The rent control on apartments just drove up my rent for my house. I used to look for comparable 3 bedroom apartments rent and negotiate with my landlord. Now I can't find anything since no one is moving. And all the new people are in the same boat. I wonder if I did the right thing.

The rent control is for older smaller buildings which used to offer lower rents as a balance to the corporate, 200+ units complexes. I am afraid we just lost that option forever, and I and the new ones are worse off.

MLer, now, with rent control, you do not need to negotiate rent every year. I hope you will soon find suitable home and piece there. No more moving around each year.

Even the new residents will benefit as they have a set understanding of how much they will need to pay to get here and stay here. Some people moved here expecting to pay one thing, then having rents go up %30 year after year.
At least the new ones will have visibility into how much it will cost to move here and to stay here.

@Sara

MLer rents a house, which is not affected by rent control.

@ Darin

You are right. We were renting a 3 bedroom house and the landlord raised the rent $1,000 per month, they gave us 3 months notice. We moved out and are now living with my mom. we should leave the area, but I will inherit the house some day and she needs help while she is here. I grew up here.

It's sad and somewhat exciting what is happening here in Mountain View. I feel sorry for the people who are getting pushed out, but maybe it is a blessing in disguise for them. They can get out of this mess with nothing to tie them down.

To Sara, I rent a house.

And I don't expect to inherit a house.

I have already looked at older apartments and they have increased rent just during the last two months.

The MicroPADs are interesting, but I'm finding the rent to be crazy for such tiny homes. $1000/month for that tiny space? Ok, but it's not going to help the "missing middle" very much. It would be hard to fit a couple in that space, much less a family. I love the idea of compact, tiny housing, but those MicroPADs were designed for the homeless, not for the people who make too much for subsidized housing but too little to buy a house. You'd need to plan at least 1 MicroPAD/person in a family, and that would still be crazy-tiny.

I think state should take indeed pass a law that ensures that approval process is streamlined and it will increase supply dramatically. There is plenty of desire to build, but the approval process is crazy.


The opponent's arguments are full of smelly substance:

a) Tax more and go more in debth and make no dent in a problem? What could possibly go wrong.

2) $50B to build 1000 homes? Somebody doesn't do math very well....

Solution is simple ;) Introduce a law that requires per every two new jobs added within a city, one new housing unit within the same city to be built. This will ease Bay area housing crisis by forcing either: companies to move operations elsewhere, or all these greedy landlords and crying homeowners to finally realize that their high income from rent and value of their property comes from families like mine living at horrible 1b apartments built in 1960' paying 2k on average for rent and struggling to save a single penny in their saving accounts. Is rent control is unconstitutional or unjust?! I say fu! Taking care of a disabled child while living in Bay area this what is unjust.

I think people would be surprised how many residents would opt for a micro-home if it meant either:
a) saving money
b) appealed to a minimalist or eco sensibility
c) less time driving

Those who already own in MV don't experience the reality that:
a) current prices mean little savings
b) residents are living in spaces either bigger than they need or even less desirable (renting rooms, RVs)
c) spending 2+ hours each day on the road

I am worried that rentals however would lead to landlords/investors charging more for less space, rather I hope there's homeowner micro options that allow the residents to retain the equity, and then upsize/downsize as their life sees fit. No one is seeking a handout, just supply to meet demand, just as new supply of homes post-WWII opened MV to a whole new generation of first time homeowners.

Former MV City Manager Bruce Liedstrand drafted the following North Bayshore vision statement. It's exciting!
Web Link (linked here)

$50 Billion to build 1000 housing units would be $50 million per housing unit. Even if quota is 10000 units, that would still be 5 million per unit. Something's pretty broken with the numbers in the article.

I'm still not convinced rents have spiked dramatically the way many have said. I understand many can't afford them, but that is a different issue, and also not a new issue in the Bay Area. I think the dip during the recession makes people feel like rents have increased dramatically in the last few years, but really they are just returning to bay area normal.

In 2001 I was paying $1,800 a month for a one bedroom apartment in Santa Clara. That was a competitive rate at the time. Assuming a 3% rent increase (average rate of inflation) a year for the past 16 years, someone renting my apartment now would be expected to be paying $2,888 a month in rent for a one-bedroom in Santa Clara. An (admittedly) very quick Google search shows the average rent for a one bedroom in Santa Clara today is actually less, about $2,500 a month. SO, I'm not convinced that we are suddenly suffering from drastic increases in rent.

What is different now is renters seem to feel entitled to a rent they feel comfortable with in an area they want. My solution 16 years ago was to get a roommate so I could afford the rent. Now I guess you just get a law passed to force landlords to give you what you want, whether or not it is deserved.

This is a very slippery slope, and I worry about what else "the people" will decide they "need" to fix prices on. Venezuela is great at price-fixing and you can see how successful that has been. Good intentions sure, but good intentions don't necessarily make good policy.

