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Letter: City would lose senior housing with demise of Glenwood Inn

Something must be terribly wrong with Menlo Park's Downtown Specific Plan if it encourages a developer to destroy a perfectly fine senior housing complex that a number of elderly residents have called home for years. The plan is to turn it into an upscale "residential" Marriott hotel for well-to-do traveling businessmen.

Weren't we just told we needed "affordable" housing for seniors near the downtown, close to transit and shops? Yet it seems that will be the first thing to go.

And where will these displaced seniors move to? Los Altos? And now the city, though parking is at a premium, proposes to give away public parking spaces to this new development.

Something is wrong with this picture. Why can't our city admit the downtown plan was a mistake, and put a freeze on it while they review it, taking public input seriously this time around. Neither the Glenwood Inn project nor the Stanford/Arrillaga project are good for the city. Let's retrench.

Cherie Zaslawsky Menlo Park downtown