What about city services and traffic planning for these projects? Services and traffic are already very dense in Mountain View. When do we does the city stop building?

Why is the Council so adamant about development,especially in light of the Staff warnings about the workload. Why request Staff opinion if Council is not going to heed their warnings? This could lead to cutting corners in the planning and permitting process, neither of which is good for current residents. Quality of life is deteriorating in Mountain View and rapid development will only make it worse.

Our Planning Commission, the City Council, and local pro-business and corporate interests are hell bent upon sacrificing Mountain View and its residents upon the fairy-tale alter of high density "affordable housing". Affordable housing is a bogus and highly damaging scam dreamed by starry-eyed idealists who have no concept real-world market based economics.

Come on folks, the developers need to make big money and the city wants more money from all the folks they bring in. Just from the parcel taxes for each home, the city could pave the streets with some google gold.

This is what happens when you elect 3 people to Council who state that we need more housing. They are trying to create a glut of housing and we may well end up with a great number of poorly built properties that deteriorate and that attract crime. This will create a need for more police and we will ultimately be in the situation that San Jose is in where they can't afford to fill the pot holes in the street.

What substantive steps has this council taken to address traffic and congestion? NOTHING! Nothing now; nothing in the works. Not a peep. Let's see...

- Voted to close a lane on El Camino. (No, that's not going to help)
- Discussed road diets. (No, that's not going to help)
- Considered additional traffic lights. (No, that's not going to help)
- Approved more housing on El Camino & San Antonio. (No, that's not going to help)
- Started a City Shuttle. (Ooops, Google did that).

Before approving any more housing (or commercial for that matter), Our council needs to have substantive discussions leading to concrete short and long term actions that will address traffic and congestion.

I think the city is being well run and the Council is trying to do what is right for our city.
You can't blame the Council if they are not doing what you want. We elected three residents to represent us and they want to see more housing here, at least partially because our rents are so high which causes too many to move away. They feel that providing more housing is part of the answer.
Council members are on a small salary and never profit from a development here.
Anyone that feels they can do better can plan on running in the next election.

It's about time the council listens to the residents around these high density projects along Middlefield and Shoreline. 1100 plus units on the corner of Moffet and Middlefield is unreal. How about a traffic study that really studies the impact. If you think that the renters of the units don't drive, think again. And all the other services that are needed, including grocery shopping. You don't walk to the store. We need to put a stop to this madness. This city needs more homeowners, we have enough rental units. Or do we want to live in a city that has a transient population that changed quite often, where homeownership means nothing anymore.

We moved here in 2010 planning to rent for one year while we got to know the city, and then buy a modest three-bedroom (we would have been able to afford ~$750K). In that first year, housing prices rose so steeply we were priced out, so we renewed our lease and vowed to keep saving.

Each year since, prices have gone up so much that our efforts to save simply don't leave us with enough for a down payment - not near enough at this point, as most 3BRs seem to be going for at least $1.2M. (For those keeping track, that means we'd have had to save $90,000 over 5 years - and after our student loan payments, child care, and rent, we can generally put away about $1,000/month, which, clearly, won't do the trick.)

I love our life in Mountain View, and I resent the implication that my family and I represent a "transient population" who don't contribute to the community here. I very much want to be a homeowner, but the market simply won't allow it at this point in time - and that will be the case until housing prices go down (or at least stabilize), or we come into some sort of unexpected windfall. I can't help but assume that there are many other renters out there in the exact same boat.

(Oh, and for the record, I do walk or bike to the grocery store quite regularly.)

More people is more people. It doesn't matter if it's high end or affordable housing, if you don't upgrade the infrastructure, the quality of life suffers. BTW, I live close to a subsidized housing project on San Veron Ave. and it's not the kind of thing you want in your backyard. The city council should think more about what's in the best interests of current Mountain View residents.

PLEASE...take the time toREAD. "Agenda 21",,,
You will see the path toward total Govt. control of our live...usually sold under the guise of Helping" solve a perceived problem...but in reality...more govt control.
PLEASE...read the book..Wake up Mtn. View. It begins local.
Bye George

I do not know about you, but I am absolutely fed up with all these new housing units being planned and being built. We do not have an housing imbalance, we have a renters to home owners imbalance. The city is approving almost 20,000 new rental units for our city which means we will have about 75% renters to home owners.