@Rent spent

The only entitled people in this equation are a subset of homeowners who feel that they're entitled to throw up barriers across the city to new housing supply, causing a shortage in homes which drives rents up to the point that you have to get a roommate to make rent on a 1 bedroom apartment. It's self-serving and entitled behavior that enriches them through increased property values that they don't even need to pay taxes on, while externalizing the cost onto renters and future property owners. Behavior like that is what pushes people to call for and adopt rent control legislation.

@YIMBY

What kind of "barriers across the city to new housing supply" are being "thrown up by a subset of homeowners"?


Specificity would be enlightening.

Web Link

Web Link

@YIMBY,

Heck, just look at our newly elected city council members. Lisa Matichak in particular was instrumental in blocking numerous housing developments as a driving force in the Wagon Wheel Neighborhood Association.

Web Link is just one example.

What barriers? Seriously, there are apartments buildings going up like crazy all over Mountain View. Mountain View has always had one of the most relaxed building/zoning policies around. Maybe you are thinking of Los Altos or Palo Alto?

These new apartments in Mountain View sit empty even months after they are completed, they have listings for rent on zillow. Rents have already naturally come down. There was never a need for rent control in Mountain View, but now we are stuck with it.

Stop whining YIMBY. Housing is being built. The services that are needed to support that housing like roads, schools and parks are not, but I guess people don't care about that. At least you won't have to have a roommate in a one bedroom apartment. That sounds positively dreadful!

You're not describing any Mountain View that I know. A pittance of new apartments are being built, rent for a one bedroom is still well over $2000 a month, rents have not come down in any way, nor are apartments sitting empty. I imagine if one were a retiree in a house purchased decades ago, they'd become so detached from the realities of the housing market and cost of living that they might think things are fine, but in reality they're most certainly not.

YIMBY continues a narrative thinking the more he says it, the more people will believe it. Unfortunately that's probably true, people aren't interested in fact, just rhetoric.

There are TONS of new units coming on the market. Will they be inexpensive enough for YIMBY? Probably not, YIMBY thinks prices should be at same levels as years ago. YIMBY is upset he can't afford to buy a place that is TOO EXPENSIVE FOR HIM.

A quick perusal of an apartment rental website I was just viewing shows 569 apartments currently available for lease/rent in Mountain View.

Web Link


I also was reviewing Mountain View's RHNA update from 2007 - 2014. Mountain View was assigned an RHNA by ABAG of 2,599 units. Mountain View's combined number (units completed and permits issued) is 2,656 which is 102% of target, as of publication of the update in September 2015. Mountain View has since issued permits for numerous additional housing projects, further boosting the housing unit number.

What is woefully lacking in all these additional housing units coming online is housing for moderate income folks. The report reflects only 4 permits or just 1% of the 488 units assigned by ABAG to be priced for moderate income folks are actually being constructed for moderate income folks. Similarly, the report reflects only 28 permits or just 7% of the 388 units assigned by ABAG to be priced for low income folks are actually being constructed for low income folks.

Web Link

There doesn't appear to be a lack of available housingin Mountain View, if the apartment listing websites are accurate. There clearly is a lack of new, moderate and low income housing coming online, and I'd be front and center at city council meetings demanding developers provide more affordable housing as they consider all those new projects.

Every single time an old apartment building goes away, that's one less rent controlled building and one less remotely 'affordable' housing building removed from Mountain View forever.

It has begun. 32 less rental units. Good luck to the property owner(s), I hope they maximises their profits on the sale of the properties. Believe you me, this is just the beginning



Check out this home at Realtor.com
$4,500,000
360 Chiquita Ave, Mountain View
Web Link

Check out this home at Realtor.com
$8,400,000
500 Chiquita Ave, Mountain View
Web Link

@Sigh

This isn't about whether or not they're too expensive for me. I can afford to pay the outrageous costs of living in supply-constrained Mountain View. It's about whether or not they'll be affordable for the barbers, grocery store employees, and any other people who work jobs in Mountain View that might not pay a six-figure salary. We have a workforce that commutes in from San Carlos and Dublin because every city around here is full of people sticking their nose up at the idea of building more housing for "others" to live in, because once you moved into Mountain View that was suddenly the cutoff point for ideal population.

@Reality

Prices are driven by supply and demand. If there was supply on the market that wasn't being bought up, then prices would go down. You can't build "middle-income" housing in this environment unless you specifically gate it off for a certain income level and subsidize the rent because nothing is going to stop wealthier individuals from going for those units. Micro-units and things of that nature are just a bandaid on the real problem with housing in this area, which is a critical lack of supply for the massive amount of demand.

