Excellent.

Now, can the council continue on this right thinking path and approve more residential construction....oh I dunno, perhaps near where lots and lots of people work?

If only there were such a plan.....

This map is pretty illegible Please take some time to post a better one or provide a Google maps link next time.

Fortunately Ferguson is not a very long road, so you can get a sense of where it must be.

But really, what is up with that map? You can't even read the names of the roads.

I can't tell by the map, but is this new development near the MEW Superfund Site or near contaminated plumes?

I can't tell anything from the illegible map in the story but checking Google maps, but I believe this is between Pacific Dr. and E. Middlefield:
Map Link:
Web Link

That's right. If you turn on Satellite View in Google Maps, you should be able to identify the Cisco data center and existing Whisman Station development.

This site is slightly southeast of the MEW Superfund Site.

Yes, between Pacific and E. Middlefield to the southeast of the VTA light rail line, which is at the top of the map in this article. The bottom of the map is Ferguson.

The western part of the land near the Cisco data center was part of the old GTE Sylvania plant, which I believe was a Superfund site.

Oh yippie! More unaffordable cookie-cutter housing.

You know who benefits from building housing on top of Superfund toxic sites? Environmental consultants in charge of assessment and cleanup. Guess who donates to Lenny Siegel's organization.

We already know the plume will continue to migrate as it has in the past few decades. Should provide plenty of new work. Congratulations.

No mentioned of schools. Where are all these additional kids going to go to school? Will they be building a new school?

Naw! this $1.6M sounds like a dodge vav the affordable housing that will not actually happen. This project should be required to provide its own quota of affordable units. Shady dealings is my take on this ping-pong process.

"The implication of people living in a $1 million house and paying $3,000 a month, they may not have the means to live in the neighborhood," he said. "The city getting that money and then getting to use it for other housing is the better way to do it."

I'm not sure I agree with Kasperzak's sentiment here-- it sounds like he is proposing some sort of Projects-style living in what would be designed to be an undesirable part of town. I'd rather see the City support neighborhoods with a mix of tenants when feasible.

I do wish the Council would hold stronger on these affordable housing fees. With rents for a 2BR at $3500 - $4500, we are giving too much away to these developers.

Who can afford $3,500-$4,500 a month rent for a two bedroom apartment? This is ludicrous!! What is happening to our town? Not everyone one in this town works for Google and wants to share and live in a place with 5 other guys!! Eventually these guys will meet girls and will want to get married and have babies. They won't be able to live here either, not on a one OR two person income! Heck, not everyone HAS two incomes, some are single people with children. Even middle income earners/families can't afford MV anymore! This is sad for the people that have lived in MV for many years and are being forced out by high rents. Where have all the families gone...far, far away.

What kids? they won't be able to afford having kids in MV!

When will sanity prevail and all over-development stop? The Planning Commission, the City Council and developers are turning MV into just another high density ghetto like SF. We can't get these idiots off of the Planning Commission and City Council fast enough to save MV's traditional suburban character!!! Those who disagree, you're just plain wrong and I'm right. Just shut up and live somewhere else. We don't need you messing up MV. Take Google et al with you.

With all the many new buildings going on does not entice one to save water.

@OldMV

It is a fact of life that population is increasing (for now). Demand for housing will have to be met by the suburbs.

The presence of Google et al is a double-edged sword, like it or not. On the one hand, it attracts people to the area and helps the towns and its businesses to grow. On the other hand, it attracts people to the area and helps the towns and its businesses to grow.

These projects are way to dense and way too expensive, only great for the builders who will take lots of money to the bank.

Schools- who talking about schools? "It's not a question of if, but when." 600 units = 6 students for Landels?

Ah, so this project (and other new business and housing projects) will be among the first to locally recycle sewage to reclaim water for drinking and irrigation, eh?

No? Why not?

Where oh where is the water going to come from to support these new homes?

What, in this seriously bad, bad drought no one realized that the people living in those homes may want to bathe, take showers, wash clothes and dishes and water their lawns??? Probably there will be a need for swimming pool water, too.

I would ask, "What were our council members thinking?" but I'm not sure that everyone was giving full attention to that nagging issue of WATER!

I have to shake my head in bewilderment at people complaining that these new apartments are too high rent, as if that's a reason to oppose their construction.

New housing doesn't make the rent higher. Rent is skyrocketing because demand exceeds supply. Companies keep hiring and densifying and expanding while housing growth is kept much lower than the free market would build, and much lower than what other suburbs have built. (For example, my hometown of Bethesda, MD.) All those employees who want a reasonable commute bid against each other for what housing is available.

Note that the approval of this South Whidman project is still not enough. The Mountain View 2030 General Plan projects that our existing jobs-housing gap will increase by thousands in the next 15 years, and I believe the General Plan included this site.

