I do not believe that the numbers work out.

2:59:12Menlo Park: He.

2:59:15Menlo Park: So I do not want to, what I want to do tonight is I wanted people to see that there is a great need still for housing. There is a great need for, especially for very low and moderate, in the low category, where it says we actually are, have some surplus.

2:59:32Menlo Park: That has, Parkline, for example, when we talked, last… when we met here and had a study session on it, Parkline, the mid-pan housing, said that they were putting a place marker at low, but that that was, some of those will be very low house… very low income.

2:59:50Menlo Park: So we will see some shift to the very low, but we have a tremendous need for housing.

2:59:57Menlo Park: affordable housing.

3:00:01Menlo Park: And the sites that are available, beyond the… Private sites.

3:00:08Menlo Park: Are essentially our parks.

3:00:11Menlo Park: And so… If you take a look at some of the.

3:00:17Menlo Park: If you take a look at the city-owned sites.

3:00:19Menlo Park: And look at them by the size of the sites, you were talking about parks.

3:00:26Menlo Park: So, with that, I will,

3:00:32Menlo Park: unless someone else wants to make any other comments about, Councilmember Schmidt does, about just downtown, it's a need to do… to build housing downtown. And I guess the one other piece is we do have a commitment for H, the H4G for a specific

3:00:52Menlo Park: program that has been studied in

3:00:58Menlo Park: the housing element has been approved by HCD. It is something where I do not believe that we can replicate that anywhere else in the city at this time, on this timeline. Agree that we definitely will not meet the 2027

3:01:13Menlo Park: dates, I… that is a given, but we are working toward it, and we need to work, diligently to, make this, make this happen. And with, I would love to figure out how to get more

3:01:30Menlo Park: public input as far as how we fund it, but it's… to me, it is not something where there's any question about, do we need to do this?

3:01:39Menlo Park: Councilmember Schmidt. Thank you, Mayor Nash. Yeah, I want to build on that. I respect what Councilmember Combs said, and I definitely want to come to that part of the conversation.

3:01:50Menlo Park: But I, I,

3:01:52Menlo Park: Yeah, I'm really worried that, you know, with things like this ad hoc plan that Ms. Milan mentioned, and magical thinking that there's land in all these different places, I think we just need to be really, really clear whether we're talking about this reinstall or the next. I did have a question for staff around

3:02:09Menlo Park: I remember to compare to the mayor's numbers here in the USGS study session at planning.

3:02:18Menlo Park: You know, it clearly showed that some of these sort of ad hoc things weren't gonna work, and the numbers… there's no magical conversions, there's no way to…

3:02:27Menlo Park: changed the percentages in privately owned land, so I'm just… I… could staff go back and maybe tell us a little bit about the numbers from your perspective, particularly how they were covered in the USGS

3:02:41Menlo Park: planning, meeting, and how… how that sort of paints a really accurate picture of where we are when it comes to our commitments. Are you talking about… Affordability and changing numbers. Yeah, yeah.

3:02:58Menlo Park: But can I… I just want to, like, I'm gonna put it in…

3:03:03Menlo Park: I'm not trying to play any specific role here, but.

3:03:07Menlo Park: The suggestion is, is that, like, you have a negotiation with the private developers.

3:03:14Menlo Park: to change the affordability mix and levels. Now, obviously they can say no.

3:03:20Menlo Park: Right, but it's not magical, it's a negotiation. Like, right? And so I think that that's what's being proposed. Again, we can say that that is speculative, but it could happen. There's nothing that would legally binds or prevents

3:03:36Menlo Park: a private developer from saying that, like, I… in negotiating with the city and changing the affordability level of their units. I assume that they'd be all for it for the right price point. Because they're developers. I'm pretty sure you can give them a figure that works for them.

3:03:55Menlo Park: The question is, is that a figure that works for the city? And again, I just want to, again, like, make sure we're saying that, like, there isn't anything that legally would prevent that change, but maybe we would suggest it is unlikely, because they would want a price point that we would not be interested in.

3:04:12Menlo Park: Or we would not feel that we could cover.

3:04:15Menlo Park: Sorry, Mr. Smith, you can…

3:04:19Menlo Park: No worries. So generally, development would have to comply with the city's BMR guidelines, a private development on a privately developed.

3:04:32Menlo Park: project on private land, we need to comply with our BMR guidelines and requirements, and so that's 15%.

3:04:39Menlo Park: of the units would need to be below market rate, and then under our current guidelines, they have to average out to a low income affordability level, and there can be a mix between very low income, low, and moderate to get to that average of low income.

3:04:59Menlo Park: But… Essentially, that's what a developer would need to comply with in order to meet the city's

3:05:06Menlo Park: standards. And so that…

3:05:09Menlo Park: I think is generally along the lines of what is proposed here in terms of USGS. You're looking at a fraction of the actual total number of units overall that they're obligated to provide under our BMR requirements.

3:05:24Menlo Park: So anything… Different than that would need to be part of a negotiation with that developer.

3:05:38Menlo Park: Yeah, thank you. So, so the guide is the BMR, right? It's not that we can… whether we use the word magical or whatever it is, it's… it's a… to Councilmember Cohen's point, it's a negotiation that the developer has every right to push back against, and likely in some situations would, so…

3:05:54Menlo Park: I think to the mayor, the reason I wanted to hear more, and I would encourage people to

3:06:00Menlo Park: Also, pay attention to what's being discussed in these other big developments.

3:06:05Menlo Park: you know, when we think we don't need to do something in downtown, I think the key takeaway is we do. Now, what that looks like and how it gets funded, that's the heart of the discussion, but I think you're hearing, hopefully consistently from at least a few of us, that something needs to happen in downtown, either this cycle or next cycle.

3:06:25Menlo Park: and we're in the middle of figuring out, kind of, what that is, the point about it should stop and it's gonna stop, I could easily see that coming back next RHNA cycle. So, you know, depending on how all this plays out, I would just say.

3:06:41Menlo Park: at least for myself, I'm grounded in the reality of, we're gonna have some big numbers, whatever those accurate numbers are, we're gonna have some big numbers we need to hit over the next two cycles, and downtown's… at least in my mind, I don't think we can take downtown out of the mix, so…

3:07:00Menlo Park: Thank you. So, let's move on to, looking at the proposals and.

3:07:10Menlo Park: The various different options of what, economic, proposals,

3:07:18Menlo Park: I guess two things. One is looking both at anything in the plans that.

3:07:27Menlo Park: You feel needs discussion, and also then, how you've… how each of us thinks the… what our preference is for, the funding proposals.

3:07:38Menlo Park: So, I believe, councilmember Combs has already stated, that you are interested in looking at reducing

3:07:50Menlo Park: Actually, would you, like to state it again? Well, I… do we want to put up the… the list that the, the consultant had, and…

3:08:03Menlo Park: And for me, it's not a question of what I support or what I don't support, it's like, I think there are some things on there that are realistic and some things that are just not realistic. Magical, since that'll be the word of the evening.

3:08:17Menlo Park: And that's what I… would call out.

3:08:37Menlo Park: So, I'll just… yeah, yeah, so, like, the last slide, additional strategies to close the financing gap, right? That's… Slide number 12, yes. So, sorry.

3:08:50Menlo Park: Reduce the replacement parking requirement.

3:08:53Menlo Park: I think that's a realistic option.

3:08:55Menlo Park: Reduce downtown parking demand through demand management techniques.

3:09:01Menlo Park: I guess that's…

3:09:02Menlo Park: realistic, I don't know how much real impact that will bring, and so, it would not be something I would say that we should.

3:09:14Menlo Park: put a great deal of focus on. Reduce the affordable housing goals. That is something that we can do.

3:09:20Menlo Park: Establish some form of parking benefit district. I don't think that's realistic.

3:09:24Menlo Park: Form an enhanced infrastructure financing district. I do not think that that's realistic. Pass a local sales tax measure. You can do that. That is realistic.

3:09:35Menlo Park: So, you're saying those are realistic? Are you in favor of any of those? It's not about favor, it's about what I think… So you would… yes. I think a discussion has to be framed around that.

3:09:48Menlo Park: Because, again, establish some, just some form of parking benefit district. And so that means, if I'm understanding that you assess the properties

3:10:00Menlo Park: Around downtown.

3:10:03Menlo Park: Right? And for, for those properties, they're probably gonna be, well, this is deja vu, we did this 60 years ago. So you, you assess them, and then the revenue from that assessment pays for, pays for the parking.

3:10:18Menlo Park: You could get… you could use several sources of revenue. Again, people could pay for parking.

3:10:24Menlo Park: And then property owners and businesses downtown could pay into some kind of district, so… and it depends on how you form the district. You could bring in housing around the area, residential, but I'm not sure

3:10:40Menlo Park: That's, again, you'd have to really study it closely. Yeah, and I honestly, for RE Downtown, I do not think something like charging for parking would be the correct way to go. And I think for downtown businesses, it would represent an enormous loss of faith in the council, that we went from

3:10:58Menlo Park: A promise that we're going to replace all the parking to probably now we're not going to replace all the parking and then your customers have to pay for parking.

3:11:06Menlo Park: I think that that is a… A really, Long journey.

3:11:15Menlo Park: To… to… to take them on. And so… and if it really is something that is to benefit the whole community, then

3:11:24Menlo Park: you would look for a way in which the whole community would pay. And in theory, the whole community would pay for parking, but I think those would be most concerned would be downtown businesses that would feel that, like, paying… having to pay for parking would have a severely and strongly negative impact on their customer base.

3:11:42Menlo Park: It's it.

3:11:43Menlo Park: I was going to say, I would actually like to,

3:11:49Menlo Park: Now that we're talking about it, go through each of these, starting at 1.

