The district

District 1

About 6,600 people live in District 1. Nearly two in five households speak Spanish at home, 2,403 residents were born outside the United States, and the median age is 32. Families who have been here for generations live alongside neighbors who arrived last year. Children here go to a mix of Ravenswood district schools, charter schools, private schools, and schools in other districts through the Tinsley transfer program. They swim at the Belle Haven pool, and grow up in a neighborhood whose churches, associations and block clubs have been carrying its case to City Hall for decades.

Geographically it is two places. Belle Haven is the residential half — about 1,100 single‑family homes and a commercial district of three acres. The Bayfront is the other half: the warehouses, the parking lots and the office campuses, on land the city rezoned in 2016. Both sit east of Highway 101, and there is no grocery store on this side of it.

These pages are the research behind that, kept public so anyone can check it. Every figure names its source, and where the record includes things this campaign disagrees with, it says so anyway.

Who is here nowDistrict 1 todayThe district by the census — majority Latino, three fifths renters, nearly half of those renters cost burdened — and then what residents themselves told the City they need, taken from the City's own record and reported whole. →The recordHow Belle Haven was segregatedCovenants written into the deeds, federal loan rules, the highway the NAACP called the Concrete Curtain, industrial zoning and the schools — with a source beside every entry, and the 1953 and 1961 survey maps side by side. →What the rules allowHow zoning decisions shape District 1Zoning is younger than most people think, and it can be changed. What ConnectMenlo rezoned in 2016, how much of it was for jobs rather than homes, and the commercial core that was permitted but never required. →What the state requiresMenlo Park’s housing planWhy Menlo Park has to plan for 2,946 new homes, whether the state has approved its plan, how the city is doing, and every housing development on one map, with how District 1's share compares. →When the state steps inThe builder’s remedy in Menlo ParkWhat the builder's remedy is, the two applications that claim it in Menlo Park, and the full story of 80 Willow Road, where the state says the city broke housing law. On September 29 the council said it won't approve by the developer's October 27 deadline, and on October 2 the developer sued. →Citywide, by the numbersPublic safety in Menlo Park, by the numbersCrime in Menlo Park year by year since 1985, with a map of police reports since 2018. What the police department told the council in May about burglaries, response times and staffing, the city's license plate readers, and how to report a crime. →What is being decided nowReimagine Dumbarton - Dumbarton Busway and Trail ProjectSamTrans wants to turn five miles of the disused Dumbarton rail line into a zero-emission busway with a paved trail beside it. The design is not settled, and public comment closes October 30. →Illegal dumping responseIt shouldn’t take a week to pick up a couchA couch dumped on the Ivy Drive median, reported to the city on September 13 and logged day by day until it was picked up nine days later, and what the city's own data shows about how long District 1 waits for a pickup. →Getting ready for El NiñoFlooding in District 1A very strong El Niño is forecast this winter. What it means at the edge of the Bay, which District 1 homes are in FEMA flood zones, and how to get ready, from free sandbags to flood insurance. →