I am very concerned that an anti-business mood is being created in MV. Are you people insane? Jobs are good. Jobs are always good. They pay for our food and lodging. They pay your taxes, they pay for your schools, they pay for the exorbitant wages we give to our local officials - the ones who appear to be clueless on how to manage traffic without killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Without jobs this town would die.
My advice? Stop annoying Google unless you prefer that they move to Texas and leave us in the dust. OK, now for housing. Granted not all can live in MV that much is blatantly obvious. So it comes down to traffic control. We need some new ideas and some fresh faces. Mike Scalon with his 400 thousand paycheck must go. Damn, I think I could do a better job at 1/10th of the price and I'm sure most of us could.

High paying local jobs will help provide a better future for our children. However, I do agree with this editorial that we need more local housing to help avoid traffic gridlock coming into the job sites. I am all for increasing housing density in selected parts of the city, especially around the Caltrain and VTA stations.

Yes, blocking housing in the North Bayshore area was a mistake. Traffic there is bad and getting worse. Let's reverse that mistake!

Walkable neighborhoods is the way to go. That means higher density compared to the 1950s car-dependent suburbia we have now. I know some vocal residents want to keep the city frozen in time, but that is not going to happen. We should be a city for good living and working, not a museum.

I don't think Abe-Koga is off base when she says that MV residents don't want high density, and I do think it puts the council in a bind. Part of the blame for this rests with residents.

Over and over again I hear people moaning and complaining about 3-story townhouses going in-- there needs to be a greater understanding and acceptance of the fact that higher density housing, with transit to support it, is the greener and more sustainable model for our future. MV wants to remain a sleepy suburb with orange groves AND have our Google too-- just don't think that's realistic.

Too many folks in our community believe that people can be squished together, like chips on a silicon wafer, with no downside. The concept of a jobs housing imbalance is an artificial concept based on city limits boundaries. If you like all the goodies that the city provides, then you must love the businesses that pay taxes to provide the money for them. If you think it's too expensive to live here, there are other less expensive city's that can accommodate you. The same jobs to housing concept would dictate that Los Altos create more jobs as they have way too much housing and are out of balance. What most don't take into consideration when they demand more housing is the impact on our infrastructure. Not just traffic, but water demand, sewage disposal, noise etc. that come just from housing more of us in a small community. Most people when asked why they moved to Mountain View will talk about it's charm and small town feel, and then turn around and lobby to end it; I love you, now change.

We have too many jobs already, do we need to accommodate all of Detroit? They left their beautiful city in ruins and now they want to see this city ruined.

I agree with Robert, our infrastructure can't handle more people. Our schools are overloaded, our streets are already filled with traffic, yet ignorant people want to add more and more, until we end up looking like the slums of mumbai in a decade or so.

Cars are the future, like they were back in the 1950s, to think that this area with miles upon miles in between is going to be a walkable area is ridiculous. You may be able to walk to 7/11, but not everywhere you need to go. Yes, you could wait on the bus schedule, but then you will be wasting more time than if you just hop in a car.

Also if new homes are built, there is no guarantee that the people that will occupy them will work in MT. View. Only thing guaranteed is more traffic.

But as Omander, a spokesman for google says, who cares about the people that have been here for decades, the new people are here and they will make sure to ruin your comfy lifestyle.

PATRICK
You are right: People are insane how they do not want more jobs to pay for their food and lodge. You are right Patrick, they should build more houses. Patrick WHO CARES IMPROVING RESIDENTS LIVES, JUST PILE THEM ONE ON TOP OF ANOTHER, LET THEM SLEEP IN BUNKBEDS, HAVE HARDLY ANY SPACE TO MOVE AROUND, OK TO INCREASE MORE EVICTIONS, RISE THE PRICE OF RENT, INCREASE STREET TRAFFIC, Patrick YOU ARE RIGHT MV SHOULD BECAME A CONCRETE JUNGLE JUST LIKE THE COLD CEMENTED NEW YORK CITY.

Google plans to add 15,000 to 20,000 new jobs. To house the additional employees, and their families, will take 8, 10, or even 15 story condominiums throughout Mountain View.

Mountain View has the highest population density of any city in Santa Clara County.

Do you want to increase our population by 30% to 40%?
Do you want an 8, 10, or 15 story condominium built next to your home or apartment?
Do you want neighbors looking into your backyard or bedroom?
Do you want to increase the number of cars by 30% to 40%?
Do you want condominium owners and renters cars parked in front of your home?
Do you want your Quality of Life destroyed?