3:11:54Menlo Park: Okay, I'll let you know, and… Well, I think I skipped ahead, but no, you go, you go, and if… So, I would like to hear.

3:12:04Menlo Park: All council members, if possible, talk about, reduce the replacement parking requirement.

3:12:12Menlo Park: I will go ahead and just say, I am actually

3:12:17Menlo Park: very concerned about that one, because I think that part of our promise to

3:12:22Menlo Park: the community was to replace the parking. We actually started at 90% and changed it to 100% based on community feedback. And so…

3:12:36Menlo Park: Actually, let me ask our, consultants at this point, how… what would the… What would the…

3:12:44Menlo Park: Change in funding B.

3:12:48Menlo Park: If we were to reduce.

3:12:51Menlo Park: the replacement parking requirement. Do you have any numbers that we could work with.

3:12:58Menlo Park: We do have numbers. I don't think that I can recite them here, but as you recall, each of the proposals delivers parking differently at a different cost.

3:13:09Menlo Park: So, so, depending upon which proposal, those, you know, those developments could be downsized.

3:13:18Menlo Park: And there could be savings associated with that downsizing. And, you know, again, the Alliant proposal had the least expensive parking plan.

3:13:28Menlo Park: So, you know, the biggest bang for the buck would be from the Alliant proposal, which is an expensive parking garage.

3:13:35Menlo Park: So we would just have to crunch those numbers. So I guess my question is, a parking.

3:13:41Menlo Park: A parking structure seems like that would be the biggest piece of the, the biggest funding need. And then individual parking places is… I guess I'm trying to get a feel for how much of a difference the individual parking

3:13:56Menlo Park: Places and reducing that number would make because you still have to build.

3:14:03Menlo Park: the parking structure itself, and obviously, if you cut it in half, that would make a huge difference, but I don't think we're anywhere near that.

3:14:13Menlo Park: Yeah, I mean, I think we have to make a distinction between, you know, some of the parking is proposed for the building podiums, and then two of the proposals propose a garage.

3:14:23Menlo Park: I think for the garage.

3:14:25Menlo Park: It's going to be roughly proportional, so if you reduce the garage by 90%, it could be about 90%, you know, as expensive.

3:14:34Menlo Park: For the podium, it's a little bit more complicated, because it's sort of integrated into the building.

3:14:40Menlo Park: I don't know if I could say anything further on that.

3:14:45Menlo Park: I mean, I think also, the… the,

3:14:53Menlo Park: Each of the development proposals proposes a different way to close the gap.

3:14:58Menlo Park: And I think it might be worth also taking a little bit of a closer look and thinking about that as well. So, these six ideas were just, ideas that we were asked, well, what are, you know, what are typical ways that these gaps can be closed, or that you can address this? So these are the… these are the ways, but…

3:15:19Menlo Park: This does not preclude also going back and talking to the developers themselves about ways in which they could see reducing the gap, with these in mind.

3:15:33Menlo Park: And I believe it was the related proposal mentions in the IFD, you know, some of them do touch on these, but the related, Alta proposal has no, proposal for the $19 million gap. They just said this is… that we… these need to be sources.

3:15:52Menlo Park: Presidio Bay said they had ideas about where they wanted to go with that. Those are listed

3:15:58Menlo Park: in the report, and then Alliant also had proposals, and one of them was what they call the soft

3:16:05Menlo Park: debt, which is also vague, but the point of the soft debt is that it could come from if there were a county housing bond, or if there were different sources from the state that might be available. So, they're looking outside the city to close that potential

3:16:26Menlo Park: remaining gap, and then the other would be a loan from the city. They're not asking the city to pay the money, they're just asking the city to advance the money, essentially. So I think really also understanding the mechanics of how each developer is perceiving how they would fill the gap.

3:16:44Menlo Park: It's probably also something that should… could be taken into consideration.

3:16:56Menlo Park: Just a question for staff. One of the public commenters, asked, and it's also my understanding, that at one point Menlo Park did charge for parking, or that we were, maybe just enforcing, like, the two-hour rule and then ticketing, and then it was suspended during COVID, and we just haven't brought it back. Is that true?

3:17:17Menlo Park: Yes, to my understanding, after COVID, the enforcement has generally stopped, but prior to that, there were parking fees.

3:17:29Menlo Park: Sorry, parking, like, pay for parking, like, meters? As well as the picketing?

3:17:35Menlo Park: I think it was meters and…

3:17:38Menlo Park: Let's see, I can, just chime in on that part. There's… there are two basic… or three… three components. One is there's time limited from anywhere from, 15 minutes to 2 hours, where there was no… no charge whatsoever, and then it was around, like, 3 hours plus that someone could pay through a couple kiosks for longer stays.

3:17:57Menlo Park: So that's kind of the second bucket. And the third bucket was, all-day permits that, only certain, businesses' properties were eligible for those all-day permits. And so those all-day permits are geared more towards

3:18:11Menlo Park: employees, and less so to customers. So I think some of the key thing here is differentiating between

3:18:18Menlo Park: Shorter term customer visits versus longer term, stays of cars.

3:18:24Menlo Park: Okay, I just wanted to… bring that up, because it just kind of seems that the paying for parking would just be something we're bringing back, that we just suspended during COVID. But… But that's not true. Well, great. So, you got 2 hours for free, correct?

3:18:43Menlo Park: Pre-COVID.

3:18:47Menlo Park: This is through the mayor. I mean, I attempted to explain it, maybe I didn't do a great job explaining it. There's, three different aspects. One was on-street parking, or parking plaza parking, where someone could, park there, primarily, like, a customer.

3:19:04Menlo Park: and park for free. Then there's another one where generally customers, if it was more of a 3-hour stay or a little bit longer, but more on a daily basis and not something every single day, there's an option with a kiosk for someone to pay for additional hours above the 2 or 3, and I'm doing this from memory, so I apologize.

3:19:22Menlo Park: The third bucket was all-day paid parking that someone would pay for. I think it was a… I forget whether it was… I almost feel like it was an annual, pass that somebody got, or maybe it was monthly. It was definitely not less than monthly. That was definitely paid parking for those longer-term stays.

3:19:40Menlo Park: So, it's a combination. Some parking was free, and some parking was paid, is the way that I would summarize it. And the parking that was, free, which was on-street parking, did have

3:19:51Menlo Park: time… time requirements. It was also… There was enforcement. Sorry, on-street and the parking pauses were also free for short… short-term, like, less than 2 hours. But the…

3:20:02Menlo Park: In the parking lots, you could actually purchase a longer time, whereas on the… at the streets, it was, you were supposed to be moving on after, I think it was 2 hours, 90 minutes or 2 hours.

3:20:16Menlo Park: Yeah, I'll just… There was not the option to stay… I can clarify this part. The street parking, no parking meters, and had to stick within the time limit… times posted, and they varied from 15 minutes up to…

3:20:29Menlo Park: however long, maybe 90 minutes. The parking plazas, the 8 parking plazas, there's a combination of free parking, slightly longer extended parking during the day, and then all-day parking through the permits.

3:20:46Menlo Park: And we actually did try to bring back the enforcement after COVID, and there was a, hiccup in getting the personnel and getting it started, so we actually did make a decision to bring it back, but then it didn't actually start.

3:21:05Menlo Park: Councilmember Thomas.

3:21:07Menlo Park: Yeah, I would only add that, again, in my time, though, at Menlo Park, downtown parking enforcement has always been

3:21:17Menlo Park: somewhat lax, I would say, at times, depending a lot on personnel and availability. And so, I do think the idea that, like.

3:21:26Menlo Park: Bringing back a system where you are charging for parking to pay a bond.

3:21:32Menlo Park: is different than has existed in the past, or to pay for the structure, where then it's very clear that you have to generate a certain revenue. Whereas, again, like, I think in the past, that was not part of it. And so, again, I would stick to my original contention that if we are… if we are

3:21:51Menlo Park: Asking people to pay for parking downtown , it would be something that I would think of as net new to their experience.

3:21:59Menlo Park: Parking downtown.

3:22:00Menlo Park: For shorter periods of time, but even with the longer periods of time, it's my experience that enforcement was, was never.

3:22:08Menlo Park: All that, consistent.

3:22:12Menlo Park: Actually, let's, That's number 2. Let's finish quickly with, number 1, and just, reducing replacement parking requirement.

3:22:23Menlo Park: And, Councilmember Combs, you said you were not interested… I'm sorry, you are interested in Possibly looking at that.

3:22:36Menlo Park: I mean, again, like, I can say I'm not interested in it.

3:22:43Menlo Park: Because, to your point, like… We've made this promise.

3:22:47Menlo Park: To, downtown businesses that we would do a one-for-one replacement.

3:22:55Menlo Park: But we're running into a brick wall.

3:22:59Menlo Park: That's all I'm saying. So, we can… it's Christmas, like, right? Everyone gets what they want.

3:23:05Menlo Park: But…

3:23:07Menlo Park: At some point, either hard decisions are made, or the thing that we say that we're trying to deliver, which is affordable housing, doesn't get delivered.

3:23:17Menlo Park: And so I would, like I say, I went through the list as what I thought was realistic versus what was not realistic.

3:23:26Menlo Park: Not about what I preferred or what I didn't prefer.

3:23:30Menlo Park: Because if you're asking me what I prefer, I would prefer we keep our promise.

3:23:34Menlo Park: But at something… at some point, something has to give. But of the… but given what we see ahead… in front of us, and the fact that we have, yes, we will certainly go back to the different developers and

3:23:49Menlo Park: negotiate, talk to them about what… how we can decrease that funding gap. So this one's one that you would leave on the list. And I guess.

