Affordable housing on downtown parking lots

The City of Menlo Park is exploring the development of affordable housing on City-owned downtown parking lots. This initiative stems from the City's 2023-2031 Housing Element, which identified eight downtown parking lots as potential sites to help meet Menlo Park's regional housing needs allocation. Specifically, Housing Element program H4.G outlines a plan to develop at least 345 affordable housing units on a combination of downtown parking lot sites. The program aims to integrate affordable housing options in high-resource areas of the community while adhering to procedures consistent with the Surplus Land Act.

Downtown Business Community Informational Meeting

Date:         Nov. 14, 2024
Time:        8:30 a.m.
Location: Arrillaga Family Recreation Center, Sequoia Room
                  700 Alma St., Menlo Park, CA 94025

The City of Menlo Park invites the Downtown business community to attend an informational meeting about plans for downtown, with a focus on the potential development of affordable housing on Parking Plazas 1, 2, and 3. Attend to learn more about this opportunity and other projects to create a vibrant future for downtown Menlo Park.

Current Status

A feasibility study examining the physical attributes, easements, and potential land use issues of the eight downtown parking lots was released on August 22, 2024. On August 27, 2024, the City Council held a study session and provided feedback to consider the disposition of Parking Plazas 1, 2, and 3 for affordable housing development.

At a City Council meeting in fall 2024, the City Council will consider declaring the three selected City-owned parking lots exempt surplus land and review a draft document to solicit interest and qualifications from affordable housing developers.

 

Timeline

Select events in the project history are listed below, beginning with the most recent event.

On August 27, 2024, the City Council held a study session and staff received feedback to prepare a request for qualifications (RFQ) document to solicit interest from affordable housing developers for the redevelopment of Parking Plazas 1, 2 and/or 3. The RFQ is anticipated to be released in fall 2024, with the goal of identifying qualified developers to construct affordable housing and replacement public parking on one or more of the selected City-owned downtown parking lots.

The general project timeline outlined in the Housing Element is as follows:

2023 - Conduct feasibility study (Complete)
2024 - Issue request for proposals for affordable housing development
2025 - Complete development entitlements
2027 - Seek to complete development of 345 or more affordable housing units

Frequently asked questions

What could housing on the downtown public parking lots look like?

The City of Menlo Park’s Housing Element (2023-2031) identifies the City-owned parking lots within the downtown area as opportunity sites for new residential development, especially affordable housing to meet the City’s needs. During the preparation of the Housing Element Update, UC Berkeley approached the City about studying possible affordable housing developments on the City-owned public parking lots as part of a multi-disciplinary graduate level studio.

On May 4, 2023, the students presented their proposals at the James R. Boyce Housing Studio Symposium. The studio included three teams studying possible development patterns downtown with varying densities, architectural designs, funding sources, development timelines, and mix of affordable and market-rate housing units. While this effort by the UC Berkeley studio was independent of the City’s effort on its Housing Element Update, the findings and reports from the students serve as examples for the community and decision makers in helping to understand possible development patterns, constraints, and opportunities with the City’s public parking plazas downtown as the City embarks on the next stage of implementation of its housing element. The final reports from the teams outlining each conceptual project are available in the following list:

Related documents

This list will be updated as additional plans, studies, and reports become available throughout the project.

Contact us

Tom Smith
Principal Planner
Email

650-330-6730

  

 

Back to top