One step closer to revitalizing Flood Park
Flood Park is an 86-year-old park in Menlo Park and one of seven projects in San Mateo County that was designated in 2020 for inter-county funding by the Santa Clara County Stanford Mitigation Fund (SMF). The SMF is restricted to projects that aim to mitigate the loss of recreational facilities for campus residents and facility users due to development on the Stanford University campus resulting from approval of the 2000 Stanford General Use Permit (GUP).
“Clearly, the impacts of the campus development extend beyond the County line,” said Simitian, whose District Five includes Stanford University. “I’m delighted Santa Clara County can make this contribution, which will help Flood Park become an ever-better recreational amenity.”
A 2015 assessment of the Park revealed that many of its features and infrastructure required repair or replacement; simultaneously, demand grew from the community for additional uses and sports fields.
Consequently, the San Mateo County Parks Department launched “Reimagine Flood Park”, a multi-year in-depth community engagement process to identify community goals and uses for the park’s redesign. The resulting concept plan, which reflected the community’s desires, went through environmental review in 2017 through 2019. In 2020, the Santa Clara County San Mateo County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the Landscape Plan, which is now called Realize Flood Park.
The $1.3 million in grant funds received from Santa Clara County will be used entirely for the construction of improvements to Flood Park.
History of the Stanford Mitigation Fund
In 2020, to mitigate the loss of recreational opportunities, Stanford paid Santa Clara County $10.3 million. Santa Clara County has used that money for grant funding for new recreational projects to benefit University recreational facilities users.
That year, Simitian proposed that Santa Clara County staff explore ways to use remaining funds from the Stanford Recreation Mitigation Fund. At the time, two of the four projects that the Board had declared an intent to fund (the Stanford Perimeter Trail and the Matadero Creek Trail) were either not implemented or were implemented without County funding. With the approval of Simitian’s proposal, the Board allocated $1.5 million of the remaining available funds for Palo Alto’s Adobe Creek/Highway 101 Overcrossing project, which was in addition to $4 million previously awarded, and for the remainder of the funds were allocated to projects in San Mateo County.