3:24:04Menlo Park: I've… you know, if… looking at the cost of.

3:24:10Menlo Park: estimated cost of replacement parking being between $30 and $54 million. If we'd reduce it by 10%, which means we go down to $500,

3:24:19Menlo Park: parking places, let's say, and we can actually save between $3 million and $5 million, I would.

3:24:28Menlo Park: Yes, I would consider that for that.

3:24:31Menlo Park: savings.

3:24:33Menlo Park: Other… Councilmember.

3:24:36Menlo Park: Taylor.

3:24:41Menlo Park: Thank you, Mayor Nash. I'm definitely not interested in reducing the parking requirements.

3:24:47Menlo Park: I think there's already with some existing,

3:24:51Menlo Park: units where there was not enough parking, and it's caused an issue. So…

3:24:57Menlo Park: I'm definitely not interested. And are we going down the whole list, or are we just going… No, we're just going through the first one right now. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Schmidt.

3:25:05Menlo Park: Yeah,

3:25:07Menlo Park: I'm with Councilmember Taylor. I'm not interested in reducing the replacement parking requirements.

3:25:15Menlo Park: But I will… I will cheat a little bit here and ask a question to staff, because… Only if we stay on number one right now, please. Well, it's totally joined up with number one, because I think… I just want to understand, can the consultants or staff

3:25:32Menlo Park: Name a city where…

3:25:34Menlo Park: Basically, there's paid parking, and it killed the business district. Can you come up with one? Let's do that in number 2, please.

3:25:41Menlo Park: But didn't we all just express our opinion? No. Who are we missing? Vice Mayor Wise? Right. Thank you.

3:25:51Menlo Park: Yes, for number one, I… I do understand, both points here. I understand that Councilmember Combs' point about, you know, we're gonna have to make some decisions, but yes, I would… I kind of see these more as a ranking of, like, what

3:26:09Menlo Park: So I would put that second from the bottom. My lowest would be the reducing affordable housing, but yes, after that, this would be, like, my least favorite of the options.

3:26:27Menlo Park: Thank you. No, honestly, I guess I had not, I actually like the idea of ranking.

3:26:37Menlo Park: which is, I know, switching up. Let's ask questions right now, actually, but I think that, Councilmember Schmidt had questions about.

3:26:46Menlo Park: And, let's ask questions about each of these, and then, yes, I think

3:26:52Menlo Park: Let's each rank these and see what we come up with.

3:26:56Menlo Park: Okay. Well, the question… the reason I was asking the question, though, is I think the replacement part… I agree with Councilmember Combs, something's gotta give. Everything can't be number one, right? So, I think that's why I feel like number one and number two are pretty joined up, and so I'll repeat the question. Can the consultants or staff name a city

3:27:15Menlo Park: Where there's paid parking, Downtown, and it killed the business district.

3:27:21Menlo Park: I seem to pay for parking everywhere I go, pretty much, but I'd be curious.

3:27:28Menlo Park: Your perspective.

3:27:36Menlo Park: I'm hesitant to answer that question without sort of more… .

3:27:41Menlo Park: So let me.

3:27:43Menlo Park: why are we saying parking has to be free? I… you know, if we've got big things to pay for, and I personally don't believe that paying for parking downtown

3:27:57Menlo Park: Discourages customers from coming to a business. I, I don't

3:28:02Menlo Park: I would be hard-pressed to be convinced that that's the case, because I don't go, oh, well, it cost me $1.50 to go park, or $3 to go park, so I'm not gonna go shop at Ace Hardware. That feels like a very false argument to me.

3:28:15Menlo Park: We live in an area where we pay for parking in most of the… most of the places that we go, so I'm trying to… trying to find an example of

3:28:26Menlo Park: where it's disastrous, it had a disastrous impact when all of a sudden there had to be paid parking downtown to pay for parking structures or other improvements. I'm just looking for… I'm looking for an example or two where that killed the business district.

3:28:43Menlo Park: I can't think of one. I can think of a lot where parking… they charge for parking, but I can't think of one off the top of my head, but I haven't…

3:28:52Menlo Park: Thought closely about that question.

3:28:55Menlo Park: So you can probably tell where I'm coming down on number 2.

3:28:58Menlo Park: Is, you know, I feel like…

3:29:01Menlo Park: If something has to give, then I think we have to pay for downtown parking, and…

3:29:06Menlo Park: you know, if businesses are not happy with that, it's a series of trade-offs, as I think we're all saying, and I think they'd be much more unhappy if we, killed replacement parking. So, I'm pretty strongly in favor of paying for parking downtown.

3:29:23Menlo Park: Councilmember Combs. Yeah, again, like.

3:29:27Menlo Park: I would… like, I see our downtown as a kind of what I'd say, like, you know, you know, fairly, like, utilitarian, like, right? And so…

3:29:36Menlo Park: There's the hardware store, there's the drugstore, there are grocery stores.

3:29:42Menlo Park: I'm not saying that there isn't places downtown where you can go and, you know, spend a couple hundred bucks on dinner, but, there…

3:29:52Menlo Park: I don't necessarily see, like, our downtown as the

3:29:57Menlo Park: destination downtown that, like, something like an Old Town Pasadena, is.

3:30:03Menlo Park: But even separate from that,

3:30:07Menlo Park: It's not clear to me that the revenue that you generate from charging from parking downtown would actually pay for the bond that you have to issue, because there is a limit.

3:30:21Menlo Park: I can promise you, like, right? If you're saying… if you're… if you want to charge $5 an hour, I promise you, that will kill downtown.

3:30:29Menlo Park: Full stop. So, so if we admit that there is a price at which you do kill downtown.

3:30:35Menlo Park: The question is, what's that price?

3:30:37Menlo Park: And what's that parking charge fee? And again, for us, it's academic.

3:30:45Menlo Park: But for Bow Wow Meow, for Cheeky Monkey, it's not academic, right? It's a lot more of a real exercise.

3:30:58Menlo Park: But yeah, please. Look, I…

3:31:00Menlo Park: I hear you, but I always get worried when we try to design from the dais, right? And so…

3:31:06Menlo Park: it's a fair point, but I don't want to sit up here and go, should it be $5, should it be $4? I think we do… that sometimes, and it.

3:31:15Menlo Park: And it doesn't help the issue. So I would say, if that's an issue, to pay for parking downtown, we have plenty of experts who can tell us the right way to do that, we can get business input, so I…

3:31:26Menlo Park: I just don't want to go down the path of, like, how much should we charge, and should it pay for the bond? And those are things, I think, for staff to work out for us, but I think we need to give them clear direction that paying for parking downtown is something that should be on the table, and it should be near the top of the priority list, so…

3:31:42Menlo Park: I will weigh in. I absolutely think we should be paying for parking. I think we should have been doing it all along. I don't…

3:31:49Menlo Park: I think it needs to… I don't… I want to separate out

3:31:53Menlo Park: Paying for parking, and therefore managing our parking.

3:31:57Menlo Park: Versus actually putting it and using it as a revenue source for our… for a bond.

3:32:04Menlo Park: Right now, we have people who are parking, in prime spots.

3:32:10Menlo Park: On the street, all day.

3:32:13Menlo Park: And if… we need to have these spots turn over so that customers can go to the businesses. They can run in, run out. And to me, right now, while we are not parking, we are not paying for anything, we have no… and actually, with the parking, paying for parking, we need the enforcement.

3:32:31Menlo Park: But if we… if we… paying for parking actually allows a turnover in the parking spots. It means that you can make, some parking very close to businesses, a little bit more expensive, parking further away.

3:32:48Menlo Park: less expensive, and that's actually, how one manages the parking spots. Right now, I believe that many of our spots close to our businesses are actually being filled by employees, because there's absolutely no, reason why they can't

3:33:08Menlo Park: Take the most convenient parking spot, they're there early in the morning.

3:33:11Menlo Park: And those are the spots that should be for customers and visitors, where… and we should…

3:33:18Menlo Park: Encourage people to park longer term in the further away spots, or we need to figure out some sort of satellite

3:33:26Menlo Park: Spot, which is part of designing

3:33:28Menlo Park: a parking management program. But aside from even parking… aside from even how we fund the parking garage or a bond, I believe strongly that we do need to be

3:33:42Menlo Park: Having paid parking with enforcement.

3:33:45Menlo Park: If you go downtown Redwood City, it's been a quarter. I think it just went up to 50 cents, but it's… has been a quarter for an hour. The biggest issue is…

3:34:00Menlo Park: how to pay for it, and I think there are easier ways, you know, these days with phones, with, in addition to credit cards and coins, it's very easy to pay for, parking, and I think that the amounts, you know, we need to make sure that the amounts do not discourage

3:34:19Menlo Park: people from going to the businesses, and perhaps we have, again, I agree that we need to, and you weren't saying this, that we need to figure it out right now, but it can be calibrated with.

3:34:34Menlo Park: people whose whole careers are parking management. When I was at Cal… the Council of Cities, in Irvine, or Long Beach, within the last year, there was just a brilliant speaker who was, working… she was… it was a…

3:34:50Menlo Park: speech, session where she had worked with Seal Beach, which had a huge parking problem, and they had completely, revamped it, and the store owners were happy. I actually went to a store there, and I talked to them about it. They were very happy. She's currently working with Los Gatos. There's lots of… anyway, cities do it. I think it can be done effectively, and I think we need to do it in order to actually determine what

3:35:15Menlo Park: is our What is our parking… what does our parking need?

3:35:25Menlo Park: I will stop there.

3:35:30Menlo Park: Anyone else want to?

3:35:33Menlo Park: All right.