Take Mountain View Back

@Konrad M. Sosnow --
I see you're back to your usual approach of scare tactics and exaggerations. Make all the single-family homeowners think that a 15-story apartment building is going to be built across their fence line, even though our city's General Plan specifically drew a line around single-family neighborhoods and did not change the zoning or heights in them. Conjure up images of condo owners and renters parking in front of homes, sounding like some sort of xenophobe from the 1900s ("those flea-infested immigrants are going to destroy your quality of life").

So what is your solution? You post often on these boards and it mostly seems to be a "pull up the drawbridge" approach, the "I've got mine, so everyone else can go to hell" mindset. You also posted recently on another article about your faith that Google's self-driving cars are going to solve all of our congestion problems. There's a certain delicious irony in seeing someone say "stop all the development, to hell with Google's growth plans" and also "Google's self-driving cars are going to solve all our problems." Nice.

When will people learn? The problem is not the lack of housing or jobs. The problem is overpopulation. A problem very few are concerned about. When will the crash come, water, transportation, or an incurable diseases or plague?

I don't think we are ever going to get rid of cars, but nothing wrong with building residential units to support transit. People desire jobs, jobs bring personal wealth. I read somewhere that most of the people graduating for college aren't looking to live the life of the 1950's

Yes a Electric Cars are the future, but we are finding out that as the usage increases, so does the demand or power. You will still have the problem with solo drivers, traffic and the space needed for cars. Electric or not, parking lots, traffic lanes and auto centered infrastructure is still needed. Instead of gas pumps, we need charging station.

What is a matter of decreasing auto centered use by 10 or even 20 percent.

Everything around has already really been paved over or built on.

I also think its time to start looking at housing in North Shoreline.
Mtn. View is becoming more and more attractive each and every year. New neighbors have expressed to me that they chose Mtn View over Palo Alto or Menlo, and prices keep on climbing higher for rents and buys.
This town is going to draw people even when the jobs are not in Mtn. View, so lets open up North shoreline to the bigger housing developments needed.

That is because Mountain View is putting all your eggs in one basket a.k.a. Google!!

The choice is not between higher density or maintaining the current quality of life. The choice is between higher density or ever increasing cost of living. It's supply and demand people. If you don't let housing rise along with demand, the price will go up, and sooner or later the only people who can afford to rent will be tech people making 6 figure salaries.

Make it more attractive to live in downtown San Jose and commute via public transportation to Mountain View for work.

If talented people work in Mountain View, we are beholden to one company's future. If talented people live in Mountain View, new vibrant companies will replace those that falter. That is the story of the Silicon Valley.

To me a "Balanced Mountain View" means we stop growth south of the 101, to preserve the charming small home town feel that makes MV special (and save El Camino from gridlock hell), and then look into building a 21st century ecological housing community in North Bayshore for the "ecological warriors" that would want to live by the Baylands in carbon neutral setting (or even carbon negative setup, and skip the car lifestyle by being near the companies down there, using Zip Cars style services when needed. There's enough ecological warriors out there to allow the city to support a this strategic increase in housing supply (more supply helps all those suffering the housing crunch) and at the same time reduces traffic, preserves quintessential MV, and sparks a new wave of ecological living. That's both smart and balanced growth in my opinion.

Why would anyone think Google workers want to live in high density buildings in north Shoreline. OK a few of the lower paid workers will start out there but for most, after work it will be a dead area. No culture no night life, why do you find so many taking buses to SF.... culture activities night life after that most will want a home for schools shopping family life not a rock concert.

I have been saying much the same thing as this article for a while now. Mountain View is only 12 square miles. While having lots of jobs here is a good thing, we simply can't grow the city by 30% in the next few years. I support a limited amount of housing in the North Bayshore, and I would rather see housing than more office space there.

The current trend seems to be to cram high density housing into communities that are primarily single family homes and/or low density units. Hyperbole aside, I don't think many people will like walking through a town that is full of long shadows cast by tall buildings. However, for those that do enjoy that kind of thing, San Francisco is not far.

I became a long term resident of Mountain View because I love the quality of life here. I think it is possible to preserve that while still allowing reasonable growth.

I have suggested that the Council hold off on making any decisions on the North Bayshore Precise Plan this year exactly because of the complexity of the problems facing the area and the City; and the fact that I think it would be best to allow the next Council to design a plan that will meet the needs of the City and area after the TMA (Transportation Management Agency) has determined how it will deal with traffic in North Bayshore.

As far as 'pod cars' I don't think we have enough 'pod people' yet for that to be a practical solution, let alone enough money in the city budget.

