The El Camino Initiative has one obvious, glaring flaw. It endorses the feel-good and the no-nothing mantras of previous MV City Councils, Planning Commissions, and our ideologically blinded environmentalists --- "higher density housing is gool"; and this time along a badly congested, major traffic artery --- the most important non-freeway road for Northern Santa Clara County, and a road with very poor connections to public transit other than a dysfunctional public bus system. What an ignorant joke by ingnorant do-gooders.

Mountain View should instead take two immediate steps. First, it should impose a temporary moratorium on all new housing construction permits. Second, it should change its policy to predicate its issuance of new housing construction permits on the replacement of existing high density rental and trailer park units with lower density condominiums, row houses, and town houses. The dreadful rental ghettos along California, Escuela, and Castro Avenues come immediately to mind, as do those out of sight, but not out of mind, units along Stevens Creek. Get rid of the rental units. People who own their own housing are far more responsible than renters, and Mountain View will become more prosperous as a result.

Enough is enough. It's time to stop the construction madness and to reduce, not increase, the number of residences in Mountain View.

Excuse two typos: good, not gool, and concentrate, not predicate. Otherwise, my point remains --- reduce the population density by forcing out the renters and replacing them with more resposiblile and lower density home owners.

I am absolutely astounded by the comments above and I'm not sure where to start. I didn't realize there were individuals in this wonderful city that feel all rental units should be done away with. I certainly hope this is a rare individual that will consider moving out of the city. Many hard working professionals rent units in this town and I don't know how you can say they are any less responsible than homeowners. Plus many haven't had the financial windfall to be able to purchase a home in Mountain View.

Maybe you should [portion removed by Mountain View Voice staff] not respond emotionally. Your brief comment indicates to me that you have no understanding of the overcrowding and tax base problems created by our previous, and economically ignorant do-gooders on our City Council and our Planning Commission. In case you didn't understand my argument, rental housing is bad for communities. People who own their housing vote far more responsibly. Got it?

[Remainder of post removed by Mountain View Voice staff]

Mr. Hitchens, I get that you are concerned about traffic. Nobody likes congested traffic. However, housing, high density or otherwise, is not the only, or even the most important, cause of traffic. High density jobs generate lots of traffic, too, and Mountain View has a huge surplus of jobs over housing and has for years. This creates a huge traffic problem, not just for Mountain View, but for the whole area.

So, my question to you is would you support a temporary moratorium on office and business construction as well? The catch is, it's business that mostly pays for city services, not residences, which cost the city as much as they generate in taxes. Low density, single family residential that you favor is especially costly in services. A business construction moratorium would drive businesses away and might lead to a firm like Google out of Mountain View. The city, its libraries, police and fire, would suffer.

mr. Hitchens has raised some interesting and important issues. The city has been struggling to find and provide a solution to the housing crisis in Mountain View. Not everyone can afford a home here. Homes have appreciated so much in the last decade, that most people are priced out of the market. We do need affordable housing. Rental units and homes will fill that need. By the way, not all rentals are in the "ghetto". I am offended by your comment. I know of many rentals amongst million dollar homes.

When he wrote "no-nothing" did he mean "Know-Nothing"?