Get this historic property listed on the National and State registers. Sunset Magazine and books influenced American culture nationally. The Lane brothers were prescient and their work continues to impact how we live today.

Menlo Park residents get moving
and get the property listed ASAP. You need to stop this train wreck from happening.

How is this going to work on the creek bank? It’s on sand just there. I can’t imagine there’s a civil, soils or structural engineer would ever sign off on this. The weight of the buildings could not be supported by the soil.

You get what you vote for. Try voting differently (for someone/a political party other than Gov Newsom) if you want a different outcome than a skyscraper in your residential neighborhood.

Governor Newsom is enabling the use of Builders Remedy. How many of these residents now shocked at Builder's Remedy voted for Newsom and the Democratic Super Majority in the state capitol pushing this?

Read:
"NIMBYs beware: California’s builder’s remedy just got a powerful legal ally: Still a legal question mark, the builder’s remedy just got a big boost in court from Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta"
Web Link

"You get what you vote for. Try voting differently (for someone/a political party other than Gov Newsom) if you want a different outcome than a skyscraper in your residential neighborhood."

Try voting differently in local races. There are differences even among declared Democrats re the Builder's Remedy skyscrapers supported by Mark Berman and opposed by Palo Alto Mayor Lydia Kou.

Why Newsom / Bonta are so insistent on increasing high density and population at a time when we're soon to be forced to drink "toilet to tap" water during our "historic drought" is worth thinking about while you idle in traffic cursing out the bad bad NIMBY's who object to atrocities like this one.

Sue these people. HCD has an office in El Cajon - San Diego County. The San Diego County - South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant is in disrepair and allowing sewage to go into the whole lower San Diego bay area and beaches. The mayors of those cities are furious. Newsome said first not his problem. You can google this and see the problem.

California Water Boards throughout the state. Where is the one that treats the Menlo Park location? What is it's status?

Reading the book Palo Alto by Malcom Harris. It starts with a history of California and all of the people who have come into mine, build, and take over whole areas. The bay area is being gutted so that the land can be taken over by outside interest and this is just one of the ways to do it. Empty buildings are being sold for low amounts.

If we built all of the buildings that we are required to do then our whole infrastructure will collapse.

Make HCD justify how the buildings will be supported by the state owned systems.

Does anybody really think we are going to get much more than a few token affordable units built as a result of these developer written laws? The laws give developers almost compete control over cities for any project they want, but are quite meek in requiring developers to deliver much qualitatively once they obtain their over-the-top building permits.

Developers also benefit if they build more office space, which sets the bar higher for how much housing cities are required to produce. And, developers have the political power in Sacramento to block cities from becoming substantially compliant, thus preserving their builder's remedy gold mine.

The Bay Area absolutely has a housing crisis. But, these bills seem more like a libertarian capitalist developer's dream than something that is actually going to deliver substantial and quality affordable housing. Some may believe in the trickle down theory behind these laws, i.e., that giving total free rein to developers will produce lots of high-quality affordable housing. More likely they will just produce more glass towers and billionaire developers, and have a minimal or negative impact on our housing crisis.

Online Name and Forever Name offer great advice about voting.

Builder's Remedy is not likely to cease being an option for developers until they have tired of erecting massive projects in this highly desirable area. And that's not likely until they find themselves covering the costs of unsold and unleased properties.

I also think it unlikely that HCD will approve currently unapproved housing plans until those promoting projects regardless of impacts have achieved what they want and give the green light for approval. The tragedy in this is that the needs of those most in need of affordable housing are not being addressed. Put differently, developers, legislators, and those who enable them, are taking a "let 'em eat cake" attitude. Thorny social problems are usually associated with such hubris.

There are plenty of EMPTY buildings up and down the peninsula. City of Menlo Park just wants tax revenue. Besides, downtown PA is right next door. Nobody wants to hangout on Willow Road?

Richard's exactly right about all the empty buildings and office vacancies. Every day the San Francisco Chronicle has an article about how office vacancies have hit an historic high, that it has so many requests to change property assessments to reflect lower valuations that the city can't keep up and that many projects (offices and hotels) have gone into default.

Other cities are routinely covered for their innovative conversions of offices into residential but we're doing nothing like that. Why? Probably because those benefiting won't more Builder's Remedies and won't maximize profits from building the brand new buildings demanded by their deep-pocketed backers while blaming the bad bad NIMBY's for hurting their bottom lines.

So we'll keep see monstrosities like this being pushed counter to all logic and sense of place.