3:35:34Menlo Park: I guess I would also like to…

3:35:40Menlo Park: jump around. And that was, on the parking benefit district. My understanding was that that, again, was, could be something where we…

3:35:50Menlo Park: charge business owners, which I would not be, certainly not at this point, be in any way supportive of, but it also could be something where you use the parking meter revenue, for that.

3:36:05Menlo Park: That's right. We, we combined a bunch of different funding sources under the umbrella of the, parking benefit district. So I think you're right to think, why don't we parse this out.

3:36:22Menlo Park: More precisely, to understand what those different sources are.

3:36:27Menlo Park: So, paid parking was in that, number 4, actually.

3:36:34Menlo Park: As one of the options.

3:36:36Menlo Park: So, the options included paid parking, they included assessing property owners and businesses.

3:36:44Menlo Park: That, that was all lumped together. And do we have any idea, I also saw the article that someone held up, which said that one of the cities nearby was having problems with their parking revenue. Do we know… I did not read the article. I didn't either. Yeah, I don't know. And I think I want to, I want to come back to, Councilmember Schmidt's question about has paid parking been the thing that

3:37:08Menlo Park: killed down towns.

3:37:09Menlo Park: And I… I would argue that there are a lot of reasons why retail businesses and small… small retail businesses in particular are struggling right now. And paying for parking

3:37:23Menlo Park: would be something that would contribute to that problem, but at the margin, is it the thing that's gonna make or break? Hard to say. But I do want to really acknowledge that this is not an easy…

3:37:36Menlo Park: environment for small independent businesses, and so you can see why they're anxious about this, but I think, looking at what, other communities have done, understanding what the options are.

3:37:50Menlo Park: Is at least worth taking a look at.

3:37:56Menlo Park: Yeah, and that, sorry, just, I want, I think I just want to make the point is, I don't, I don't think the majority of consumers make

3:38:03Menlo Park: the vast majority of their purchase decisions based on having to pay $2.25 to park their car. I mean, that's… that was the only point I was trying to make, right, is I… I don't want to have a big discussion about the survival of small and medium business. I know it's tough.

3:38:17Menlo Park: But, we have a very utilitarian downtown, as Councilmember Combs said, and, you know, if you gotta pay $2.25 to go do your shopping for an hour, then that's what you gotta pay, so…

3:38:31Menlo Park: Vice Mayor Wise.

3:38:32Menlo Park: Yes, I just want to also jump in and say, so yes, I'm also not in favor.

3:38:38Menlo Park: of charging, business owners, but I do want to ask… I assume there could be some sort of, like, hybrid option where… I'm just gonna pick on Trader Joe's, if that lot in front of their building, if they wanted to make that, like, the Trader Joe's lot, and they wanted to pay

3:38:56Menlo Park: To make that specific for, like, Trader Joe's customers.

3:39:00Menlo Park: like, could people opt in, but not be forced to be opt-in? Am I making any sense? I understand your question, but I'm not the expert on how that could work, and as Mayor Nash has said, there are people whose whole career is based on this parking management, and I think this question of

3:39:20Menlo Park: How much, who, how… the mechanics of it go back to answering the basic question of what's your parking utilization today in downtown? Who's using the spaces? Is it mostly employees? Is it, you know, what are the turnover rates?

3:39:36Menlo Park: there are a lot of things that are basically beyond, my… our… our brief, right, to look at. And I think maybe the city is actually thinking about some of those things independent of the work we've done, so I just don't want to step too far outside of our…

3:39:54Menlo Park: charge here to get into the detail of a parking strategy. I would suggest that what you do is say, well, we want to… we are open to having a conversation about parking management, about the possibility, but what you're… what I'm hearing you say is that you are open to thinking about ways in which the city may reduce the burden of replacing the parking on the… on the developer.

3:40:19Menlo Park: numbers.

3:40:20Menlo Park: Right, that's… that's how I would characterize what I'm hearing from you. I don't know if that's my job or if it's fair, but… Yeah, no, no, that's super helpful. And I do appreciate that, because I do think it.

3:40:31Menlo Park: Yes, and I don't want to bring us off topic, but I guess from my perspective, with the RFP,

3:40:41Menlo Park: I was always under the impression that the city was going to have to invest something. I, you know, it would be great if the developers could, pay for all of it, but that was never…

3:40:55Menlo Park: my understanding, so… I guess… and I just think… and I completely agree. I don't think we are the destination downtown on the peninsula, but I think we're sort of in this catch-22 where we're trying to get there.

3:41:10Menlo Park: And so I completely agree that it's, you know, concerning. I understand that why businesses are concerned, but I think it's.

3:41:17Menlo Park: Again, a Catch-22, where we're trying to, make a vibrant downtown, and there's gonna be things we have to do.

3:41:24Menlo Park: to help get us there. So, to Mayor Nash, your question, yes, that's sort of, if we are…

3:41:32Menlo Park: ranking and going through the list, yes, I'm also not in favor of… certainly not in favor of forcing business owners into paying into a parking benefit district.

3:41:42Menlo Park: However, would be happy if people do want to opt in, and I am overall, in favor of some sort of…

3:41:51Menlo Park: paying to park downtown, but understanding that there's many different ways to make that work. First hour could be free, etc. I don't know the specifics yet, but I'm in favor of that.

3:42:08Menlo Park: I'm just going to open it up at this point. Do you, before we try and rank them, Councilmember Taylor, do you have any questions that you want to have answered at this point?

3:42:17Menlo Park: Councilmember Schmidt.

3:42:19Menlo Park: Thank you, Mayor Nash.

3:42:21Menlo Park: I think, like Councilmember Combs, I think I would also be open to a local sales tax measure, although I would definitely want to balance that with a couple of factors. One.

3:42:34Menlo Park: some of these other solutions, I don't think a single source for this is gonna make much sense. I think we need a blended solution with, with a lot of different pieces. And then also, we, you know, we may need that sales tax measure for other things for the city as well. So, I think my big takeaway is.

3:42:53Menlo Park: A blended solution where we can drill down into some of the details.

3:42:57Menlo Park: To make both the construction and the, you know, ongoing, usage kind of funded, and coming back with that blended solution makes sense. I actually am not…

3:43:10Menlo Park: Much in favor of the affordable housing goals.

3:43:13Menlo Park: Although… Again, not to… Not to guide, or not… sorry, not… guide's the wrong word.

3:43:22Menlo Park: you know, I think we've got a lot of balancing to do amongst many developments about what the affordable housing goals will look like. That doesn't seem to be the pressure point for these three. They all came in about the same number.

3:43:35Menlo Park: If we needed to reduce slightly, but we could make it up somewhere else, I don't think we need to micromanage at that level, but that doesn't feel like

3:43:44Menlo Park: That doesn't feel like the pressure point that we're trying to solve when it comes to closing the financing gap, because most of the developers came in roughly around the same number. So, I would pull that off the list just because it feels like, you know, one of these things doesn't seem like the other, and that's how that kind of… feels to me, so…

3:44:02Menlo Park: Thanks.

3:44:05Menlo Park: Councilmember Kaus. Again, I just want to correct it. People are saying I support things that I didn't say I supported. I said I thought that they were realistic options, to possibly cover the costs related to closing the gap.

3:44:20Menlo Park: That didn't mean I said I was supporting a sales tax. I was like, a sales tax is a thing I think you can do that actually generates money. Again, like, an enhanced infrastructure financing district.

3:44:32Menlo Park: I don't know that that generates money. Like, the extent to which you're banking on new development, right, in that one, you actually have to have the new development. So, in that way, I would say that, like, I don't think that that's real. And the sales tax is real. That doesn't mean I support the sales tax. I just see it as being real.

3:44:51Menlo Park: Could you explain the, Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District. What I'm curious about is.

3:44:59Menlo Park: Is this the property taxes on the new… the developments that we're talking about, and aren't affordable housing

3:45:07Menlo Park: developments, do they pay property taxes? No, they're tax exempt, so that's a good question. But I want to also say that, under the Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District Law, different from the old redevelopment law, which is how we used to do tax increment financing, you can have non-contiguous districts. So, the one thing to think about is that if you thought, well.

3:45:31Menlo Park: We should consider an EIFD, because

3:45:34Menlo Park: I, agree that if you were just to do this on downtown, you probably wouldn't have enough increment to really make a difference. But if you factored in both the USGS and the old SRI sites.

3:45:47Menlo Park: And some of the other sites around town that are being, proposed for market rate housing, then you're starting to talk about something that might actually be worth considering.

3:45:58Menlo Park: The trade-off there is you're giving up general fund revenue, future general fund revenue, not existing general fund revenue, but future general fund revenue. So, that's a consideration. Again, Council…

3:46:12Menlo Park: Kums, you asked about a general obligation bond. That's also a possibility. We don't see those used very often for paying for parking.

3:46:21Menlo Park: But, somebody raised… one of the, speakers raised the issue about other infrastructure fixes that the community needs, and so a general obligation bond would be a possibility if you put together a series of infrastructure

3:46:36Menlo Park: projects that include… could include some of the parking. So again, it's a… it's sort of a menu of blended options to consider, including a non-contiguous EIFD.

3:46:52Menlo Park: Does… Either the city manager or assistant city manager want to make any comment about, the EFI

3:47:00Menlo Park: EIFD, and possibly including some of the new proposals, such as Parkline, or USGS, or, others that are actually currently in the pipeline about

3:47:15Menlo Park: Taking some or all of the new… of the increase in property taxes for funding the parking garage.

3:47:23Menlo Park: I could start, and maybe I'll also take this as an opportunity to kind of

3:47:29Menlo Park: If you, if you, if it's okay to kind of re, re, not full-on reframe, but,

3:47:35Menlo Park: maybe, think of a different way of looking at this. So I think it's a novel idea, something to be explored.