The best way to build a better Mountain View is to not rush into decisions because of artificial deadlines, but instead to carefully consider all our options and make sure that all the data is on the table before we start.




Jim Neal
Candidate, Mountain View City Council
http://electneal.org
info@electneal.org

The focus seems to be on balancing the jobs in MV with the housing in MV, but we are not an island? Why don't we look at the job/housing ratio with a little larger view? Los Altos, Palo Alto, and Sunnyvale, our immediate neighbors, all should be included in the assessment. Yes, that might imply commuting, but the reality of this area is that your job moves over time, probably more often than most of us would like to be changing out housing, so even if you start off right next to your company, you won't be for long.

Overpopulation is the problem. California says it doesn't have enough water, yet we don't stop building and drawing more people here because it is "good for the economy". Mountain View keeps churning properties to create more housing. They take out affordable apartments and replace them with higher density, but much more expensive apartments - easy math, developers win and existing tenants lose their home and residents get more traffic. They take out bowling alleys, markets, coffee shops and put in more expensive apartments - easy math, developers win, city looks like they are meeting ABAGs goals, but Mountain View becomes a little less pleasant place to live. Keep repeating the cycle and by the time you realize the town is out of balance, it is too late to repair. Some things have to be anticipated. Think of this when you vote for your new council members.

There are all these comments about "us" growing the city, or "we" don't need more jobs, etc. What "we" want is completely pointless, because the bay area population is growing. It's growing because we are fortunate enough to live in an economically vibrant area which is creating jobs, unlike much of the country where people are seeing no end to a five year recession. These jobs bring people in from out of state and from abroad, and these people need a place to live, so they're bidding up the price of housing.

Yes, Mountain View is small, and Mountain View can't house the entire bay area's new population, this is a problem all bay area cities face. We can't stick our heads in the sand and hope that neighboring cities can soak up the extra population, since they could be doing the same thing. We need to build more housing to keep prices from soaring farther as there is even less supply relative to demand. Yes, this means higher density. No, higher density doesn't mean people will be miserable. Mountain View is not all that dense by any urban standard, and density brings benefits as well, such as a larger variety of businesses in a smaller area, making for more pedestrian friendly communities, and denser population can sustain more esoteric businesses, which can't survive in areas with few people.

As for shadows cast by tall buildings, give me a break. Seriously? You would prefer fewer shadows to more expensive housing that's driving out less affluent residents? It looks like I know where not to cast a vote this fall.

Google is not the only company creating jobs and home prices to.rise.

Well said, 'myob'.

At the 3/26/14 Civility Roundtable Ron Diridon told MV residents that we need to build 30 story apt. towers at each of the transit stops to house 100,000 new residents and that we should just accept our fate and stop being selfish about wanting to preserve the community we have.

He said the problem of traffic is solved because people will just take an elevator to transit and go to work "horizontally" and so we will all be better off. End of story, according to Mr. Diridon.

The tragic aspect of this statement is that Mr.Diridon and everyone else on the panel simply ignored what comes with 100,000 people that no elevator or train will solve: If even 1/3 of the new 100,000 people will have children we will need to build 6 new school systems (NOT six new schools) as our present school system holds approximately 5,000 students. Our high school holds 1800 students. Where to build approx. 10 more new high schools? What is the cost of thousands of more teachers and pensions? Where would Mtn. View put thousands of new day care centers and which kindly developer will donate their valuable properties to house these centers and the thousands of low paid day care workers so they too can go to work via elevator and not clog up the highways? We have one small library. How many more will we need and where would they be built? Same for police, fire and other first responders...equipment, salaries, pensions, buildings. The list goes on.
Mr. Diridon's view is a perfect illustration of the saying that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Mr. Diridon and other density advocates only tell us how we should build buildings, not how to build and pay for the infrastructure for a community where there is simply no room for those 100,000 people and their families to be educated, recreate, go the library or have some green space with they are not on their horizontal journey to and from work.

I urge every concerned resident to ask Mr. Diridon to answer these questions each and ever time he offers his vision and to ask the City Council the same when they advocate for tens of thousands of more housing units to be built to house workers for incoming jobs in the towers that the developers are waiting to build and for which the present community will bear the real cost long after the developer's have cashed their checks.

@myob -- Ummm, where did I say anything about "sticking our heads in the sand and hoping that neighboring cities soak up the extra population?". What I said was that I don't think that high density housing is compatible with low density neighborhoods. There are some places in the city where higher density (but not more than 4 stories) housing will work. Many people bought homes because they wanted privacy and a yard for their children, why shouldn't they have a say in what gets built next to them? Maybe they don't want people to be able to look down into their bedroom windows, what is wrong with that? The higher density buildings can be built in areas that do not cast shadows on other people's homes and they do not have to be 10 stories tall. How many stories would be satisfactory for your vision of Mountain View?

