Building more and more offices will just make the housing situation worse.

Build housing where there is already housing -San Antonio
Build offices where there is already offices - North Bayshore.

Watch,and control, the Jobs to Housing ratio.

This is not rocket science, but it is Common Sense!

This is ridiculous, the City Council is having complete disregard for what the community members would like seeing built in OUR city! Why do we elect these officials if they are not acting in OUR best interest and addressing our concerns appropriately. Shame on you council members, I hope the community stands up with me and does something about this. Enough is Enough.

Merlone Geier's phase 2 proposal is fair and brings Mountain View a lot of value. I don't want to see more apartment housing in this location. There is already enough. Around the El Camino/San Antonio intersection, there is already severe traffic compared with when Sears was around. I think that has a lot to do with the new apartment complexes in the village. There is a huge development on the Los Altos side. If we have offices and restaurants in phase 2, at least these people will travel in the opposite direction. Mountain View is 66% renters and is doing a lot to balance the job/housing situation. Why don't Palo Alto/Los Altos build more housing?

I think housing is solely needed and would do very well here as it is close to so may types of public transportation.

I actually l like some of the changes MG has made to Phase II. The buldings look little better, scaled back some. I would appreciate sccaled back more.

But mostly I would like to see the two 6 story office buildings changed into apartments towers.

The nice hotel with the fine restaurant can stay, as I like the idea of dinner and a movie in one place.

The warm and fuzzy feeling of job/housing balance. But separating jobs to North shoreline and forcing housing in San Antonio is creating local imbalance and more traffic. If we have all these high rise luxury apartment complexes for Googler and they drive to work in the morning and drive back, my neighborhood will be have jammed traffic all around on San Antonio/Central Expressway. I would rather them driving on the opposite direction of the streets. I will vote offices over apartments any day.

@Member-

You are the only person I've heard from that wants offices at Phase II. Everyone who spoke at the EPC last Wednesday evening preferred apartments to offices so our new center at San Antonio would not go dead at night, with the offices towers emptied out for the remainder of the day. Dark, and uninviting. Scary for women parking in the parking structures, which could lose the businesses there a whole demographic.

But my objection to the effect of the office towers at Phase II is that everyone working in those offices would crowd into all the restaurants at the lunch hour, and I & every one else who wants to lunch there right at noon, couldn't get a shot at them. I work up San Antonio and need a place to eat every work day at noon-- just like everyone who would work in the office towers. If the office towers were homes instead, the folks living there would be cooking their own lunches, for the most part, and possibly out and enjoying the place in the evening giving it more of a sense of place.

Plus, our jobs to housing ratio is already way out. Stop planning to make it worse!

Housing would be enjoyable here for those living here; better than along stinky ECR!

We should get rid of BART and Caltrain. That will force cities to reevaluate their jobs to housing ratio

As a long time resident of the Mountain View Community, I have never been more disappointed in our elected officials. Why do we put these people in office when they have a complete disregard for community concerns! We have told these officials for months that we do not want any more office space coming into our neighborhoods. Traffic is becoming a nightmare and affordable housing for current residents and potential future employees is nonexistent. If we have to choose from the proposed development options, high quality lodging is lacking in our community. When I have family that comes into town they are forced to stay south in Sunnyvale because there aren't any rooms available! This is ridiculous. The time is now to let the city hear our voices if we want to change the current development plans! City Council is voting Tuesday night, I will be there and I hope you will to.

@Alecia
"Traffic is becoming a nightmare and affordable housing..."
These are two mutually exclusive things.

I understand the city received 12 proposals to develop the Gateway site at 750 Moffett. Out of those, staff chose 4 to present to council. Three of the four proposals call for office space along with some kind of hotel, and only one developer, presented a 100% hotel plan.

The site presents several challenges, among them are shape, size, underground utilities, traffic control, TCE mitigation to name a few. Of the four proposals, the R.D.Olson proposal placed the bulk of the building massing along the creek for the main hotel. Some of the developers did set the massing back somewhat, but not to the extent of the Olson design. Forward site massing will be a big concern to the neighborhood.

This site is not just a gateway, it is the main gateway to our city, and as such, council and staff have been asked to hold the selected developer to a very high standard of architecture and design review that would properly showcase Mountain View as the emerging world class city it has become. Emphasized as well is that the Gateway project impacts our neighborhood directly, and will continue to be monitored with great diligence.

This site is most perfectly suited for a hotel. We can, and are building commercial office buildings throughout the city, and there is a growing community concern that we are overreaching in this area of development.

This gateway site with its unique location and proximity to Highways 101, 237, 85, Moffett Field, NASA and North Shoreline, should not be used for common commercial offices which can be sited anywhere. I see that one of the office developers is likely being recommended as the top choice to develop the Gateway site. Our city’s main Gateway site should be so much better than a mixed use project.

One developer has indicated that the city should expect to receive $6 million a year from TOT (transit occupancy taxes) from its project, but that developer was planning to build 100% hotel. Since the chosen developer's plan has only a small hotel, the city's TOT revenue will be about 3 million/yr I don’t think commercial offices can match that.

My feeling is that for Mountain View, the highest and best use of this unique Gateway property should be 100% hotel, and that anything less would be a tragic misuse.

Also adding to the mix is the city's adopted policy for dealing with unions on city property developments. The policy is called a Labor Peace agreement
Web Link
which obligates the developer to comply with union demands if they want the contract.

In essence the agreement all but ensures a union contract because it allows card check and no vote. The developer will merely ask for a subsidy from the city to pay for the increased cost of the forced union agreement, which will be several million taxpayer dollars. In my opinion, this Labor Peace policy has been the poison pill in past city/developer negotiations. This labor Peace policy puts union considerations first at the expense of the community at large. In my opinion, the city council needs to disengage from this detrimental policy, and begin working for the benefit of the community as a whole.