Property Owners Meeting - March 18, 2026
Background - Alex Beltramo
The Lawsuit - David Lanferman
A Few Words - Richard Draeger
The Campaign - James Fisfis
Q&A / Open Discussion
2023-2031 Housing Element
By 2031, the City must have plans in place (zoning, permits, entitlements) to add 2,946 units of housing at different income levels.
Menlo Park listed the 8 downtown parking plazas as priority sites to add a minimum of 345 units of low & very low income housing. To do that, the City needs to declare the lots to be “surplus land.” They’d then lease them to a developer for $1/year.
We are not opposing the state mandates, only the choice of the downtown plazas.
Most Menlo Park residents believe that using the parking plazas for this purpose would devastate our businesses and the downtown along with it.
However, our city officials think its a good idea, and it’s their vision for Menlo Park. The main reason for that is a group called Menlo Together.
Menlo Together
Founded in 2018 and funded by Karen Grove.
For 8 years, they have been cultivating relationships at City Hall and getting like-minded residents to serve on commissions and city council.
They argue that the downtown lots are the right place for housing because: it’s close to transit, close to shopping, and they argue that it would be good for the downtown by creating foot traffic.
They almost got their way - but the January 14th meeting bought us more time.
January 14, 2025 Council Meeting
Originally planned to make the surplus land declaration and start seeking developer proposals via an RFQ (Request for Qualifications).
Because there was so much opposition, they decided to hold off on the Surplus Land declaration, which can be done later, but to continue on the path of developer proposals.
Since Then
2025
2025 was spent soliciting proposals. The City sent out an RFQ to develop a minimum of 345 units of low-income housing on plazas 1, 2 and 3 - asking that the developer provide replacement parking for the 556 spaces that would.
There were 7 responses, and the City issued an RFP to 6 of them. Of those 3 ended up submitting proposals in December. We think the others backed out because the cost to replace the parking was too high.
2026 Timeline from City Staff:
March/April - Developers present proposals to public
April/May - City Council chooses a developer
May/June - City Council makes surplus land declaration and begins developer agreement process
What We’ve Been Doing:
Lawsuit
&
Citizens’ Initiative
The Lawsuit
Over a year ago, thanks to the efforts of Kevin Cunningham and Vasile Oros, we were able to raise money from 180 donors to build a significant legal defense fund. We used
We then engaged David Lanferman, with Rutan & Tucker, who has been working on a similar issue for Palo Alto.
Our lawsuit was written and filed, and there were several meetings between our attorneys and the City.
The City has argued that the lawsuit is not ripe because the City has not done anything final yet, so we agreed to put the suit on hold. It’s ready to be renewed if the City takes the step of a surplus land declaration.
David Lanferman is here and will speak after me about the lawsuit.
Our Citizens’ Initiative
We engaged Jim Sutton, a political attorney also with Rutan & Tucker, to write a Citizens’ Initiative.
The initiative would create an ordinance that prohibits the City of Menlo Park from selling, leasing, declaring as surplus land, or repurposing any of the eight downtown parking plazas in a way that diminishes the availability or convenience of parking.
There’s a retroactivity clause going back to May of 2025.
50 volunteers, led by Van Kouzoujian, collected signatures from 15% of voters, well above the 10% required to qualify.
City Council voted unanimously to put it onto the November, 2026 ballot.
At that election, people will not be voting on a particular plan, but voting on whether or not Council generally has the right to repurpose the parking plazas without first getting voter approval.
The Ballot Measure Campaign
Last May, we created a Campaign Committee: Save Downtown Menlo: A Coalition of Residents & Local Businesses
We can have up to 6 members, and they are:
Alex Beltramo (resident)
Van Kouzoujian (resident)
Caitlin Darke (resident)
Richard Draeger (Draeger’s Super Markets)
Vasile Oros (Menlo Park Ace Hardware)
Jim Sutton (Attorney & Treasurer)
Last October, we hired an award-winning political strategist, Jamie Fisfis, to guide our campaign. He will be speaking later.
What’s Next
This Summer:
We expect Council will pick a preferred developer proposal.
They might also make surplus land declaration. However, we think that’s unlikely because it would be politically costly, and they’ve acknowledged that it would be undone if our ballot measure passes.
November:
Our ballot Measure gets voted on.
If we win, the Downtown Parking Plazas Ordinance will become law, which means that this current plan gets tabled until and unless Council wants to take their plan back to the ballot for another vote. If we win by a large margin, we think it’s likely that Council and the developers may give up on this plan.
Furthermore, the ordinance would provide long-term protection, so that we do not have to go through the same ordeal with future Councils and future Housing Elements.
If we lose, Council keeps its ability to do this on its own, and we will need to rely on factors that are less in our control, like developers not getting funding, fire safety or environmental issues proving insurmountable, replacing City Council members, and renewing our lawsuit.
And that leads us to our next speaker, David Lanferman, who will talk about our lawsuit.