Menlo Park Candidate Builds 3D Housing Map as Gilroy Reviews Policy

In Menlo Park, software engineer and District 1 City Council candidate Wonman Lee — who is running against James Rohr to succeed outgoing Councilmember Cecilia Taylor — has built an interactive 3D housing simulator that lets residents model how proposed projects across the city's 5 council districts affect its state-mandated goal of 2,946 housing units by 2031 (The Almanac). At the southern end of Santa Clara County in Gilroy, a 10-person ad hoc committee appointed in May by Mayor Greg Bozzo is preparing to present findings at the Nov. 2 City Council meeting as council members debate the future of the 25-resident Camp Hope encampment near Sixth Street and U.S. Highway 101 (San José Spotlight).

Menlo Park Candidate Wonman Lee Launches 3D Simulator for 2,946-Unit Housing Element

Launched on Oct. 14, 2026, using OpenStreetMap, MapLibre, CARTO, and AI coding assistance alongside data from Menlo Park's July 2026 Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) progress report, Lee's "Can you make Menlo Park's housing plan work?" simulator breaks down the 2,946 required units into 740 very-low-income, 426 low-income, 496 moderate-income, and 1,285 market-rate homes (The Almanac). Users can filter projects by status — zoned, pending or approved, inactive or active in the pipeline, and built — and toggle 3 scenario buttons: "If Measure P passes" (modeling the citizen-initiated downtown parking-lot ballot measure), "With Willow Village" (representing Meta's suspended Belle Haven mega-project), and "With 80 Willow" (modeling the proposed project at the former Sunset Magazine campus that drew letters from Attorney General Rob Bonta, Mayor Betsy Nash, and U.S. Rep. Sam Liccardo). While his opponent critiqued the simulator as AI-generated and lacking District 1 specifics, Lee said it has become the most visited page on his campaign website.

Gilroy Ad Hoc Committee Prepares Nov. 2 Report Amid Debate Over 25-Resident Camp Hope

In Gilroy, City Administrator Matt Morley told San José Spotlight that the city currently lacks a formal policy to address homelessness — estimated at 959 people in the 2025 Point-In-Time count — relying on 2 full-time police outreach officers and roughly 120 temporary shelter beds at the Gilroy National Guard Recruiting Center/Armory on Wren Avenue (San José Spotlight). To develop a comprehensive plan for the Nov. 2 council meeting, Mayor Greg Bozzo formed a 10-person ad hoc committee in May chaired by Bozzo and including Gilroy Councilmembers Kelly Ramirez and Dion Bracco, Morgan Hill Councilmember Soraida Iwanaga, business and property owners Chris Vanni and Ann Marie McCauley, advocates Vanessa Ashford and Vicky Martin (executive director of South County Community Services, whose teams visit camps 3 days a week), and lived-experience representatives Aubrey Tasby and TJ Napihaa.

Councilmembers Terence Fugazzi and Zach Hilton issued a memo raising safety and sanitation concerns over Camp Hope, where roughly 25 unhoused residents — including Tasby — have lived on a month-to-month basis since last November on city-owned land along the border of District 4 and District 6 north of Costco on Camino Arroyo Drive near the Sixth Street U.S. Highway 101 overpass (after relocating 2 times in a 2-week span last fall and receiving an Oct. 22, 2026 cleanup by the San Jose Conservation Corps). Jan Bernstein Chargin, who co-founded PitStop Outreach in 2020, and Tasby said community backing and self-management have kept the camp free of violence as the city weighs long-term solutions (San José Spotlight).