Also, it is the more expensive housing that is being built that is leading to the rise in prices of all other housing in Mountain View.

I have said in many other posts that I am for smart growth. If you don't want to vote for me that is fine, but please do not take my comments out of context as you have done here. Your comment about my preferring fewer shadows to more expensive housing is a false choice. Manhattan has lots of long shadows. Where is the cheap housing there?


Jim Neal
Candidate, Mountain View City Council
http://electneal.org
info@hotmail.com

@Jim Neal

I completely disagree that it's expensive condos that drive up the cost of housing, you've got the causality backwards. It works like this:

1) There is tremendous demand for housing
2) Some people are capable of and willing to pay huge amounts of money to live near downtown
3) Developers target the most profitable developments
4) Therefore, the most expensive demand gets satisfied first.
5) Once you part the richest people with their money for the expensive units, the next units will be a bit cheaper, and so forth. Mountain View can't support many more rents like at the Madera apartments.

The primary cause is still the housing shortage. I'd even call it a borderline crisis at this point.

I, too, like the character of Mountain View, which is why I paid an enormous amount of money and acquired an enormous amount of debt for a small home here. I'm a tech worker who's lived and worked in Mountain View for a very long time, and a basic house is almost unattainable for me, despite being married, and dual income. If it's hard for me, it's impossible for a lot of other people. It's a personal preference, but I would prefer for my neighborhood to lose some of its character than to keep housing so expensive here. I don't want to live in an area which will be low density, but populated entirely by wealthy tech company people, I get enough of that at work. There is a lot of personal preference in these kinds of discussions, and I've lived in much denser areas such as NYC and enjoyed it, despite growing up on a farm, and enjoying that too. In my opinion, it's not the density which gives a place character, but its people, businesses, and services.

Building to decrease job to housing balance is good, not all housing will go to Google employees.

Building housing and other projects to decrease dependency on car trips. Nothing wrong with a quick (idea here).

Building further away from where people work will not the traffic problem or help solve the transit system. I should make it efficient.

Mountain View High School I think held more students in the 70's, you could design a very well planned 2 to 3 story campus that would be more of tradional designed campus. You could go below ground.

Housing for 100,000 people is high, haven't ever agreed with those numbers. The ideal number of housing would be 7,500 units.

Building further away from the jobs or in some threads from where people live. Will not solve the traffic problem.

@ myob

I agree with you on all points.

@Jim Neal -
"What I said was that I don't think that high density housing is compatible with low density neighborhoods. There are some places in the city where higher density (but not more than 4 stories) housing will work."

Jim, your statement above is completely arbitrary. Why is 4 stories the magic limit? If you're so concerned about privacy in people's yards, why is a 4-story building OK? Why not a 3-story limit? Or a 5-story limit?

Maybe you really care about people's privacy.

Perhaps you yourself are not being very straightforward by not providing the context... You fail to mention that there are a VERY limited number of locations where height differences would cause privacy issues, because the current General Plan protects existing single-family neighborhoods by NOT changing the heights in them, so it's only on the edges where height disparities might arise.

But clearly you are pandering to the electorate to position yourself for a Council seat.

Of course transitional zones are needed, low to medium then to high density. This is how cities work.

Single Family Homes still make up the prefer choice but not everyone wants to live in one. We don't have very many choices when it comes to housing.

Seems that apartments or large family homes are built. Good medium density housing projects inside the transition zone. 2 to 3 story small ownership and rentals.

Garrett83:

"Of course transitional zones are needed, low to medium then to high density. This is how cities work."

~~~~~~~~~~

Nice theory. Too bad that's not how Greystar's development proposal at 801 El Camino Real (corner of El Camino Real and Castro Street) is going to work. Mountain View city council is poised to approve this "mixed-use, high-denisty" development which abuts R-1 single family zoning. The city is requesting "graceful transitions" where this development will back up to to the R-1 single family homes, but there's no getting around it...we are talking about placing a high-density development (164 apartments) literally up to the property lines of R-1 single family homes...there is nothing "graceful" about it. Oh, and of course the development will be woefully under-parked, so whatever.

Always thought the rear portion of the property should be medium density, the front portion high density which they have attempted with terracing.

Only problem when you need height you are met with a sea if single story buildings. Even to go with 2 to 3 floors are met with opposition.

Bay Area has nearly 7,000 square miles of and has only 1,050 persons per square mile.

I spent some time thinking about the dense places that I've lived and why I found them appealing, and why I find these developments generally unappealing in CA, and it's because of how they're built.

Here in CA, we give a big chunk of land to a single developer and have them create a large development, which makes everything very uniform. In other places where land is very expensive, people buy tiny lots and build in a way to make the best use of that space - think how houses are built in SF, Boston, NYC, etc. You still have high density, but not this soul crushing uniformity. It's also very different if you allow more flexible zoning, where shops and residential are mixed together.

Rather than striking deals with developers to build complexes, I think it would be awesome in Mountain View simply allowed people to sub-divide lots more, and modify zoning rules so that homes can be built taller, closer together, and allow mixing light commercial, and then wait and let the city organically grow, as people who own large lots sell off pieces for profit, which allows others to build. I realize this will never happen, since people like to meddle in their neighbors' affairs, but it's just a thought. I think that cities which grow organically end up being much more interesting places than those that are built by central planning.

Again I agree with "myob".

Lived in Melbornue, Vic. which is Australia, very strong land use rules and strong commitment to infill.

I would love to see small development based projects like you mentioned but Mountain View and most of the post war suburban communities have built car centered projects up and down any large street.

Excuse me, but this is not NYC nor is it australia. If you folks like it some much there, leave!! Don't try to make our beautiful city into a damn concrete jungle where the buildings are so tall you can't see the mountains.

It's the new folks like you guys that want to ruin what we have here already which was a nice home town.

Totally, it's the right thing to do. A multistory apartment development can fit right in up there. Several of them. The traffic needs to be improved for all the expansion up there. This pod car idea is cute, but it won't solve the problems with traffic.

How about improving Bayshore Road so it can carry more traffic out of the area?

I was born in Mountain View, seen jobs and businesses boom where entire markets created because of chip, software or access.

I don't moster buildings to be built, beside even in Melbourne they want to preserve single family family homes but also from sprawl.

The reason why I use Melbourne is that it reminds me of the Bay Area and its little similarities to here.

Gold Rush, free minded settlers, strong ties to water, recreation and sporting public, music sence and freeway revolt

Part 2 of my comnent, Melbourne has protected its single family environment, medium density housing played a big role and redevelopment of large outdated industrial sites to housing.

Melborne has 4.25 million people, many cities, one transport system and plannin for transit.

OMV Resident:

Konrad isn't incorrect when he talks about multistory buildings being built next to single story residences. This is happening now. Look at the projects going up at 801, 1101, 1616 ECR, etc. These are all four stories right next to one story homes. How would you like this next to you? And Konrad was pointing out that they would have to all be 15 stories, at least, to balance out the demand for housing. So the four stories ruin their neighbor's views of the sky, their peace and quiet, their privacy, their sunlight for their gardens and solar panels, look down on their children playing in their own yards, etc., and yet still won't solve the problem. They will just add more cars to the gridlock because public transit cannot take everyone everywhere. We do not have subways. We do not have canals. We do not need every corporation to come here. Let some go to Tracy, Livermore, Stockton, etc., and spread the opportunities around. And we can build areas that are all high rise together (like right next to Google and the others) so they do not border on people's homes that they paid top dollar for them when their homes were perfect, but MV has seen fit to ruin for them. This will save the quality of life in MV.

Surrounding communities have approved large commercial projects and are planning for commercial expansion that has created housing market pressure.

The thing is, its not going to Livermore.

Why would the CEO's, CFO's, the lawyers, the people on the San Hill Road even drive to Tracy for work

This Mr. Dirdiron sounds like a nut job. And people are listening to him like he is an expert at these forums? That sounds pretty scary.

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[Post removed due to disrespectful comment or offensive language]

@MV resident You may not agree with what Mr Diridon believes, but he's no nut job. If you've ever taken Caltrain to San Jose you'll see they named the station for him and his tireless efforts to improve transit.

I arrive at San Jose Diridon station on Caltrain every day for work, along with riders of the ACE train coming in from Stockton and Livermore and ones arriving on Capitol Corridor from Sacramento and Oakland, plus riders from the Hwy 17 Express Bus from Santa Cruz. Efficient transit means we can start our days relaxing on a train or bus instead of sitting in horrible traffic.

There's nothing nutty about it. It works.

Why don't we get this person firm to come in and design some buildings to solve the housing problem

Web Link

Another firm.

Web Link

I know we aren't England but if we use some Northern California style and design we might solve some of the housing problem instead of going for cheap nasty high rises.

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