Do our "leaders" think we need more gridlock on Middlefield and approaches to 101?

(In case anyone missed it, Menlo Park spent the last several years and countless dollars "transforming" Middlefield by reducing the number of lanes from the Sunset site to Ravenswood. What great timing and coordination.

Remember that many years before that, the Menlo Park fire Chief kept issuing warnings that his folks couldn't make it to accidents on 101 because of all the gridlock.)

Berman’s Remedy AKA Builders Remedy is moot as Menlo Park has a certified Housing Element since December 20th.
Menlo Park residents still need to get the Sunset property listed on the historic property register. Density bonus could still kick in so even with HE trouble still menaces this treasured historic property.

If the application was submitted prior to the HE being adopted then it is possible for Builders Remedy AKA Berman’s Remedy to still be applied even though Menlo Park and other communities are opposed. Again, this historic property must be placed on the national and state registers.

There was a recent article where the Sunset site developer, a buddy of Putin's, defended the newly expanded project on the grounds that it provides 20% "affordable" housing.

Well, yea -- that's the STATE LAW so hardly a valid argument, especially since only 5% are truly low-income.

@M "Does anybody really think we are going to get much more than a few token affordable units built as a result of these developer written laws? "

First, its fascinating the the local PA and MP online papers compartmentalize readers so that MP commenters on the Almanacnews site are separated from PA commenters on the PAWeekly site for the exact same shared story. Enforced tribalism.

If you read comments on this exact same story on the Almanacnews site you will see MP commenters who do back-of-the-envelope calculations for jobs/housing numbers of the project that show the project creates a NET housing DECREASE, because at certain densities the jobs in the office, hotel, and retail components cannot be fully mitigated by the housing portion.

Best case, the project doesn't even mitigate its own on-site jobs.

Worst case, in certain high-job density scenarios its possible that the net housing DEFICIT created by the project would be enough to generate displacement of a number of low-income families that exceeds the number of low income families housed by the project.

We may find out what the City thinks. In settling a General Plan EIR lawsuit raised against MP by EPA, MP agreed to perform Housing Needs Assessments along with EIRs. These HNA's perform housing deficit and displacement analyses. The HNA for FB's Willow Village project showed a net displacement of 815 low -income families in the region.

While MP housing advocates were fawning over the housing component, the office component was creating net displacement of low-income families.

It's possible that DR projects still will undergo CEQA and therefore an HNA, and we will see in hard numbers whether or not these projects mitigate their own on-site employment and how much displacement they cause.

@ALB

According to a recent Almanac article the recent certification of the Menlo Park HE would not negate the Sunset application.

Unfortunately Paige may be right since the Builders/Berman's remedy application was originally submitted before the state finally approved MP's housing element so the first draft may stand. The developer is STILL trying to expand this even more.

Also totally agree with Paige's comments on different editions, especially since many of us spend more time shopping, going to concerts, dining etc beyond PA's borders.

"First, its fascinating the the local PA and MP online papers compartmentalize readers so that MP commenters on the Almanacnews site are separated from PA commenters on the PAWeekly site for the exact same shared story. Enforced tribalism.

If you read comments on this exact same story on the Almanacnews site you will see MP commenters who do back-of-the-envelope calculations for jobs/housing numbers of the project that show the project creates a NET housing DECREASE, because at certain densities the jobs in the office, hotel, and retail components cannot be fully mitigated by the housing portion."

And those comments are more objective and less likely to degenerate into simplistic name-calling.

How much time and money by different state agencies has been spent discussing the San Francisquito Creek? The Creek is directly next to the property. Have they been directed to shut up?

EPA is going to put their aging sewage system to a vote - who controls how it is updated? It is downstream from the property. Have they been told to shut up?

Menlo Park must have a sewage and water control system that supports X number of homes. Have they been told to shut up?

Is the city told to shut up? Why are all of these agencies that are directly impacted by the end result of all of this building shutting up?

SRI is down the street - why are they shutting up? This would tower over their ability to talk to satellites.

PGE is unable to provide underground electric generators until the end of 2024 - are they told to shut up?

WE could go on and list all of the agencies run by the state that will be impacted by this size of use.

Who is overjoyed? The companies that supply bathtubs, toilets, stoves, heating equipment, pipes for water, glass for windows, etc. Doesn't matter that you cannot turn it all on - just that they got paid to put it in. I bet they are contributing big time to this effort and the people who created this mess. I am concerned that so many state agencies are shutting up. Someone going to cut off their funding?