After an eventful year, housing advocates in Mountain View and neighboring cities have much to be thankful for this past holiday season. Mountain View finished its housing element update process, creating a path to add 11,135 new homes over the next eight years. A majority of these homes are targeted to be affordable to lower-income households (Los Altos also finished its housing element update, planning to add 1,958 homes). This planned growth represents a major achievement compared to the pace of building homes in recent decades, although it’s still modest compared to growth rates before 1970.

When my family came to California from the Soviet Union, we found a true land of opportunity, notably including both jobs and a spacious home that we could afford. Sadly, in the three decades since then, home prices have risen much faster than incomes, locking many families out of the opportunities that we enjoyed. The main reason for galloping home prices is that the supply of homes has not kept up with either population growth (which was robust until the mid-2010s) or job growth. An unfavorable regulatory environment also drives up prices of the few homes that can be built without government subsidies for affordability.

The Peninsula and northern Santa Clara County have a particularly vast deficit of homes compared to the local job pool. As local residents celebrated the winter holidays with their families, we should remember those who work in our area but can’t afford a roof over their heads, as well as those who endure punishing commutes to get here. This unfortunate situation results from short-sighted local planning decisions of the past that prioritized creating jobs but neglected to create homes for the people who hold the jobs. When Mountain View developed major office parks such as North Bayshore and East Whisman, it should have also given the new workforce a place to live. The housing element update was our opportunity to make up for that historic omission.

The housing element’s first main component is the “site inventory,” a list of places where the city believes the homes will be built. Despite much attention and fear devoted to the site inventory recently, It in fact mostly just tallies up sites where homes are already envisioned by existing planning documents.

The second major component, which escaped the attention of many, is the “programs,” which change how City Hall operates but are not specific to any particular site. The great majority of the programs focus on creating more affordable housing and protecting Mountain View’s most vulnerable residents. This includes programs for displacement prevention, expanding transitional housing and services for the homeless, and strengthening existing processes that produce affordable homes. Even the handful of programs that generally reduce the burden of regulations will be just as helpful for affordable housing developments as they are for market-rate. In fact, given the current adverse market conditions for developers, it would be nearly impossible for any homes to get built without reforms like these.

What next? Although Mountain View’s housing element is adopted and certified, the work is not done. The programs in the housing element do not actually change any city ordinance or procedure, they only promise to do so. City staff gave themselves a staggered schedule for implementing the housing element’s promises, with important activities planned for every year through 2029. Housing advocates have our work cut out for us to monitor the activities of staff and the City Council and make sure that the programs are implemented faithfully.

In short, Mountain View’s housing element marks an important step in creating opportunity for the next generation of Californians. Let’s work together to make sure that we make good on the promise, so that in future holiday seasons, more families have adequate homes in which to celebrate.

Ilya Gurin is a volunteer lead with Mountain View YIMBY.