This was "The Gravel Lot"?

This is heavily used during the summer, especially during festivals. This is kind of sad.....

How many more apartments do we need in this city. The traffic is already bad. The city members are losing touch of the old Mountain View. This is getting crazy. Build parks where people can go not apartments.

Your absolutely right Liz! Unfortunately, its all about the money. Just watch when downtown Mtn View parking will be so bad, the residents in the neighborhood will need to pay for yearly parking stickers, and there will be a 2hr time limit for everyone else. It will be like SF. Enjoy the free parking while we have it.

The "old" Mountain View was looked at as a ghetto no one wanted to live in.

Or am I going too far back in time? How old are you talking about?

Unfortunately, Mountain View needs more housing. This is an excellent location for housing. If FJ & L wanted it for parking, they could have bid for the land. Obviously they didnt think it was worth the price to provide more free parking to their customers.

And why should parking be free?

We don't need more apartments. Remodel or redevelop the older existing apartments instead. It's time to overhaul the city elected officials too. Get rid of these apt crazy officials!

Apartments at this corner is smart, I don't know if anyone would pay to purchase long term housing here. FJ and L will have extra customers.

The parking lot was handle back in the day when this corner was busy with car dealers, a bar, auto parts stores, high school.

Also want to point out. Older apartment buildings in certain locations might be perfect to build long term housing. It is up to the owner of the apartment buildings to invest in upgraded.

When a city sells off its property to developers it sends a clear signal that anything goes and anything can be bought at a price.
It explains a lot about what's been going on.

The more housing the better, one of the biggest threats this area faces is the extreme housing shortage which is driving up prices through the roof.

Is the proposed development going to kill Peet's, Rose Market, and the other businesses along Castro? That map makes it look like that might be the case.

I hope Rose Market, Pets and other businesses will be able to get new space in the planned project. In fact most places having a outstanding market like Rose is a benefit to the residents and the landlord.

If I was the developer, would have Rose Market as my major anchor, people do come from all over to shop and eat. We need more small local business.

Yes, the development will kill Rose Market, the barber shop, Sufi, the rug merchant, the care rental place, etc. The lack of parking will be bad for FJ&L and the other remaining businesses. It makes more sense to include the city lot in with development on El Camino to the North of the proposed project. The lot is North/Northwest of the other land that developer has lined up and it borders on existing apartments on Park Drive. The Rose Market people owned the land along Castro and have already sold it to the developer, while the land along El Camino that is being considered belongs to the estate of John Anderson. Its sale is pending, presumably because the price is high and depends on the developer being able to access city concessions to maximize the value of the land. These will be very expensive apartments. 25,000 sq ft of retail is being phased out with only 7,000 planned in the so-called 'mixed-use' project which is really just a token, almost meaningless.

Very disappointing. Without that overflow parking, I will avoid FJ&L, especially for takeout, since once you phone it in, you are committed to having to park. This will be a big impact to them unless a lot of the new residents become customers.
And, how does adding high density apartments here fit into our general plan? This is NOT near our transportation hub. Instead, it is near our middle school where traffic has already become a real problem. There are plans to narrow this part of Castro to a single lane to alleviate the pedestrian/car problem in this area, but now you want to add up to 400 cars in this little area at the same time?
I disagree that we need more housing in Mountain View. Living here does not equate to working here, so more housing just means more traffic, resources stretched thinner, degraded quality of life for all. Eventually, at least, no one will want to live here anymore, the developers will be rich, the politicians retired, and we'll just have our regrets that we let it happen.

Agreed we don't need more apartments and so called "mixed use" nonsense.
But we get what we paid for.

@Rossta --
"And, how does adding high density apartments here fit into our general plan?"
Actually, if you were involved in the General Plan 2030 process or have skimmed the document, you would know that El Camino in general - and this corner in particular - are called out for denser development.

"Eventually, at least, no one will want to live here anymore, the developers will be rich, the politicians retired, and we'll just have our regrets that we let it happen." I'll happily take you up on the bet that no one will want to live here in the future. With Stanford just down the road and good jobs all around, Mountain View is always going to be a desirable place to live.

Look at it this way... there were probably people just like you who were naysaying about development when the Park Place and Broadway apartments on Castro were proposed about 15 years ago. Some probably even said that no one would want to live around downtown once they got built. Well, if you were betting against the desirability of downtown Mountain View 15 years ago, that turned out to be a really bad bet. It has only become more attractive since then, and the demand for housing (as reflected by sale prices and rents) has skyrocketed since then.

One thing I can not figure out about adding more housing/toilets - There is a water s h o r t a g e.