If you care about preserving Mountain View's community and affordability, you have to support smart housing growth, including offering dense housing options for those (like me) who would want them.

You: "I have to shake my head in bewilderment at people complaining that these new apartments are too high rent, as if that's a reason to oppose their construction.
New housing doesn't make the rent higher."

Me: Not opposing construction of new housing, we desperately need it. Opposing the ridiculously high rents.

Building in the bay area is expensive because the land prices are astronomical, especially if there is pollution mitigation involved if this is a TCE contaminated site, city councils introduce per-square foot fees, not to mention all the other fees involved, the state mandates particular materials to be used, etc. All of this makes construction costs very high, which is passed onto future owners and renters.

I did some googling, and while the numbers are somewhat hard to find for just the bay area, net profit margins for CA builders are low, generally around 5%, more for luxury developments, but still under 10%. Assuming this number is accurate, that means that at zero profit, the builders could only reduce those costs by that much, and nobody's going to do all that work for free.

You can oppose high rent all you want, what you need to do is think about how to make high rent cheaper and act on that. Given the costs here, you can't do much in terms of driving it down legislatively, you have to find ways to make building and owning cheaper, and if you consider subsidies, you have to figure out who is going to pay.

I would propose drastically reducing bureaucracy around building, remove affordable housing requirements, remove density and height restrictions, so that the cost of land (the biggest single cost) can be amortized over many more units, which will drive down costs via increased supply much more than half assed subsidies. We need thousands of housing units, along with the supporting residential infrastructure it would require.

@Jeffrey Hoffman:

"Me: Not opposing construction of new housing, we desperately need it. Opposing the ridiculously high rents."

The rents are a result of the entire marketplace. Rents aren't high just in Mountain View, they are high throughout the entire SF Peninsula, and in the SF Bay Area as well.

If buying a house is affordable, then rents stay relatively low, since the demand for rentals is decreased. Rents go up when buying a house is less affordable. Both go up a lot when there's a scarcity of properties (the SF Bay Area is like this). Both go down when there's an excess of property (like Detroit).

The local demand for property -- for purchase and for rent -- is high because of the hot job market. The availability of both single-family dwellings as well as high-density housing must be increased, not just in Mountain View, but all over the SF Bay Area as long as the local economy chugs along.

@Resident you are entitled to your opinion but so am I. And I don't think we NEED high density at all. I WANT it to stay as it is, why does it HAVE to change? Just so some people can work close to their jobs? I commuted for years and years and years until I was able to afford to live closer to my job. I didn't expect the cities to build more housing to accommodate me. And before anyone gets on the environmental high horse....well, that's an entirely different discussion.

And yes, let's just remove all height restriction so all we see is tall buildings. Why should any of us need to "view" the "mountains" anyway.

Hurumph.

you can get a "mountain view" from the penthouses

@no we don't

The bay area is growing. All cities on earth came to be from much less dense settlements. As time passes, the world changes, whether you like it or not.

I, too, like the view of the mountains and this neighborhood, however, I find it more important to let the area grow to accommodate new residents so that we don't become a wealthy enclave of nothing but Google and Facebook employees, which would be very dull (no offense to these employees, but variety is the spice of life!).

It's selfish to resist change which can only help the housing situation here. We need 6,000 units, not 600, and maybe then we'll see a slight reprieve in the housing crunch.

Change is good to a point, that's why we need smart change/growth. Not just throw 6000 units in one place and totally destroy the infrastructure. If you are being out priced, then go somewhere where you feel the price is right!!

Six hundred approved units, may or may not all get built. May or may not have standard student generation rates. May or may not be moving in for local private schools such as GISVV, Bowman, parochial, etc. As an LCFF district MVWSD will get school district developer fees with Building Permits, and operational funds after students are enrolled. Betting on any of these outcomes is a dubious use of a school board's fiduciary responsibility.

In the reverse situation, PAUSD sold school sites for homes when enrollment dropped. Now it has more than rebounded, but land cannot be reacquired. School decision should always lag market conditions.

Great, another 600 new homes that 90% of current MV residents still won't be able to afford, but builders you keep on enjoying those tax breaks and city kickbacks.

600 expensive units is still better than nothing, because it will keep 600 families with enough money to buy one from competing for existing used homes and apartments, which may go to people with less money.

Like I said above, you can't really make housing much cheaper without either subsidizing it or going denser, and given the short supply, we need lots of it before prices of used inventory come down. I'm a home owner up to my ears in debt for a starter home in Mountain View, and I'd still love to see house prices come down so that this town doesn't turn into a Google/Facebook/Linked-In extended campus.

City Council should really consider researching CLT timber construction. I've heard that it would allow cost effective mid-rise buildings with really good heat and sound insolating walls along with speedy construction. It really could make the bay area a lot more livable.