Hilarious... Google will support it morally.

Why does Lenny Siegel want to draw more tech workers into MV?

I want to thank the city council for sticking with the plan of no new houses.

There was a small but organized group who spoke in favor of NB housing at the City Council meeting.

This is a quote from MVResident67:
most of the comments came across as whiny tech workers who somehow seem to feel that they are entitled to live in close proximity to their workplace

Some of us are getting old but we do have long memories.

It sounds like" tantrum tactics" used before for privileged college students to get their way.

Web Link

Council woman Margaret Abe-Koga is technically correct, the Whisman Rd. property is "near a school." In fact, it is near two schools, neither of which is operating as a public school. Both Whisman School (Easy Street) and Slater School (Whisman Road) are elementary school sites owned by the MVWSD and leased out. The public parks at these sites are operating under $0 yearly lease agreements between the City and the MVWSD [OK one tennis court at Whisman, and some picnic tables are on City property].

SN is an elected Trustee of the MVWSD

I can understand the desire for housing near jobs. I had the unpleasant situation of driving 1.5 hrs to / from work in another state. But I did it so I could live in a balanced community. Balanced is the key --- that includes more than jobs + rooms. It requires schools, parks, shopping, services, parking too.

But adding "housing" where transient tech workers just crash at night is not a community. If this goes through, those of us who have settled in MV and are active participants in community life will just end up having to deal with impossible traffic, and one day would wake up to find ourselves living in the middle of a high-rise downtown. Sorry but no.

Respecting the community is part of living in a community, or working in it.

@Steven Nelson:
According to the city (page 66 of Web Link the district owns 4.25 acres at Whisman and the city owns 4.35 acres, not just one tennis court and some picnic tables.

If Google continues to demand increased office space N of 101, then as part of the approval process, they must agree to pay 100% of the bridge, road and parking improvements needed to restore decent traffic & parking conditions both N & S of 101. They have created the problem, so they must pay to solve it. Furthermore, these improvements must not further increase traffic and parking problems S of 101, particularly in downtown MV. It's time that Google starts paying its full weight to correct the negative transportation disasters that they have caused the City of Mountain View and its citizens.

I think it is foolish to limit office space in N Bayshore or to lament the job growth. It is an office park and has fostered great companies because of the concentration of space available to those companies. However, those companies rise and fall as has been seen in the N Bayshore many times. I think housing would make the traffic problems worse over time as people who move in find jobs in other areas, but remain living there.

I agree with the city council too. More housing without more infrastructure can only make schools more crowded and roads more congested.

For once, the City Council did the right thing. For once, Bryant and Abe-Koga committed to quality of life over developers' profits.

Now - How about a freeze on approving new office space in Mountain View?

This decision could always be reversed after the election - a good reason to NOT vote for Lenny Siegel, Ken Rosenberg, Greg Unangst, or Pat Showalter, four "Build, Build, Build" candidates. If you agree, please tell your friends and neighbors.

@ Concerned Citizen:

Just because a candidate supports studying housing in North Bayshore does not mean they are "build, build, build". We have a housing shortage of epic proportion in Silicon Valley which is causing a huge affordability problem. If we don't look at where to house the people who want to live here, it's as good as saying "go away" to anyone but the highest paid people. Siegel is too much of a one issue guy for me and I worry he would be combative on the council, and Unangst doesn't have a record in Mountain View so it's hard to know what he would do on council. Rosenberg and Showalter in particular are known to be balanced, sensible, people who are committed to preserving our quality of life. They would both be great city councilmembers.

Lenny Siegel, in his Website says:

"I expect, during the course of this fall’s Mountain View City Council Campaign, that voters will have questions about many issues. I have firm positions on some of those issues, and on others I am still learning or making up my mind. I also have strong views on many issues beyond the purview of the Mountain View Council.

But there is one set of issues, centered around the city’s jobs-housing imbalance, that motivated me to run for office. Mountain View in recent years has accepted uncontrolled expansion of high-tech employment."

In my opinion, this confirms that he is a one issue candidate. While housing is one of the big issues of the campaign, it's not the only issue that people care about. He admits that he is still learning about some of the issues, but why should we vote for him when there are candidates like Rosenberg, Neal and Matichak that already are very well informed?

@James: The city only owns 2 acres of land at Whisman Park. This is in two separate parcels for some reason, as recorded with the county about 1 acre each, directly along Easy Street to the North of the School driveway. The school district owns over 11 acres of land. About 6.5 acres of school district land has been operated as open play space congruous to the park. I suspect the city is talking about its lease for public park use which officially adds another 2 acres to the city owned land. Lately the tenants of the district property have expanded the school footprint into some of the open space (not much) by placing portable buildings.

Specific APN's for the city property at Whisman Park: 160-23-002 and 160-23-003

There's so much misinformation out there. The land in the north Bayshore area is not going for $20 Million. This is ridiculous. The office land there is worth less than office land in other parts of the city, not more. You won't see rising prices for land there unless the whole city sees a price rise. The jump to the $8 to $10 Million per acre range has been recent, and has take 2-3 years. It will be quite a few more years before price rises still more.