3:47:41Menlo Park: As I sit here today, will it work? I don't know, I can kind of tell you about some of the other complexities, but I don't think that's necessarily what we need to do this evening.

3:47:53Menlo Park: I appreciate all the discussion thus far. We can take a lot of this input. I do think, as people have said, this is complex. It's not easy. This is just the first pass of some typical things. There's much more analysis that would need to be done.

3:48:09Menlo Park: So I'd almost frame it as, is there anything on this list for which a majority of the City Council thinks should not be considered whatsoever? Because I think we do need to consider all these things. I do… I totally appreciate

3:48:21Menlo Park: That the approach ultimately needs to be a blended, some combination of things, and we do need to look at the overall,

3:48:28Menlo Park: city finances for some other things, and so there's, we are looking to come back to the Council

3:48:35Menlo Park: In the coming months about other revenue measures and things like that, so I think the most important thing.

3:48:40Menlo Park: Today is if there's anything on this list for which we should not spend another,

3:48:47Menlo Park: second of time analyzing. Otherwise, I almost feel like everything needs to be, like, considered. I totally appreciate some of the feedback tonight about the likelihood of success on some of those things. I totally appreciate that.

3:49:00Menlo Park: And there might be something on this list that is not considered further whatsoever, but this was… of this 27-page report, this was…

3:49:10Menlo Park: one page of it. The main focus of strategic economics work was on the reviewing the three proposals, and I hope… Hope when we wrap up this parking analysis, we can come back to that.

3:49:21Menlo Park: And I would say, as it relates to downtown parking, we would have to take, again, a slightly different approach to the

3:49:29Menlo Park: Overall geographic area that we're talking about from, you know, university to the railroad tracks to kind of ultimately come up with some of these, what works best.

3:49:40Menlo Park: And along the lines of the businesses downtown, there is a lot of these other cities that are being referenced here, Burlingame, Redwood City, have business improvement districts, and that's… that is indeed something where we do want to explore that option, and we cannot.

3:49:56Menlo Park: tax and tap people too many times without having a comprehensive story of what we're trying to accomplish. So, that's kind of an…

3:50:05Menlo Park: long-winded answer back to your first question about the enhanced infrastructure financing districts. I think we should be, frankly, exploring everything that's within our powers. Some of them are going to be

3:50:18Menlo Park: You know, have a great likelihood of success, especially if it requires going out to a general election vote or a vote of the people that are gonna be directly paying for it.

3:50:31Menlo Park: So I'm hearing that there's not necessarily a need to rank, it's really just what do we want to… if there's anything that we want to say, do not exp…

3:50:39Menlo Park: explore it further. That's from my view of taking this all in this evening. If there was the ability, I'll say, for the Council to efficiently rank, I think that could be helpful, but if it's difficult to kind of work through that ranking process, I don't think that's

3:50:59Menlo Park: required this evening, I'd say it's almost… if there's any topics for which should… they shouldn't… any of the items on this list that should not be considered further, like, whatsoever, is the… probably the most important thing for us. If there's the ability… where I think we can…

3:51:13Menlo Park: take from some of the, discussion this evening about some qualitative ranking, if the Council can systematically go through and

3:51:21Menlo Park: Rank each of these… if each council member says, you know.

3:51:26Menlo Park: 6, 5, 3, 2, 1, and boom, boom, boom down the line, I'm happy to get that feedback. That's… that's… I think that would be helpful, too.

3:51:37Menlo Park: Thank you.

3:51:42Menlo Park: I will tell you, I'm having trouble ranking them.

3:51:46Menlo Park: It is.

3:51:48Menlo Park: But… could we wait? So, but I think… I think, the idea of taking… is there anything on here that we do not want to pursue? And…

3:52:00Menlo Park: I've… there's one on here that I don't want to… probably the same one, Vice Mayor-wise. Yeah, so if I could cross one off, it would definitely be the reduced affordable housing goals, and that is, because…

3:52:14Menlo Park: again, this is city-owned land. For every unit that we do not build in this housing cycle, it will simply be a unit we have to build in the next.

3:52:25Menlo Park: So that number is never going to go down, so I just don't think that that should

3:52:30Menlo Park: Be part of the consideration.

3:52:33Menlo Park: I would agree with you, and I'll, just add that this is… we're talking about 345 affordable units of the 1,662 units that are required this cycle. So, it would not even be something where it could slip to another

3:52:49Menlo Park: The next cycle, it probably would be… not probably, it will be this cycle, because we still have…

3:52:57Menlo Park: many units to… build, or enable. Councilmember Taylor.

3:53:05Menlo Park: So, the two items that I would, not be interested in exploring is, the first one, reduce the replacement parking, and then reducing the affordable housing goals.

3:53:21Menlo Park: Councilmember Schmidt? Yeah, I would agree with Councilmember Taylor. I think both of those are… would be off my list. Because the, also, the affordable housing goals, again, it feels like the odd man out in this list.

3:53:35Menlo Park: And, you know, the builder's remedy is a real thing. I think we just discussed AD Willow for many, many closed sessions and got applause for the decision we made, so being off track of our housing element is not something I'm interested in anyway.

3:53:52Menlo Park: Thank you.

3:53:57Menlo Park: Councilmember Combs on Yeah, I mean, I don't… like… Again, given the… possible

3:54:10Menlo Park: tab that we have to pay. I don't know that I would take any off the table.

3:54:15Menlo Park: Again, especially because I think some

3:54:19Menlo Park: are, back to the framing I used initially, are not going to realistically generate much in the way

3:54:26Menlo Park: of revenue?

3:54:27Menlo Park: So, so it's hard for me to go and say, like, yeah, I would take any off the table?

3:54:33Menlo Park: As far as, like, trying to get this effort across the finish line.

3:54:39Menlo Park: But I, again, you know… I'm…

3:54:42Menlo Park: Happy to land wherever the consensus of the Council is landing.

3:54:49Menlo Park: Thank you.

3:54:51Menlo Park: I will, say I would take reducing the affordable housing goals off the table.

3:54:57Menlo Park: And…

3:55:02Menlo Park: I went into this discussion saying I would take… reduce the replacement parking requirement off the table, but after realizing that we are with some really hard choices, I personally would, leave that on, but if that is… if the majority of people, want to take it off, then I would.

3:55:21Menlo Park: I think that that would be…

3:55:24Menlo Park: That would be the way we'd go. The one thing that I… I am…

3:55:29Menlo Park: not in favor of at this point is I don't believe at this time we should be charging business owners for parking. So, however that falls in

3:55:41Menlo Park: these strategies, I would not charge business owners downtown.

3:55:46Menlo Park: At this point.

3:55:50Menlo Park: So I guess, right now.

3:55:55Menlo Park: There's been, I believe Councilmember Taylor suggested taking off 1 and 3.

3:56:03Menlo Park: The, replacement parking and affordable housing goals. Do not pursue that.

3:56:13Menlo Park: Councilmember Schmidt, are you on takeoff 1 and 3, or one or the other, or…

3:56:20Menlo Park: Yeah, that would be my preference. The only thing I would say with the replacement parking… I'm assuming we're going to get a more detailed plan back.

3:56:29Menlo Park: And if for some reason, number one is a variable that we have to kind of keep in play, then I think that's fair, although I probably still wouldn't support it. I would need to understand what the gap would be, where we would need to make harder decisions there, so I'm not pre-assuming harder decisions. I'd love to see a detailed plan.

3:56:45Menlo Park: Okay, I think this is… is there anything that we will not pursue?

3:56:49Menlo Park: further. Not that, you know, you will or won't support it in the future, it's that you don't think it's worth, having staff pursue this, so… I mean, 1 and 3 are the two that I don't think it may… we made promises on replacement parking, rightly or wrongly, and I think we need to keep them, and affordable housing doesn't feel like a… Okay.

3:57:10Menlo Park: I'm in agreement of taking off 1 and 3 from the table.

3:57:16Menlo Park: Okay, so I guess, 1 and 3 are now off the list.

3:57:22Menlo Park: So between… 2, 4, 5, and 6.

3:57:30Menlo Park: Does anyone have, Can we all rank them?

3:57:36Menlo Park: 4.

3:57:39Menlo Park: Okay.

3:57:40Menlo Park: Sure. I would… Say I'm definitely interested in seeing…

3:57:46Menlo Park: A draft around a local sales tax measure.

3:57:53Menlo Park: the… and then what we discussed earlier, reduce downtown… number two, reduce downtown parking demand through demand management techniques. And then.

3:58:01Menlo Park: I'm gonna kind of lump… 4 and 5 together, just because

3:58:08Menlo Park: I just… I'm still… would need a little bit more color around that, because it seems like there's a lot of flexibility within them. Like, yes, I don't want to charge the business owners, but would be in favor of paying for parking. I also, would like to learn more about

3:58:25Menlo Park: not necessarily in favor of it, but I just would like to learn more about the, business…

3:58:31Menlo Park: I forget what it was called earlier, the business development improvement, or whatever. Sorry, I'm looking at the city manager for the words.

3:58:41Menlo Park: Yeah, business… Oh, thank you. Yes, yeah, especially because, again, I'm always getting comments saying, like, why can't we be Burlingame? So if that's something that's worked there, they're a very similar city to us, so would be interested in hearing about that.

3:59:02Menlo Park: Since I didn't take anything off, like I said, I think everything has to be in play, then I wouldn't…

3:59:09Menlo Park: I wouldn't engage in the exercise of ranking them.

3:59:13Menlo Park: But I've already shared which ones I think.

3:59:16Menlo Park: are likely to produce some revenue and are unlikely to produce some revenue, and so I'm on the record there.

