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Menlo Park Council declines an exemption to SB79, allowing the state transit-housing law to take effect July 1
Summary
After public comment from housing advocates and a lengthy Council debate about local planning control, Menlo Park’s City Council chose not to adopt a temporary exemption ordinance and agreed to let the state’s SB79 transit-oriented development defaults become effective on July 1, while asking staff to track impacts and return with options.
Menlo Park’s City Council debated whether to implement a temporary local exemption to California’s Abundant and Affordable Homes Near Transit Act (SB79) and ultimately opted to take no action on the staff’s proposed exemption, effectively allowing SB79 to take effect on July 1.
Assistant Community Development Director Kyle Parada summarized SB79’s tiered approach: for Tier 1 stops adjacent to pedestrian entrances the law allows up to 95 feet and as much as 160 dwelling units per acre (4.5 FAR); within a quarter mile it allows up to 75 feet, 120 dwelling units per acre and 3.5 FAR, subject to eligibility (minimum five units, average unit size caps and affordability rules). Staff proposed a temporary ordinance that would have excluded eligible sites in downtown and the El Camino Real sub-districts until Jan. 31, 2032 to give the city time to craft alternative TOD implementation plans.
Housing advocates urged the council to reject a local exemption and preserve the full SB79 pathway for housing near transit. June Shin of the Housing Leadership Council told the council the sites staff proposed to exempt are precisely the places the city has identified for housing and said the city should maximize every possible avenue to meet housing goals.
Councilmembers debated tradeoffs: some raised concerns about relinquishing local design and objective standards and asked whether municipality-level design standards could be preserved; others emphasized the risk of constricting future housing opportunities as regional needs and RHNA planning tighten. City Attorney Neera Doherty and staff clarified that SB79 preserves objective standards that do not preclude the density/intensity authorized by the law and that developers may also be eligible for state density-bonus concessions.
After extended discussion that weighed vision, housing-element obligations and community concerns, the council agreed to take no action on the temporary exemption ordinance and to let SB79 go into effect on July 1. Council members asked staff to monitor incoming SB79-eligible applications, report impacts, and return with implementation options and a possible TOD alternative plan for council consideration if warranted. No ordinance or local exemption was adopted at this meeting.