I do not want this city to turn into San Francisco where renters alone will dictate who gets elected and sets the agenda for the city. I moved out from S.F 35 years ago, I know where this is headed. You all ready see council members Seigel and Showater pushing for control over what property owners can do with their property. We must vote them out and make sure the next 2 council seats are filled with the professional people who care about the whole city the way the previous council did for the past 30 years, and who do not take away any rights from any one.

We need to pass a referendum that states that the total rental units and owner units must be balanced at 50% each.

To help address the affordable housing issue, the city must change it's condo ordinance to allow Tenants in Common buildings, aka TIC's, and allow existing older apartment buildings to sell individual units as condo's. If people currently live in them now, there is no reason that they could not be sold without a lot of expensive upgrades to meet current codes. Let's keep them as affordable as possible.

These TIC's and Condo conversations will be truly the very best first step for many people to buy their place and start to build equity so that they can move up the real estate ladder sooner.

We need more housing - but even more important, we need to reduce commercial development, and Google and LinkedIn adding 100s or 1000s of new employees here. The big problem is too much office space and development, which increases traffic and drives demand for lots of new housing.

It is too late to change the office plans, but maybe not too late to start taking companies with more than 300 employees in Mountain View. Make the tax high enough and we can afford a world class transport system in the city (not that joke of a Google bus), AND we might get Google, LinkedIn, etc to do the responsible thing and distribute their employee centers throughout the Bay area (ideally with a very high percentage telecommuting)

Gladys,
In 1980, 81 we had a problem with too many rentals and during that time the council allowed a lot of apartment to condo conversion. By the way Mr Siegel was fighting for rent control at that time. It didn't pass. Economy goes up and down and we sure don't want a 1000 units to turn into slums. We need to have control to higher density. Isn't it interesting that all high density seems to go up north of the tracks. By the way the city is asking owners around Linda Vista if they should install speed bumps on Linda Vista to prevent driver doing shortcuts to Terra Bella and Shoreline. This has been a problem for years on a street with a 25 mile speed limit.

The "Gate Keeper" projects are taken WAY too lightly. How does a city manage to have the many low revenue services like a theater, bowling alley or hardware store that make a city a good place to live when there are companies like Google operating on a whole different stratosphere and houses selling for well over a million dollars?

If all things were equal, we wouldn't have any of those things that make living here good. That has been true for ages and is why we have ZONING and a general plan. These make sure there is a balance of land uses to create a good city. Zoning makes some land less valuable than other land by restricting the uses - which preserves important parts of our community.

So, these GateKeeper projects give me fits.
1) They are a give away to developers because they usually are taking land with restrictions that has a low value and then allows a new use that previous owners were denied - a windfall for the developer! Like finding gold buried under your land.
2) They disrupt the balance of our community. We used to have 2 bowling alleys quite nearby, as an example. Pretty cheap entertainment and a good hangout for kids, especially during summer. They are high density housing now - netting millions for the new owners. The kids are now in gangs - what else is there for kids to do?
3) Enough has already been said about increasing the density and impact on traffic.
4) Housing prices? If you doubled the number of houses in MtView it would have almost no impact on prices here - it would just pull in more from the surrounding area. You would see the impact at the edges - maybe in Tracy and Modesto. We are not an island and the jobs/housing balance doesn't happen within our borders.

The Army Corps of Engineers is not about to build shoddy examples of housing. Since it is your Federal Taxes at Work, you are getting back some of those taxes in the form of housing. AFFORDABLE housing. The only people who lose are the developers, who should be told to find some other sucker to peddle their snake oil to.
With that issue settled, the pro-developer faction of the City Council will have to resign or serve the public.

A win-win for Mountain View!

You folks sure are paying a lot of money to get cancer in a toxic waste dump. What's the appeal there?

@punnisher - About the 500 Moffett project (1100 units) - I wish you were right, but my impression is that the Army will not be involved in this project, except in divesting itself of the land. Instead, "California Military Communities LLC" will obtain rezoning and preliminary approval, then sell the rights and the land to a private developer. So it looks more like business-as-usual.

Mark Noack, author of the article, left this comment on another thread: "Once the entitlements are in hand, the U.S. Army and its partners plan to sell off the land to a private developer."