3:59:27Menlo Park: So, I would rank them as, I think we've got to do demand management, parking management, although, again, that's not to do it for the sake of revenue.

3:59:41Menlo Park: I think we need to do that for the sake of how we manage our parking. So I would put that first, although, again, not to do financing.

3:59:52Menlo Park: Although, if it works for financing.

3:59:57Menlo Park: That's another benefit. I would put the passive local sales tax next.

4:00:02Menlo Park: And then, I'm also very interested in 4 and 5, and I…

4:00:12Menlo Park: guess I would go for 4. Again, not charging business owners, but looking at, how we could…

4:00:21Menlo Park: Repay charging for parking. And, the enhanced… Infrastructure Financing District.

4:00:35Menlo Park: Yeah, I, I also don't want to rank them because I think

4:00:38Menlo Park: Item 4 is a weird amalgamation of things that I don't think we're all fully aware of, so the fact that you keep bringing up the accession of business just worries me, so I…

4:00:49Menlo Park: you know, I think I made my case that I want to pay for downtown parking, and I'd be open to a sales tax, given the things that the city team has to balance as well, so I… before ranking them, I would just rather see a few more details, a few more… a little more clarity on what this list actually looks like, because I don't think…

4:01:08Menlo Park: ranking is gonna help that, that much, frankly. So, need a little more detail.

4:01:20Menlo Park: Councilmember Taylor.

4:01:22Menlo Park: Do you have nothing to add? Okay.

4:01:26Menlo Park: Vice Mayor Wise?

4:01:28Menlo Park: Okay, I'm gonna scare the city manager, but I have a question and a different idea.

4:01:33Menlo Park: I… I'm not saying I support this, I'm just saying it might be interesting to get more information around it. I am very frequently asked at office hours by residents about a vacancy tax, for vacant buildings in downtown, and I never have anything to tell them because I don't have any information about it. So again, not saying that

4:01:55Menlo Park: I'm supporting it, I just would love to learn more.

4:02:02Menlo Park: you So I'd now like to,

4:02:08Menlo Park: Well, actually, I guess one other comment is, for related to ALTA, definitely look at the higher cross, subsidy, given the returns.

4:02:20Menlo Park: And understanding that nonprofits also need to have some

4:02:24Menlo Park: funding, but it sounded… from the report, it looked like they, right now, have a very high rate of return compared to, what you regularly see. So, and I guess just generally.

4:02:36Menlo Park: It did.

4:02:37Menlo Park: Talking to each of the.

4:02:40Menlo Park: Each of the developers, about how they think they could

4:02:47Menlo Park: Reduce their funding, gaps.

4:02:52Menlo Park: I will also say that I talked to, or I text… I emailed with.

4:02:59Menlo Park: with Presidio Bay, and they said that they're Units would be deed restricted.

4:03:06Menlo Park: And I believe they had some funding that they were looking at, which I believe has been passed along, that would be interesting to, learn more about, but just what… how they… what their funding ideas are for that.

4:03:30Menlo Park: So… We have two other questions.

4:03:36Menlo Park: One is whether or not to keep Presidio Bay.

4:03:40Menlo Park: In the running, given the…

4:03:43Menlo Park: need to… for staff to look at, a different way of looking at surplus lands. I will say that I… I think at this point, it is worth keeping all three in the running, but I'm interested in… and, my understanding is that it is not a huge lift for staff.

4:04:01Menlo Park: to, which I guess I will confirm, to look at… Betsy, Mayor, I want to just, like, get my head wrapped around one thing.

4:04:12Menlo Park: the discussion that the Council, I think, just wrapped up about trying to address the funding gap.

4:04:19Menlo Park: And part of that funding gap gets to, kind of, I'll say, like, the focus was sort of on parking.

4:04:26Menlo Park: The majority of the council didn't want to reduce affordable housing goals? Okay. Is that totally independent?

4:04:34Menlo Park: from

4:04:35Menlo Park: where you're now embarking on, which developers to consider, and whether the, you know, separate Surplus Land Act exemption?

4:04:45Menlo Park: So…

4:04:46Menlo Park: I saw, my understanding was that we, yes, wrapped up the strategies, and that, in fact, there was a majority of council who did not want to pursue, reducing the replacement parking requirement, and also reducing the affordable housing goals.

4:05:04Menlo Park: So those two were off the table, but the others were on in addition to just

4:05:10Menlo Park: Generally talking to the… developers and possibly looking at getting more information about a vacancy tax, and Councilmember Council.

4:05:28Menlo Park: So, okay, I'm getting, And thank you for the, kind of recap.

4:05:36Menlo Park: I'm now recognizing that we're transitioning to another part of the meeting, and kind of looking at one of the three developers that did not

4:05:46Menlo Park: Meet the affordable housing goals.

4:05:48Menlo Park: And so I just wanted to…

4:05:50Menlo Park: Confirmed, is the council still interested in considering that developer, kind of.

4:05:56Menlo Park: as a totally separate issue than what was just discussed related to closing the funding gap? I saw that as a separate issue, yes. Okay.

4:06:05Menlo Park: But if that… if that were… I just want to make sure that if… Thank you. And that, again, if the outcome of a process

4:06:15Menlo Park: Is indeed that the, affordable housing goals are not met.

4:06:22Menlo Park: then that aspect's okay? I think if I can chime in, City Manager Murphy, I think the extent to which, at one point, we make a selection as it relates to the respondents to the RFP, it's…

4:06:37Menlo Park: How much are we choosing a team, and how much are we choosing the exact project?

4:06:43Menlo Park: that they presented. And so, if… it's how fungible the council and the staff and those developers think their actual project is.

4:06:54Menlo Park: Because maybe we, like Presidio Bay, as the team and their track record.

4:07:01Menlo Park: But might come to them and say, you know what? There are certain aspects of Alliance proposal that we really like. How open are you to, pivoting your project to… to fit that? And so, if you… if you see that as

4:07:16Menlo Park: It's the team's…

4:07:18Menlo Park: and the projects are more fungible than, I think, this distinction that the Council seems to be making.

4:07:23Menlo Park: seemed logical. But if you're like, no, the project that presented, is the project, then…

4:07:31Menlo Park: it lacks logic, or it's illogical for us to keep our housing goals the same, and possibly keep Presidio

4:07:40Menlo Park: Bay in contention. I would have to say that, like, yes, I'm in favor of keeping Presidio Bay in contention, but then I also was not one who said that I was unwilling to reduce the affordable housing goals, and so, for me, it all aligns.

4:07:55Menlo Park: I saw the, so I am also in favor of keeping Presidio Bay in contention, and also talking with them.

4:08:04Menlo Park: But… and I saw the, strategy of reducing the affordable housing goals Beyond what we already know.

4:08:12Menlo Park: that it would, so in addition to what the current proposals are. Okay, yeah, that's a big help, so if we can just get that confirmation across the other council members that, weighed in the same way as you, that's a big clarification. That would be helpful.

4:08:28Menlo Park: Is that okay?

4:08:30Menlo Park: Did you see reducing the housing

4:08:35Menlo Park: Or was it? Reducing the housing.

4:08:40Menlo Park: Reducing the housing affordability.

4:08:43Menlo Park: Did you see that as a separate issue, where we were talking about reducing the housing affordability of the current proposals in order to possibly, reduce the funding gap, or did you include

4:09:00Menlo Park: Presidio Bay in that group. In other words, the bottom line is, do you still want to continue with

4:09:07Menlo Park: Presidio Bay, in addition. Yeah, that's a simpler question. Yeah, I think we need to consider… keep them in contention. I…

4:09:14Menlo Park: I looked at the affordable housing as a way to reduce the funding and parking gap, and that felt weird to me, right? I mean, we still may need to juggle our affordable housing numbers to hit our overall goals, which I think is totally relevant, but to use it to

4:09:28Menlo Park: to save costs for a developer to then pay for, you know, more parking felt weird. That is how I looked at it as well. Councilmember Taylor? Okay. So, yes, across the board.

4:09:42Menlo Park: Yes. So, is there, well, I guess we have 3 right now to continue with Presidio Bay. Does anyone else want to have any…

4:09:51Menlo Park: Comments one way or another?

4:09:52Menlo Park: Yeah, okay.

4:09:56Menlo Park: And just confirming that that is,

4:10:01Menlo Park: A reasonable lift for staff to look into.

4:10:06Menlo Park: what that would entail from a, surplus lands. Yeah, so I'll look into other staff to confirm. I think it's a reasonable lift. I think the key thing that Mr. Smith might, prompt you for is the sequence, of when that happens.

4:10:21Menlo Park: I think that that's helpful for us, like, whether you want to run that down first, and then sequentially go to the next, or…

4:10:29Menlo Park: what happens concurrently, because things that are done concurrently will then affect our timeline, so I think…

4:10:34Menlo Park: The amount of effort to run down that surplus lands exemption is manageable, it's just a matter of when we do that and what sequence.

4:10:48Menlo Park: That's correct.

4:10:51Menlo Park: Pursuing the alternate exemption.

4:10:54Menlo Park: would be manageable for staff. It's the… the additional time period that we need to interact with HCD to confirm that exemption declaration.

4:11:06Menlo Park: Would add a little bit of time to the process, so if you would like for us to continue with the evaluation of all three proposals, assuming that Presidio Bay, the exemption that we're… we would look at for that gets

4:11:21Menlo Park: approved, or we have that declaration that we can make, then we could continue to move forward evaluating all three proposals. If you would like for us to wait until we hear from HCD and get confirmation that we could, use that exemption path.

4:11:39Menlo Park: Then, it would be at least 30 days.

4:11:44Menlo Park: Additional, before we would Then potentially come back to you with.

