Lenny,

If your logic is correct that a high jobs to housing ratio results in high home and rental prices, then a low jobs to housing ratio should result in low home and rental prices.

So, let’s look at the facts:

Atherton has very few jobs and his median home value in Atherton is $4,506,500.
Los Altos Hills has virtually zero jobs and the median home value in Los Altos Hills is $3,199,400
Atherton has very few jobs and his median home value in Atherton is $4,506,500.
Woodside has very few jobs and the median home value in Woodside is $2,951,900.
Palo Alto has many jobs, with jobs to housing ratio of 1.31 (less than Mountain View’s 1.97) and with a median home value of $1,826,600.

Then what is it that Los Altos Hills, Atherton, Woodside and Palo Alto have?
They all have a high Quality of Life.
Residents can live on quiet streets, plant flowers on their laws, and enjoy playing with their children in their back yards.

What don’t they have?
A majority of City Council members who will approve very office project without concern for the quality of life of current residents, such as traffic, parking, and pollution.
A majority of City Council members who will approve very rental project without concern for population density and the quality of life of residents of neighboring communities.

What will be the result?
Middle class residents will leave Mountain View for Sunnyvale, Cupertino. Fremont, etc.
Mountain View will become a city of offices and renters.

Lenny - Please tell us:

What - I mean exactly - does"medium density" mean? What is that in terms of stories, in terms of FAR?

How many new residents do you envision in this area? How many new jobs?

How much, exactly, would be ownership housing, how much would be apartments?

Personally, I'm undecided. On the one hand, there are some really excellent arguments against putting housing in North Bayshore. On the other hand, every square foot of housing that is put here is one square foot that the City Council will not be able to commit to office space, an even more misguided idea, to which they seem committed.

One argument you can't realistically use, though, is that building a few thousand units of housing will have any appreciable effect on the price of rentals. The imbalance is too great; it's a drop in the bucket. New construction will just be more Madera-type $8,000/month "luxury" stuff, because that's where the greatest profits are for developers.

Here's a better idea: Hold off on the precise plan until after the next election.

Let's be honest here..We are talking about Google. There is some misguided notion that their rapid expansion is what is sending housing cost sky high in Mtn View. Of course, it's because of all the thousands of google employees that want to live here, right? Wrong. Most Googlers want to live somewhere COOL. Like SF. Why do you think they bus so many people from down there?

Or they are wealthy and want to live somewhere beautiful AND have the best schools in the country. Again, not mountain view.

Mountain View is rapidly losing it's charm as it caves in to developers. Our council and city staff feel they must grant every variance, regardless of the impact to existing residents. What about the history here in MV? No museum. Any farms? Oh yes, they tore that down to put in big houses for the wealthy. What else can we pave over?

Yeah, googlers are obviously SO excited to live here. Not!

Housing/job imbalance at the city level can not be solved by creating more housing. To do that would be to pave over everything remaining.

Residents of Los Altos Hill, Woodside, Atherton, Portola Valley and etc. They made all their money in Mountain View, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara.. So when the chance came they purchased in these enclaves, they could afford it.

Mountain View is not one of those towns, we have thriving job scence, good restaurant vibe and still plenty of single family homes to plant flowers.

People will come here to either work or start a business, either way they need a office or a place to live. In some cases both.

Everything has already been paved over.

There are people clamoring and falling all over themselves to offer well over 1M for seemingly any house in MV, with buyer bidding up the price because enough can afford to, beginning the battle of multiple offers and up-bids.

OK, now lets pretend there is a big development of low cost housing built and prices start at 400K. The sheer crush of limited supply and huge demand will make those units jump in cost form day 1.

There would need to be some qualifications of buyers as low income earners, and agreements that they cannot sell the unit openly, that they must sell to another qualified low earner in order to keep out the investors. But then again, as a home owner, who would want that?

I guess we _could_ build these government housing projects and regulate who buys them, but I don't favor that.
Unless you place heavy restrictions on who qualifies to buy now and into the future, light supply and heavy demand will always bring the price up to the level that only the high bidders can afford.