Menlo Park To Scope Sites for Affordable Housing

The City of Menlo Park has a new body of appointed officials who will be assessing property in town to determine if they are appropriate sites for future affordable housing projects.

This summer, the new committee, dubbed the Housing Element Steering Committee, will be tasked primarily with bringing the city up to code on a very short time frame, said , development services manager for the city of Menlo Park.

"It's not ideal to do things over the summer, but we don't have a choice," Murphy said.

of Menlo Park in May for not having enough housing to accomodate the people who are employed in town. The state mandates that as a city welcomes new businesses into town, it must at minimum rezone land to accomodate housing for the employees who will work there.

The city settled out of court, agreeing to update the housing element of the city's general plan before March 2013.

"It doesn't mean that the city has to build housing," said
"But it needs to plan for it."

The new committee will be looking at housing sites to discern the impact that new residences would have on social servies such as nearby schools, fire and police departments, as well as water.

Anne G. Moser and Carolyn Clarke, Housing Commissioners, were appointed to the new committee during a meeting on Wednesday night in the City Administration building. They join two city councilmembers on the team, Andrew Cohen and Peter Ohtaki. Two planning commissioners Katie Ferrick and John A. O'Malley will also aid them in this endeavor.

Follow us on Twitter | Like our Facebook page | Get our daily newsletter | Blog for us