Apr. 29, 2025 - City Council public hearing

On display until September 30, 2025, 06:00 PM

A public hearing has been scheduled before the City Council of the City of Menlo Park, California, to review and consider an appeal of the Planning Commission’s approval of the following item:

Use Permit, Architectural Control, Below Market Rate (BMR) Housing Agreement, Environmental Review/3705 Haven, LLC/3705 Haven Ave.:

Consider a call-up by a City Councilmember of the Planning Commission’s decision to approve a use permit, architectural control and below market rate (BMR) housing agreement to demolish an existing single-story 10,361 square-foot commercial building, and construct an eight-story multi-family residential bonus-level development project with 112 units on a 0.66-acre parcel, located in the R-MU-B (Residential Mixed Use-Bonus) zoning district. The project would use the City’s bonus level development allowance for increases in density, intensity (gross floor area), and height in exchange for the provision of community amenities. Additionally, the proposed project would utilize benefits pursuant to the State Density Bonus Law, which include additional units along with incentives, concessions, waivers and parking reductions under Government Code §65915. Specifically, the State Density Bonus Law allows for an increase from 66 to 112 units. In addition, the State Density Bonus Law provides for waivers from development standards to increase the maximum height, increase the maximum floor area ratio (FAR), reduce the ground floor height requirement, reduce the ground floor transparency requirement, reduce the minimum number of parking spaces and modify parking stall dimension requirements, allow smaller BMR units, and deviate from building modulation requirements. Additionally, the State Density Bonus Law entitles the proposed project to up to three incentives; the project includes requests for incentives to not underground utilities along the project frontage, remove the requirement to dual-plumb the buildings for future use of recycled water, and to allow rents for moderate income BMR housing units to use the rental amount permitted by the Health and Safety Code without being subject to the City’s BMR Guideline requirement that BMR rents be limited to no more than 75% of market rents. To satisfy the City’s BMR Housing Program and Guidelines’ requirements, the proposed project would include a BMR housing agreement for a minimum of 15 percent of the base density units (10 units), affordable to seven very-low and three moderate income households. The BMR agreement would also apply to the project’s proposed three additional BMR units affordable to very-low income households as the community amenity in exchange for bonus level development and the project’s proposed one additional unit affordable to a moderate income household necessary to satisfy the requirements of the State Density Bonus Law. Together, the BMR agreement would apply to a total of 14 BMR units. The proposed project includes three development-related heritage tree removals, which the City Arborist has reviewed and conditionally approved. 

Si usted necesita más información sobre este proyecto, por favor llame al 650-330-6702, y pregunte por un asistente que hable español.

Visit the City’s website at menlopark.gov/agendas for the City Council meeting agenda and links to the public meeting staff report.