Growth is a good thing unless you are trying to be Los Angeles. LA has traffic, crime, air pollution, noise and all the other problems that come with overcrowding. If I wanted to live in an overcrowded, noisy city, I would move to LA. When Mountain View starts to be more like LA than like Palo Alto. I just might move to Tulsa, Oklahoma.

I am truly disappointed as is my daughter who has grown up in Mountain View with the continuous developments which encourage overcrowding in our great town. We like the fact that we can walk to downtown and enjoy the Stevens Creek Trail but if you add 100's more people, every aspect of Mountain View will be so overcrowded with walkers, bikers etc. that it will be a place to escape from and not stay in town to enjoy. Please stop all the building - we hate the Grant Road development and now this - it is just destroying the charm and the accessibility.

High density works only if ALL your services are near by and the cost penalty for a spare car is exuberant ($200 / month SF). Cal Train is ok for visits to SF or when you work along the line. Other wise all the tenants will need a car to shop for food, clothes sports etc (sorry Castro only has so much. The 1.5 parking is too low for what will be 2 person dwelling not to mention the fight for free parking space in the area and the mess it will create. Have you tried parking on a fri night dinner time? This large development will make it a mess for others to visit the area and they may just spend there money else where. 214 x 1.5 =322 or about 100 extra cars in the area.

I've lived in the area between N.Whisman and Whisman Station for the past 7 years, and I've been watching the Mt.View (and the entire Bay Area) populations grow denser and denser. That's inevitable. But isn't planned growth about balancing needed revenue with quality of life? While I can see the sense in high density housing, and I appreciate the addition of below-market-priced housing, I strongly suspect that the massive scale of this project is about making up revenue shortfall due to the current economic situation.
The end of Castro St. that Evelyn Ave. feeds into is already a bit of a bottleneck; I really believe that the amount of traffic that would result from this proposal would be a terrific mess. And what are you thinking - building so many units without sufficient parking? There's a reason for existing zoning laws for housing density, and parking provision requirements. You can't expect that high a proportion of those residents to use only public transportaion.
Please, please, elected Council Members, let QUALITY OF LIFE outweigh dollar signs!

More residents are the fuel that keeps a town growing and developing. The area where these apartments will be built however, is already a traffic problem.

Not only do the apartments need at least 2 parking spaces per apartment, they need to provide some extra parking for the increased visitors these new tenants will draw. This is critically important for the success of Mountain View. Accessibility to the train and light rail does not help you get to work and run your errands in this valley and so cars are still required. If that is ignored, the resulting increased downtown traffic will squeeze out prosperity for the local restaurants and merchants as both locals and visitors go elsewhere.

I agree with Ms. Bryant; the street level ambiance is also critically important.

It would be curious if the impact on local schools has been explored. I assume more residents equals more students. How will MV elementary and MVLA High School District deal with the influx? While not directly the council's issue (MV Whisman Elementary and MVLA High School Dist. have their own boards) I think its irresponsible to put up new high-density housing without addressing the impact to local schools. Ultimately MV residents will likley be asked to foot the school bill with a special parcel tax. I don't think the council can put the blinders on in regards to schools when it comes to evaluating new housing. And frankly, most MV elementary schools aren't that compelling as-is so I can't imagine how crowding more students onto campuses will help matters.

Pretty sad that a bunch of "NOT in MY Neighbohood" or "I was here first and my quality of living will decline if other people move here...." people live in MV. Shows how Mountain View residents are still a little shaw we say heartless and more concerned about themselves than a housing project that makes sense to reduce need for cars.....

Why do they keep taking away Mountain View's mountain view? They are destroying the place we grew up in.

These two buildings are massive, and four stories tall in an area surrounded by two story homes.

Take a look down Castro Street. The Bank of America building sticks out like a sore thumb. That is because it is twice as tall as all the buildings in the neighborhood.

That is the vertical scale proposed, twice as tall. Does Mountain View really need two more sore thumbs?

Endorse the Minton Petition and Say No to High Density on the Minton's Site at the following link:

http://mirna2030.ning.com