Furthermore, Google has bought up much of the land there. They own it already. They are planning to building housing. If the zoning blocks them they will continue to build more office space, or even sell the land to others who build that space. Stop forbidding them to build some housing.

And consider this: The city owns a lot of land up there itself, outside of the park and outside of the amphitheater. Once this land was used for parking, but no more. The city is going to develop something on this land. Why the heck not affordable housing???? We need it somewhere. And if not super affordable, at least medium priced, non-luxury units. All the development in the rest of the city is going the deluxe route. By allowing this area to INCLUDE *some* housing, you give the city the power to contribute to the housing inventory at the less-deluxe end.

Additionally, keep in mind that the area already boasts a 7 acre neighborhood park, Charleston Park. This is outside of the regional park. It has already been built and it just sits there waiting for residents for nighttime, weekend and day time use. This is NOT an area without neighborhood parks as well as regional ones.

From the article:

"Abe-Koga suggested reducing the 3.4 million square feet of allowed office growth in the plan to reduce demand for housing in the area, an idea that appeared to interest council members as midnight approached..."

This is the right idea - reduce the office space. I really hope that Planning and Council will follow through. This Council has done a lot of ill-considered things regarding development in the last couple of years, but here they have a chance to do better.

How about creating more dedicated park space in North Bayshore? Could we do that?

The Audubon Society doesn't endorse candidates but if Siegel keeps cheapshotting them over the cat increase issue as a way for him to get attention I'll bet the Society will find a way to make sure their membership knows about it.

“We believe that planning for a wide range of land uses — including a “critical mass” of residential uses — in North Bayshore is one of the best ways to reduce vehicle miles traveled and manage auto traffic congestion in this area,” wrote Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) Deputy Director of Planning Chris Augenstein in objection to the city council’s decision.

In the past the Mountain View city council voted to keep the area zoned business meaning no housing. Housing next to business can pose problems but seeing the area is becoming offices instead of factories a little housing might work.

Are we dealing with the idea of company housing or open anyone can live housing? Does Google want to enter being a landlord? What about night time wildlife next to a 5000 units complex? You also have to build a infrastructure to support 5000 units.

I remember when the 300 units were planned at the Village was going to be a nightmare. Just think about 1500 units at North Bayshore without a bank, supermarket, restaurants or some kinda of trendy store.

Not to mention schools.

Not everyone taking these jobs so they can succeed in life are wanting to have kids right away. Yes keep in mind they might want to have kids sometime in the future so planning to reopen a school or 2 schools is smart.

Most of the college kids graduating today are dealing with such student debt so it will be wise not to have kids at this time.

Keep in mind that the Mountain View Whisman school district has 2 schools nearby. They don't feel they have enough kids near either school to definitely reopen it. While these schools are across 101, there are 2 bike trails that lead from the North Bayshore area over to South of 101. Currently the kids that live near the schools are traveling much further than that to reach their assigned schools, some of which are south of El Camino Real. Way across 101 farther away is where these kids who live in the trailer park Santiago Villa currently attend school.

These 5000 units don't have to he all up against one another. They can infill in various areas throught the north Bayshore complex. There's little advantage to having them all be in one spot.

@ Concerned Citizen:

Agree that there may be too much office space allowed under the plan, but including residential in the mix would actually be more environmentally beneficial since people will have the *choice* to live near where they work- this is according to the city's General Plan 3rd party created official environmental document. Why? Even if potential future residents of N Bayshore work elsewhere, they will drive fewer miles overall because most trips are not the home-work trip but are the errand type trips and the proximity to numerous job centers definitely helps. A decent amount of housing will create a market for services in the area, and when coupled with the plans the city has to make walking, cycling, and transit much much easier and safer in the area (all off street paths basically), not driving will be a *real* option.

When you couple this with policies that allow developers and property owners to transfer development rights away from parcels near creeks and the park to parcels closer to the freeway and shoreline bouelvard, we have a real opportunity to undo some of the constriction that encroaches on the park and riparian areas.

Does the City Council still feel that high-tech development sans residential development is such a good idea? Debate the work/home balance as you will, there has been little regard (or coverage) for the transportation problems that are part of the scene at present, and likely to become more impacted in the future- within 10 years, say?
Google, for one, seems to have the foresight regarding the architectural requirements for a working population of perhaps 15-20,000, but I, for one, have heard little regarding the issue of moving the equivalent of a small city's population in and out of North Bayshore at regular intervals on a daily basis. Think about it- the area is bounded to the North by SF Bay, limited access to the West, Moffett Field to the East, and 3 approaches over 101 on bridges that don't lend themselves readily to lane widening.
In Europe, high-speed access from local environs to the civic centers is facilitated primarily by rail, subway and bus routes for the "last mile" with encouragement for bicycle riders. Locally, the same could be accomplished with VTA, light rail trolleys and even futuristic Googlebug pod cars on dedicated stiltways that double as bike lanes.
As a long-term resident of MV, I have seen accelerating changes locally, and I offer these suggestions in hopes of a "best-case" future for this fair city.