I'm certainly hoping for affordable housing here, but don't hold your breath. In addition, I am hoping for some park space, considerably less density than recent Prometheus projects, and ownership units available for purchase, rather than just more of those "luxury" rentals.

If anyone has better information, please let us know.

Gladys, I would welcome the opportunity to purchase a converted apartment or a TIC, assuming it was within my price range (currently, we could swing about $1M) - but I fear that the spiraling prices and competitive bidding would continue to leave me (and many other renters) in the cold, even if this step was taken.

"You folks sure are paying a lot of money to get cancer in a toxic waste dump. What's the appeal there?"

You not being here is a big one. You sure are bitter towards Mtn. View. Maybe it's time to move on mentally as well.

@Renter,

I understand where you are coming from.
Converted apartments to Condo"s and TIC's are the most affordable option for first time homeowners. It allows you to start to build equity right away, and then allows you to move up the property ladder much sooner than if you would be paying rent and trying to save up for a larger down payment.
Start spreading this thought around to your friends, then pressure the city council to change the condo conversion ordinance. Remember, to keep it affordable the city can not require it be brought up to city code, then it won't happen. If it is good enough for people to live in it, then it should be good enough for some people to own it.

@Homeowner,

I remember the 1980's. There was such a flood of empty apartments in the city that some landlords did not care who they rented to and we then had the Nortino's and Sureno's gangs move here and it was not long after that we had our first drive by shooting here. The city for the longest time would not admit that there was a gang problem but eventually the police had to form the gang unit. I do not want that problem here again.

VOTE OUT SEIGEL-SHOWATER-ROSENBERG

Never vote for the candidates that the Mtn.View Voice endorses.

The land at 500 Moffett Blvd. is not a toxic waste site.

It was once an antenna array, just wires up in the air.

The last city council got dumped for blocking housing development. They built a staff to block housing development which is carrying on that policy. The staff will get dumped too if they keep this up.

@Jim, I don't think that's quite right. No one in the last city council was running for reelection, so no one actually got dumped. In addition, the last council was quite development-friendly, the one exception being that a majority did not want housing in North Bayshore. Granted, it's true that the 3 candidates who were elected ran on a platform of accelerated development, especially in North Bayshore. True also that two of them had the help of $90,000 in campaign money from developers, routed through a shell organization to conceal the source of the funds.

It's not a bit true that Planning is anti-development. On the contrary, staff has been very accommodating to developers, worked closely with them, and given them pretty much anything they wanted, including making recommendations to council that prioritized developers' interests over residents' concerns. This has been going on for years.

I absolutely believe that any delay in processing gatekeeper projects is due solely to shortage of staff. Staff has rarely stood in the way of a major project in the last few years. You are very much mistaken about their mindset.

Mountain View needs affordable housing for the first time home buyers, not for the renters. Home owners will help build a stronger community because they invest so much more (aka: their life saving, their kids future) in Mountain View than renters. We need to help first time home owners, not developers or business-men who cut checks to help councils to win votes in exchange for making them more money.

Lots of renters are good people, and those good people come and go. I don’t see how a good neighborhood can be formed in a long run. In an economic down-turn, many renters will not stay with Mountain View. The neighborhood turns into slum when there are too many vacancies, and those vacant units will be filled with less credit worthy people. Whatever happens to Mountain View will not be those renters’ problem. For those who stay in Mountain View long enough, they should have seen that happened.

Council members represent renters and the deep-pocket guys, they are doing their job. The council members should not be the one to be blamed. As homeowner, we are failing because we let it happen.

New Parent, I completely agree! I have looked into first-time homebuyer programs, and find that my family makes far too much money to qualify for any of them... which would be totally reasonable in a town where a small home could be bought for 3K or 4K. As I stated above, despite our somewhat high salaries (they'd be considered very high in many other parts of the country, I know), we simply can't save enough to make home-buying a reality. If the city of Mountain View put together a program to offer us some sort of assistance with the down payment, we would jump at it!

Sorry, clearly I meant 300K or 400K!

Just a comment,
500 Moffet with 1100 units would be 80 units per acre after the current maximum zoning and no space for any internal road, walkways, parking spaces. So it would have to be more units per acre since there have to be roads etc. That sounds too much for any area in Mountain View. If it gets developed, it should be mixed use with homes, condos and rentals at a much lower zoning.
And were is the water coming from and were are the cars going to drive, since all roads around the area are at max capacity.