4:11:48Menlo Park: The updated, comprehensive review that would incorporate all the ones that we know are for sure eligible.

4:11:57Menlo Park: So, the idea is, you believe it's eligible, but it has to go through an HCD approval process, and do we want to continue along this path, just assuming that it will be

4:12:11Menlo Park: Approvable, until we make… a decision on…

4:12:16Menlo Park: As opposed to knowing for sure that it is. Right. But the… but…

4:12:23Menlo Park: The likelihood is your, is that it would be…

4:12:29Menlo Park: It appears to meet the requirements of the alternate exemption path, but we wouldn't know for sure until HCD can confirm.

4:12:38Menlo Park: that for us. In the alternate, exemption path, it looked like, do we have to open up the…

4:12:46Menlo Park: Parcels, then, to other

4:12:49Menlo Park: Developers, and it… would it only be for affordable housing, or how do… in other words, are we…

4:12:58Menlo Park: Is there anything else we should be considering?

4:13:00Menlo Park: Yes, you do have to send it to a list of developers that indicated interest to HCD, for affordable housing, and we did do that very early on in the process. We… when we first sent out the RFQ, the RFPs.

4:13:18Menlo Park: We completed that process, so just be, essentially verifying that. All those parameters were met with HCD.

4:13:26Menlo Park: And if anyone else was interested, they would still have to meet our requirements.

4:13:33Menlo Park: Correct.

4:13:34Menlo Park: Thank you.

4:13:39Menlo Park: I mean, any… Comments? I would…

4:13:43Menlo Park: I would say I am comfortable moving ahead with the process, not having staff go down, work with HCD at this point, which would divert.

4:13:53Menlo Park: resources.

4:13:55Menlo Park: Yeah, just to be clear, we would… we would pursue both at the same time. We would reach out to HCD with the alternate path, and then also proceed with the comprehensive

4:14:06Menlo Park: review of the three proposals that we would bring back to you while we continue to work on that, potentially, with HCD, if we don't have confirmation by that. So either way, the staff… there's… it's a resource

4:14:18Menlo Park: issue, but one way we just… would we wait? And so, are you saying it's not a huge resource issue, is what I'm hearing? Yes, I think it'd be manageable, it's just about whether Council prefers to know

4:14:29Menlo Park: 100% for certain before that comprehensive review of all the proposals, or if you're comfortable with maybe a degree of uncertainty there, if it's not resolved by that time.

4:14:41Menlo Park: Does… I mean…

4:14:43Menlo Park: I'm personally comfortable with a degree of uncertainty. Yes, okay. Yes, we are comfortable with a degree of uncertainty. Thank you for clarifying that.

4:14:56Menlo Park: And then the other, question that we have in front of us is factors to include in the final evaluation of the proposals preceding the selection stage.

4:15:11Menlo Park: And I guess, Correct.

4:15:16Menlo Park: Do you have any comments on that as we.

4:15:22Menlo Park: And was there a slide, or is it just in the report?

4:15:26Menlo Park: the list of evaluation. There we go.

4:15:30Menlo Park: City Clerk Karen, could you please put the proposed comprehensive evaluation factors Slide up.

4:16:09Menlo Park: Before we get into this slide, what is it that will actually get us over the finish line? That will…

4:16:15Menlo Park: You know, we need the evaluation.

4:16:18Menlo Park: comprehensive evaluation, factors.

4:16:23Menlo Park: What is it, do you need other direction from staff as far as for negotiating for… from staff, from Council, as far as.

4:16:35Menlo Park: Any other parameters that actually… Can get us somewhere without, prolonging, anyway, to shorten this timeframe at all.

4:16:50Menlo Park: I think these are the main items that we need, was the confirmation about the exemption path and the…

4:16:56Menlo Park: comprehensive evaluation. The discussion that you just had regarding

4:17:02Menlo Park: filling the funding gap and continuing those conversations, I think that that can all continue, sort of, on the same path with all of these things, and we'll report back to you as we have more information to share, more, that we've evaluated. But I think those are the three main components that

4:17:22Menlo Park: that I can think of that we would want to provide to you to help you make the most informed decision.

4:17:28Menlo Park: Can you explain the three main components again, please?

4:17:32Menlo Park: Yeah, it would… it would just be, having that exemption path buttoned up.

4:17:38Menlo Park: Giving you the comprehensive evaluation according to all the factors that we've listed, and making sure we didn't miss anything that you're especially interested in.

4:17:46Menlo Park: And then any information that we can provide about some of the discussion that just happened around financing or discussions with developers about how to fill that gap, potentially, that we can put together for you before, we would return for that, that

4:18:06Menlo Park: Ultimately, the idea of selecting a development team.

4:18:14Menlo Park: Councilmember Schmidt. Can I… can I ask a quick question? Because I… and you may not have an answer, and that's okay, but it would be good to…

4:18:22Menlo Park: get some thinking. I generally agree with

4:18:26Menlo Park: you know, these 6 things, but, often I think it's hard to…

4:18:31Menlo Park: It's hard to understand it without something like a weighted prioritization

4:18:37Menlo Park: sort of approach, so… could you talk a little bit about… as opposed to just listing these in the longest document we've ever seen, could you talk about, like, how you could help us

4:18:49Menlo Park: What are you thinking as far as a tool to help us

4:18:52Menlo Park: Wait and prioritize and kind of sort through these because I know certain things matter more to me.

4:18:59Menlo Park: But if they're really low in a waiting kind of a structure for the city, then

4:19:04Menlo Park: that'll influence a lot of the discussion. So I'm just curious about

4:19:08Menlo Park: The tool beyond just a bunch of pages of information.

4:19:13Menlo Park: We haven't considered a specific weighting for that, but I would say, ultimately, with the goal of meeting our housing element program.

4:19:24Menlo Park: Those first couple of,

4:19:29Menlo Park: bullets that you see there complying with the program H4G requirements, which sets the 440… 345, minimum affordable housing units.

4:19:39Menlo Park: It does specify that in that program that we should give additional weight towards proposals that provide the most affordable housing at the deepest affordability.

4:19:50Menlo Park: And any proposals that include housing for special needs. So, that would be, I think, first and foremost, something that would… would carry a lot of weight to make sure that we're meeting our housing element goals.

4:20:04Menlo Park: I think the other main things of note would be.

4:20:09Menlo Park: our other RFP development objectives that City Council came up with during that process, and that's looking more broadly beyond just those, like, do you have the 345 plus units? Do you have.

4:20:24Menlo Park: like, your qualification for your Surplus Land Act exemption. That's getting into more of, like, what kind of project

4:20:32Menlo Park: do you want… what type of development do you want to see downtown, and what kinds of, basic factors will it provide? And then, obviously, given

4:20:42Menlo Park: the amount of community interest and feedback that's received, I think we would place some weight on that as well. We did have a survey that was conducted as part of the May open house. We have not shared those results yet, but we would tabulate those. It did include factors such as, based on public

4:21:03Menlo Park: experience of walking around the developer stations, kind of where their preferences lied, what they thought were the most important factors as part of choosing a proposal. So, I think there will be some helpful information in that as well.

4:21:18Menlo Park: I think those are the main things that I would consider towards waiting.

4:21:22Menlo Park: So, are you looking for a general feedback now, and then the staff will go off and actually do the evaluation and come back to us based on that, or…

4:21:33Menlo Park: Because I kind of generally agree with your weighting, but I also know, you know, we can tend to be all over the place, including myself in that comment, so…

4:21:43Menlo Park: you know, do you… based on that, like, rough waiting, you got… the staff will go back and actually come back with a… Here's number one, here's number two, here's number three. Is that what's gonna happen next?

4:21:58Menlo Park: Staff, we haven't contemplated coming back with, sort of, like, a recommendation for one or the other. The way that we had envisioned it was…

4:22:10Menlo Park: laying out very clearly, side by side, here are the three proposals. They each offer something a little bit different. They each, as we've discussed, have strengths, challenges, potential gaps.

4:22:24Menlo Park: And so the goal would be just to make it very clear what those distinctions are between the three, and then giving that to City Council as a tool to ultimately allow you to make the selection.

4:22:39Menlo Park: Thank you.

4:22:42Menlo Park: I actually, like that approach, and I would.

4:22:46Menlo Park: prefer not to have a numeric system. The system that was, the comparison of proposal strengths and risks that

4:22:54Menlo Park: strategic economics put together, which is in the heat map, I thought was very, very helpful, and I find it preferable to, any sort of numeric

4:23:07Menlo Park: information and, because this… anyway, I thought that…

4:23:15Menlo Park: That is how I think it would be, rayford.

4:23:20Menlo Park: Does anyone have any additional, Evaluation factors that they'd like to see.

4:23:31Menlo Park: Councilmember Taylor, did I… No.

4:23:40Menlo Park: Alright, I've got, I would like to see something about, what…

4:23:49Menlo Park: Similar projects, has the team that is being presented to us accomplished?

4:23:54Menlo Park: Using specifically the group that we would be working with. Certainly, individuals have very good resumes, but what has the team that's,

4:24:05Menlo Park: Making the proposal.

4:24:07Menlo Park: accomplished together? What is their track record?

4:24:14Menlo Park: And, at what stage, you know, what are the projects, and at what stage are the various projects?

4:24:24Menlo Park: That they are, saying are similar.

4:24:28Menlo Park: And bottom line, what have they… what have they been able to deliver that's similar to us with a team that's.

4:24:37Menlo Park: the team that's been being proposed? And if it's not exactly the team, how does that vary?

4:24:42Menlo Park: So we have, A comfort as to that.

4:24:49Menlo Park: what happens.