@Lilly,

Lenny Siegel, on several occasions, has said that his goal is to make Mountain View affordable for his children. That is, reduce housing prices.

This can happen in one of two ways:

!. We have long severe recession. In the last one, housing prices in my neighborhood remained flat but did not go down.

2. Make Mountain View a less desirable place to live. Lenny wants to add one (1) new Mountain View resident worker for every additional worker hired in Mountain View. That means, 20,000 to 30,000 additional Mountain View residents who work.
As of 2011, there were 39,500 employed residents. an incraese of 20,000 to 30,000 would increase our population by 37,000 to 56,000. That is a 50% to 75% increase.

That would drive down housing prices!

Downtown is already a zoo on weeknights. I went downtown on Wednesday night and the parking lots were very full. Cars were waiting for someone to leave. Can you imagine what that would be like with 20,000 additional workers residing in town?

@Konrad M. Sosnow

Is anyone counting the people who already work in Mountain View but have long commutes today? Certainly there folks are going to compete for any new housing in Mountain View which will keep prices high.

I will repeat again: Veterans and seniors need affordable housing too.

Let's not put someone on the city council who wants to drive public policy so his children will benefit.

Remember what he did during the Vietnam era.

I remember when the Navy left Moffett that Lenny Siegel wanted to tear up the runways and fill the base with housing.

@ A Senior Veteran

Is it a bad thing to consider future generations when developing public policy?

By the way, I don't "Remember what he did during the Vietnam era", could you refresh my memory?

5000 units of new housing would not be enough to hold down rental or purchase prices. Not even close. I doubt that even 10,000 units would do it. On the other side of the equation, 20,000 to 30,000 new jobs is just the current projection. IMO, business will expand into as much new space as cities allow. We'll reach 20,000 new jobs in just a few years - it won't take until 2030.

With just the housing and office projects approved already but not yet built, we will soon see significantly worse congestion than we already have. It's time to draw the line, to keep the city livable.

@Think - Lenny was an anti-war activist at Stanford in the Vietnam era. I don't hold that against him. Since then, he's been a pro-environment activist, a positive force in the community. But his vision of MV's future does not look good to me, and I don't want to see him elected. I don't think that 5000 units at North Bayshore and 300 more at San Antonio would be the end of it.

Not even 10,000 units would lower the costs of housing and Mountain View is not the only city suffering from a shortage.

Not even 10,000 units would lower the costs of housing and Mountain View is not the only city suffering from a shortage.

Not even 10,000 units would lower the costs of housing and Mountain View is not the only city suffering from a shortage.

Not even 10,000 units would lower the costs of housing and Mountain View is not the only city suffering from a shortage.

It is not bad to think about children and future generations.

Lenny was thinking about his own children.

He wan not just and anti-war activist he was a member of SDS. Here is a sample of what SDS did.

Web Link

America Divided : The Civil War of the 1960s: The Civil War ...

books.google.com
Jr Professor of History Hamilton College Maurice Isserman William R. Kenan, Michael Kazin Professor of History Georgetown University - ‎1999 - Preview
marchers provocatively chanted slogans like "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh/The NLF is gonna win." SDS publications began to fill up with imagery of heroic guerrillas brandishing automatic weapons. The antiwar movement, which was far broader than ...

@Observer-

If you think Pat Showalter and Ken Rosenberg are careful, thoughtful growth candidates, you have not been observant. Both have revealed themselves in their comments after the candidate forums. They'll go for offices and too high of high rise, as ling as it's not the THEIR won backyards.

@Another Observer, do you have facts to back up your claims about Rosenberg and Showalter?

With water restrictions in effect, how can we build more of anything at this point?

@Resident, just above-

Yes, I've heard them say so. My friends, too.

Ken readily admits.

Pat is more cagey and I think wants to cram stuff everywhere. She censors her words cautiously and I don't trust her at all.

Lenny Siegel has to be pressured to say that he wouldn't rule out "10 stories" (or more) if HE considered them in the "right" place. He is definitely a one issue guy who admits to only one thing: He knows next to nothing about all the other issues. He actually doesn't know very much about Shoreline, either, so that leaves he tremendously ill informed.

And speaking of Lenny Siegel, I agree with:

Posted by concerned citizen
a resident of Old Mountain View
on Sep 18, 2014 at 11:05 am

5000 units of new housing would not be enough to hold down rental or purchase prices. Not even close. I doubt that even 10,000 units would do it. On the other side of the equation, 20,000 to 30,000 new jobs is just the current projection. IMO, business will expand into as much new space as cities allow. We'll reach 20,000 new jobs in just a few years - it won't take until 2030.

With just the housing and office projects approved already but not yet built, we will soon see significantly worse congestion than we already have. It's time to draw the line, to keep the city livable.

@Think - Lenny was an anti-war activist at Stanford in the Vietnam era. I don't hold that against him. Since then, he's been a pro-environment activist, a positive force in the community. But his vision of MV's future does not look good to me, and I don't want to see him elected. I don't think that 5000 units at North Bayshore and 300 more at San Antonio would be the end of it.