Understanding the problem
The problem

One program the City cannot deliver (and is behind on every deadline)

Menlo Park is on track with its certified Housing Element, with one exception. Program H4.G commits the City to 345 deeply affordable homes on the downtown parking plazas, on dates the state required before it would certify the element. Those dates have not held, the December 2025 bids showed they will not, the City’s September 2026 independent financial review confirmed it, and the homes are already approved or under review elsewhere.

Last reviewed: September 30, 2026 · Source: City of Menlo Park 2023–2031 Housing Element, certified March 2024

The problem in one paragraph

The state required dates. The City wrote them in. The program cannot meet them, and the City no longer needs it to, because the homes are already approved at Parkline and under review at the former USGS campus. Keeping Program H4.G in the certified element keeps the City exposed to a finding of non-compliance for no benefit. The remedy is to amend the program out and credit the sites that are already approved or under review. The proposed amendment does exactly that.

The state would not certify the program without them

In October 2022 the state’s housing department declined to accept the plaza program as written and required a schedule and a number. The City wrote them in, and the state certified the element in March 2024 on that basis. That is what makes Program H4.G a commitment the state can hold the City to.

“describe when the sites will be offered, when an RFP will be issued during the planning period and include a numerical objective.”HCD REVIEW LETTER TO THE CITY OF MENLO PARK, OCTOBER 21, 2022

It was predicted before the element was adopted

At the Council’s study session on the draft Housing Element, then-Councilmember Ray Mueller, now a San Mateo County Supervisor, raised the problem with the plaza program: the land is not free once the parking has to be replaced, and the numbers do not work. The December 2025 bids confirmed it. That is the exposure the amendment takes out of the certified element before it becomes the City’s liability.

Councilmember Ray Mueller, City Council study session on the draft Housing Element. 65 seconds.

The program against its own dates

Every row is quoted from the certified Housing Element. Each entry opens an image of the page itself. Statuses are as of the date above.

2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028
2029
2030
2031
Today
Program H4.G as printed on page 8-26 of the adopted Housing Element
Adopted Housing Element, Program H4.G, Goals, Policies and Programs p. 8-26. Captured from the City's certified January 2024 PDF (p. 342).

The state grades programs, not just permits

The City’s own July 2026 staff report says so: “Where a city does not implement adopted and certified housing element policies or programs, HCD can revoke its finding that the city’s housing element is in compliance.” Portola Valley lost its finding in March 2024 over unimplemented programs. Losing it would put Menlo Park back where it was from the start of 2023 until March 2024: open to the builder’s remedy, under which 80 Willow Road was filed. Program H4.G, with a 2025 date already missed and a 2027 date that cannot be met, is that exposure, carried for homes already approved or under review somewhere else.

Take the program out before the 2027 review, and credit what is replacing it

Program H4.U tells the City to identify alternative sites when a program falls short. They exist and are moving through the City’s process. The amendment records them, retires the plaza program, and adds a rule the certified element lacks: no single project’s failure can put the City out of compliance again. Started promptly, it is adopted before the 2027 review.

Read the proposed amendment

Sources