4:24:52Menlo Park: And also, how does each developer, and this was in the proposals, but I'd like to have it pulled out a little bit more, how each developer considers the phasing, and how they would support downtown businesses during the construction?

4:25:25Menlo Park: Are there other… Comments?

4:25:28Menlo Park: Clear.

4:25:30Menlo Park: All right, so at this point, do you feel like you have enough information, and could you sort of summarize it back to us, please?

4:25:42Menlo Park: Sure. Thank you for the discussion, the clarifications this evening. So, what I have here is sort of our…

4:25:52Menlo Park: next steps forward would be to keep Presidio Bay in the running. We're going to proceed with

4:26:02Menlo Park: The exemption path.

4:26:04Menlo Park: With HCD.

4:26:05Menlo Park: That would allow them to continue in the process. We will evaluate all three proposals from Alliant, Presidio Bay, and related Ulta.

4:26:15Menlo Park: In the comprehensive evaluation,

4:26:20Menlo Park: We'll keep it more as, that heat map format that you mentioned, avoiding, like, specific, numerical, but giving general comparisons.

4:26:31Menlo Park: And some additional evaluation factors would be looking at similar projects that have been accomplished by the specific team making the proposal, their track record, and where those current stages of each of those projects are.

4:26:47Menlo Park: essentially, what have they been able to deliver together as a team? And then, pulling out and sort of highlighting more the phasing and downtown business support for each of the proposals.

4:27:03Menlo Park: Any other… Comments? Okay.

4:27:10Menlo Park: Yes.

4:27:11Menlo Park: As you go into working with each of the teams and, talking to them about

4:27:19Menlo Park: Where they might be able to, partner with more funding, things like that.

4:27:26Menlo Park: Is there anything you need from us? And also just, I guess certainly with Presidio Bay, if there's any… ability to deepen their affordability, that would certainly be…

4:27:39Menlo Park: Desirable.

4:27:46Menlo Park: Any other thoughts that… okay.

4:28:04Menlo Park: One additional clarification, if, if, We could…

4:28:09Menlo Park: Get your feedback on whether or not to include additional information about financing strategies with the…

4:28:19Menlo Park: comprehensive evaluation of the proposals. Do you want to see those together, or.

4:28:26Menlo Park: have an update, or end up on… are you fine if they end up on separate tracks? Maybe a little bit of clarity around that would help us.

4:28:37Menlo Park: What is the difference in timing?

4:28:46Menlo Park: So I think evaluation of the funding strategies and sort of taking into account .

4:28:52Menlo Park: what City Council shared this evening, what's been removed from the list, additional things that have been discussed.

4:28:59Menlo Park: It may… it might take us, a little bit of time to gather more information on those particular topics. I think in the staff report.

4:29:09Menlo Park: For the comprehensive evaluation, we were targeting Late October for that,

4:29:16Menlo Park: I think it could potentially take us longer to really get a good grip on some of the funding strategies and give you a little bit more meat with those.

4:29:30Menlo Park: So I think the evaluation feel confident about that one.

4:29:34Menlo Park: Funding strategies, potentially could use a little more time.

4:29:40Menlo Park: To get all of that information.

4:29:49Menlo Park: Councilmember Taylor.

4:29:51Menlo Park: Thank you, Mayor Nash, and thank you, Mr. Smith. I'm comfortable with your recommendation. If you need more time for the funding strategies, to me, that makes a lot of sense.

4:30:04Menlo Park: Do you… would you be interested in seeing the… individual, the…

4:30:11Menlo Park: Comprehensive, evaluation of all the different

4:30:17Menlo Park: of the developers prior to… if the, do you want to separate them or keep them together? It's whatever works best for staff, I'm comfortable with.

4:30:31Menlo Park: Any, Councilmember Sprint? Just a clarifying question, just to make sure, I don't, I don't misinterpret it, so… If, if.

4:30:43Menlo Park: If what we were talking about just now came back a little bit earlier than the funding.

4:30:47Menlo Park: Would the next step be down-selecting to one developer? Because I wouldn't feel comfortable down-selecting without the funding discussion.

4:30:57Menlo Park: So I just want to make sure I understand the process.

4:31:01Menlo Park: Sure, that… that… I think, yes, that's a valid…

4:31:06Menlo Park: concern about having all the information in front of you. I think we would need… honestly, I think we would need to regroup a little bit to get a good handle on timing for that funding.

4:31:17Menlo Park: Strategy, but I think what we could say here is if… if you really want to see both of those pieces of information together, then we would bring those both to you at the soonest possible time that we could complete both of them, rather than

4:31:31Menlo Park: doing the evaluation a little bit in advance, and then giving you that, but then you wanting the additional piece before you're comfortable making a decision. So we could do that rather than splitting the approach, but it may take…

4:31:46Menlo Park: we'd have to look at the timing, but it… my only caveat would be it may take us a little bit longer than late October in order to bring that all to you together.

4:31:57Menlo Park: How about if we, actually… I was just gonna confirm, it would take longer than late October, so just, that's a definitive, it would take longer, totally fair, makes sense to keep it together, it just, it would take longer than late October.

4:32:12Menlo Park: I hate to ask this, but any idea how much, I mean, are we talking

4:32:16Menlo Park: Would we hit the November meetings, or are we…

4:32:20Menlo Park: I wouldn't rule out November at this point in time. I would just… I did want to just rule out the late October. That was my most important part. Is it something where you need an answer tonight, or can we keep tabs on it as we, on the tentative agenda and continue to monitor it?

4:32:35Menlo Park: And make a decision.

4:32:38Menlo Park: In terms of when it comes back? Yeah, whether it comes back together, or, is there a different timeline, for the staff working on it, whether or not we say Together or separate?

4:32:54Menlo Park: Or is it something where we can keep tabs on?

4:32:58Menlo Park: When it's… if… when one is ready, and how quickly the other one… how far behind the finance… financial…

4:33:06Menlo Park: piece would be. I guess what would be helpful is if the majority of the council thinks it's best to be kept together, that should be our goal, and then if something comes up, we'll report out.

4:33:16Menlo Park: Along the way, as opposed to trying to…

4:33:20Menlo Park: keep tabs of too many moving pieces at once, but I think if… what's most helpful is if the Council leaves, it's best to try to keep the two things together, then we would just regroup on what that timeline looks like.

4:33:32Menlo Park: But sorry, just to thank you, that helps.

4:33:36Menlo Park: two clarifying questions on the process, then. So I'm looking at the tentative next steps in one of the decks, and then…

4:33:43Menlo Park: is this really closely aligned to our housing element deadline? So if we did integrate them, does it start to throw us a little further off track relative to housing element deadlines?

4:33:55Menlo Park: And then also the adoption of the Surplus Land Act.

4:33:59Menlo Park: And the proposal… I must… I really would want to see the financing thing before… Crossing a line that we can't cross back over.

4:34:11Menlo Park: Let's see, so as, we're happy to pull up the H4G, and I think there's even some statements earlier this evening that the milestones listed there were not

4:34:23Menlo Park: not, meeting those. I think a difference of a week or two here or there in the big picture is not gonna… not gonna make or break.

4:34:33Menlo Park: in terms of some of the other milestones coming up, I can go to the end. Approving the DDA, that for sure is a no-go. I think it's important for the Council and the community to feel, confident about.

4:34:53Menlo Park: embarking on the exclusive negotiating agreement, because, that's where we're then focused on a single developer. So I think it's important before

4:35:02Menlo Park: launching into that, that, people feel like that's… we've… we've, selected the best… best developer. So if it needs a few more weeks here or there to select the best developer, then that's… that's,

4:35:16Menlo Park: That, that's a good, good investment.

4:35:26Menlo Park: Okay, so maybe just one other thing to… is that helpful that we'll be, keeping the, the, the, the…

4:35:34Menlo Park: Analysis of the, funding strategy, Together with the evaluation of the.

4:35:43Menlo Park: proposals we will be submitting for the HCD analysis, or the… we'll be submitting the…

4:35:50Menlo Park: Surplus Land Act exemption alternate to HCD concurrently. I think one thing that would be helpful for me, there was the request to kind of, I think.

4:36:02Menlo Park: ask the developers for some additional information related to the funding gap. I want to see if that's, like, an explicit request, because then we would want to formally frame that to the developers, give them two weeks time frame, ask them to submit, and that could be part of the staff evaluation. So, I would think that we would have

4:36:20Menlo Park: the time to fit that into the schedule, but I think it needs to be an explicit ask, and, like, we're not… we're not negotiating with the developers. I want to make that clear to people. We're trying to be very systematic about how we're getting information from them, so I think the best way to do that would be to put that request out to them and ask them to submit in a couple weeks.

4:36:41Menlo Park: Yes. Does that work?

4:36:46Menlo Park: I mean, I guess at this point, I would like to just make sure from the developers if there's any changes to their proposal that they want to alert us to, if there's anything that they can do to, to meet our, requirements even more closely than they currently are.

4:37:04Menlo Park: And, yes, what they can do, for the funding gap, and where they would, want to partner with the city, realizing that, you know, this is a partnership, not just…

4:37:19Menlo Park: A one-way street.

4:37:21Menlo Park: Yeah.

4:37:24Menlo Park: Any other… Comments?

4:37:27Menlo Park: Any clarifications or any more information?

4:37:32Menlo Park: No, that's very helpful. Thank you. This has been very, very helpful. I really appreciate all the… hard work.

4:37:41Menlo Park: That everyone's doing.

4:37:43Menlo Park: Thank you. And with that, unless there's anything else, no?

4:37:50Menlo Park: All right, we are adjourned. Thank you, and thank you to the public who has

4:37:55Menlo Park: Stayed through this whole meeting.