Menlo Park waives fee to restart review of West Menlo Triangle annexation

The Menlo Park City Council voted to waive the processing fee and authorize staff to begin work on a long-pending annexation application for the West Menlo Triangle, a roughly 14-acre unincorporated enclave adjacent to Menlo Park.

Assistant City Manager Stephen Stolte told the council the neighborhood is inside the city’s sphere of influence and that formal annexation would require multiple steps including a general plan amendment, pre-zoning to single-family (R1U), environmental review or a CEQA exemption determination, public hearings at the Planning Commission and City Council, tax-allocation negotiation with San Mateo County, and then a LAFCO process. "We've estimated all of the staff time that goes into those steps. It's about $60,000, in effort," Stolte said.

Multiple residents and officials spoke in favor. Greg Ferris, who identified himself as a neighborhood advocate, said residents have spent years organizing and showed petition results that he said indicate roughly 80% neighborhood support. "The city's stronger and more unified through annexation," Ferris said, adding that the area would bring about 65 homes into the city and roughly $200,000 per year in property taxes.

Dr. Marisola Escalera appeared on behalf of San Mateo County Supervisor Ray Mueller and said the county supports the annexation and collaboration with the city. Resident Kristen Kasai urged the council to approve the fee waiver to let staff run the fiscal analysis, saying a yes vote would not be a final annexation decision but would allow the city to "run the numbers." Other speakers, including Leah Rogers and Andrea Balen, echoed support and described long-running outreach.

Council discussion focused on staff capacity and timeline. Vice Mayor Wise said she is supportive but ultimately decided to vote no at this meeting because of concerns about the city's finite staff resources and competing high-priority projects; she said the item might be better scheduled after other major projects are further advanced. "I will be voting no, and the reason why is not because I don't think it's a worthy project... I really believe that this annexation should be a project that's possibly considered next year," she said.

Councilmember Combs said he views the annexation as a straightforward way to show city government can deliver and moved to waive the fee. The motion to waive the fee and begin staff processing passed; the council directed staff to report back on progress. The motion passed with Mayor Nash and City Councilmember Taylor recorded as absent during that vote.

Staff told the council that if the fee waiver is approved staff would assign a project lead and periodically report milestones and hours spent processing the application. Any formal annexation would require subsequent approvals, tax-allocation negotiations with the county and LAFCO review; a fee waiver simply authorizes the city to expend staff time to run the necessary analyses and steps.