Downtown Parking Plazas
Ballot Measure
There should be community consent before any 5-person city council permanently transforms our downtown.
Our volunteers collected signatures from 15% of Menlo Park's registered voters—well beyond the 10% required. On December 2nd, 2025, the City Council voted unanimously to place our measure on the November 2026 ballot.
What Our Ballot Measure Does (and Does Not) Do
Our measure creates the Downtown Parking Plazas Ordinance, which requires voter approval before the City can sell, lease, declare as surplus land, or repurpose any of the eight downtown parking plazas. The City can still propose housing on the parking plazas - but voters must approve it.
The ordinance applies only to the publicly-owned, downtown parking plazas - it does not impact development anywhere else.
The ordinance does not apply to:
· Maintenance or improvements (parking structures, EV charging stations, renovations, etc.)
· Temporary events (farmers markets, festivals, etc.)
· Changes intended to preserve, improve, or expand parking availability, access, or convenience
Why It Matters
Here's why community members and business owners are supporting this initiative:
Van Kouzoujian, Menlo Park Resident
“Downtown Menlo Park works because it’s accessible. The Parking Plazas are the infrastructure that makes that possible. If the City wants to change their use, the community - not just City Hall - should make that decision.”
Vasile Oros, Owner of Menlo Park Ace Hardware
“People don’t just stumble into our storehey plan a visit. If they expect that parking will be difficult, they’ll go somewhere else. This initiative gives power to the people, so they can keep shopping in Menlo Park.”
Richard Draeger, Owner of Draeger’s Market
“Our market depends on customers being able to park nearby—especially older folks and families with kids. Loss of convenient parking poses an existential threat to businesses such as ours.”
Alex Beltramo, Menlo Park Resident
“This initiative simply says that any plan to repurpose the downtown parking lots must be approved by the voters. The plazas are public assets, and the public deserves a say before they’re lost forever.”
Lindsay Mickles, Downtown Property Owner
“I strongly support the Save Downtown Menlo ballot measure to give local voters the final say on the future of the downtown plazas. Our downtown tenants serve the residents of Menlo Park, who depend on convenient parking to access local shops. The whole ecosystem depends on those parking plazas, and I worry about the fate of our tenants if this decision is made without the approval of residents..”
Caitlin Darke, Menlo Park Resident
“As a real estate developer myself, I’m excited about ways Menlo Park can create more housing. But using the Downtown parking lots is a terrible idea. It would devastate our businesses.”
Mary Seaton, Woodside Resident
“Our family comes Downtown for everything—errands, lunch, grocery shopping, and church. I don’t want the City making irreversible changes without first asking the people of Menlo Park. That’s why I support this initiative.”
Is This Like Measure V?
Some have compared the Downtown Parking Plazas Initiative to Measure V, which voters considered in 2022.
The two measures address fundamentally different issues.
Measure V applied broadly to zoning rules across the city. The Downtown Parking Plazas initiative concerns the sale, long-term leasing, or repurposing of the eight publicly owned downtown parking plazas — not private property and not citywide zoning.
Declaring the plazas “surplus land” and transferring control to developers is not simply a zoning decision. It is a decision that fundamentally changes our downtown — and who controls it.
It is precisely because our initiative is limited to the eight downtown plazas — which are vital to the larger community — that so many residents believe it warrants direct voter approval. That is how it differs from Measure V.