Environmental Impacts of The Downtown Redevelopment Plan

For the next 26 days, people in Menlo Park have the opportunity to comment on the environmental impact report for Menlo Park's downtown plan to revamp Santa Cruz Avenue and the El Camino Real corridor.

Menlo Park’s associate planner, Thomas Rogers, presented the recently released draft of the report to the Environmental Quality Commission at their June meeting. 

Rogers described the sections in the plan that had been determined to have significant and unavoidable environmental impacts on the town.

The redevelopment plan would have significant impact on air quality as the release of greenhouse gases and noise pollution would be greater from an increased number of residences, car trips and the short term effects of the construction process. The amount was not quantified in the EIR. 

Daniel Kocher, Environmental Quality Commisisoner, asked if the report included the effects of projects in nearby cities such as the Stanford Hospital expansion.  Rogers said it did. 

A public question came from consultant and educator Micheline Birkhead who asked Rogers if the draft EIR included studying alternative scenarios such as:  if the commercial space were reduced, would Menlo Park residents drive their vehicles to other nearby cities to make purchases, thereby increasing air pollution and releasing more green house gases?  Mr. Rogers responded that was not studied and was outside of the purview of the report.

The Planning Commison meeting on June 6th at 7 p.m. in the Council Chambers will provide an overview of the project, the draft EIR, the California Environmental Quality Act and will offer the public an opportunity to comment on the draft EIR in person.

The deadline to make comments on the report is June 20, 2011 at 5:30 pm.  Submit your comments via email to: throgers@menlopark.org. 

Here is the entire EIR on the redevelopment plan.