The overpopulation creating the housing crisis is not caused by the barbers, grocery store employees and any other people who work jobs in Mountain View that might not pay a six-figure salary, who largely have deep-seated roots in our community. The overpopulation is caused by the never-ending stream of techies coming in. But they are only the indirect cause. It's only natural that people move to where the jobs are. So really its the tech companies' fault for growing far bigger than the region (not just Mountain View) can accommodate, right? But again, they're just doing what corporations do - grow as much as possible and generate as much wealth for investors as possible, community be damned. We have our city council to blame for allowing them to grow so large in our community. To scoop up every available parcel to keep on growing and growing and growing their office space and the number of jobs, leaving the community to deal with issues of where to house all those people. And we have ourselves to blame for electing a city council who created this monster while we weren't looking. A decade or so ago it seemed like Google was a positive for our city, but then wee let it out in the sunlight, we let it get wet, we fed it after midnight, and we're all trying to figure out how
to contain the damage.

And the available land and infill supply is being/has been bought up by large developers who are going to charge market rate, unless or until the city mandates, just as ABAG has mandated, that the city somehow figure out a way to hit their assigned number of low and moderate income level housing units that are being developed. This is what happens when mandates are given...you have to figure out a way to manipulate the free market.

People commute. It happens all the time. I honestly don't think it is cruel or unusual for someone to commute from Sunnyvale or San Jose to/from Mountain View. It's done every day, by people from all walks and incomes of life.

Try this experiment if you get a chance...ask 10 random employed people who live on your block what city they work in. I would be surprised if more than 15% said they work in Mountain View. I've actually done this, and out of 10 residents I asked only one of those residents worked in Mountain View. One. Every other person worked scattered up and down the peninsula...from San Jose to Los Gatos to San Francisco. Point being, people commute...it's a fact of life.

The amount of additional/new units you seem to be advocating for in Mountain View - which would be needed in order to drive the cost of housing down - appears to be in the tens of thousands over the next decade or so. If that is accurate, I think that's untenable both from an infrastructure standpoint and now from a natural resources standpoint. (Mountain View just agreed to sell off 1MM gallons of water daily, in perpetuity, to East Palo Alto...water that Mountain View is expected to need within 23 years.)

Mountain View is developing housing at a furious pace, as evidenced by the RHNA summary I cited above as well as current permits and projects under review and construction, but I don't see how you plan to get from where we are presently to ample 'affordable' units for any/all who are wanting in the short (under a decade) term?

@RMV

No one said that the "overpopulation" is caused by barbers. But you're clearly in a position of privilege to see good high paying jobs in Mountain View as the true cause of our housing problems via the demand it brings instead of residential groups fighting against any new housing.


@Reality

Note that I didn't say Sunnyvale or San Jose. I said San Carlos and Dublin. I even know a service worker who lives with his family in Sacramento on the weekends but then lives in San Jose on the weekdays for work. Every year the stories I hear about how far people are commuting to this area for work get more ridiculous. This region is turning into a de-facto gated community where the service class bus themselves in.

The amount of housing we need to build is fully tenable, as are the infrastructure improvements needed to support it. This is not a resource problem. This is a political problem in it's entirety.

@YIMBY, oh the assumptions we make. You know all about me, don't you? ;-)

You are quibbling over the mileage/commute difference between San Carlos and Mountain View v San Jose and Mountain View? Really? Both cities are about 16 miles, typically 30 minutes or less commute to/from Mountain View.

I cited San Jose as an example because the city seems to have close to 2,700 apartments available for lease/rent right now, starting at $1,200 for a 1 bedroom. My point being, that there seem to be thousands of available and at least somewhat more reasonably priced housing units in San Jose...right now. I thought you were interested in solutions for...right now? I'm not saying it's a permanent solution, but it's something that works while other, longer term solutions take shape. Yes?

Exactly how many additional housing units are you proposing that Mountain View should be building in order to bring down the cost of housing here? And how quickly do you believe this housing can be ready to be occupied by residents?

No spin about obstruction. Pretend it's green lights all the way as far as approval process. Lay it out...including the amount of time it will take to make the necessary infrastructure improvements.

Go

Correction, I mixed San Ramon and San Carlos up. Dublin and Sacramento are still correct though.

I want to see 30,000 units in Mountain View over the next 10 years.

@ YIMBY - Why do you think Mountain View has to provide all the new housing? 30,000 units? Why not place some of those in Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Los Altos, Menlo Park Redwood City, Santa Clara? The burden to supply housing for the entire Bay Area workforce should not sit with one city. It makes no sense.

Each of the cities you listed should also be building housing units in similarly high numbers. San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland especially should all be building units in excess of 100,000 units in that time.

30K units in ten years is stunning, for a number of reasons. You are talking about increasing Mountain Views population by upwards of 65% (and that is a conservative estimate) in just ten years. I know the assumption was based on green lighting approval for housing construction, but where are you planning to put these 30k units? Also, the kind of infrastructure upgrades needed to support this kind of influx people would be massive.

The water issue is real, and increasing the population so rapidly - in just ten years - would accelerate the timeline for when Mountain View would hit its cap (run out of water) now that it has entered into an agreement to sell a million gallons of water a day to East Pablo Alto. There is no way to get that water back. You simply cannot dismiss the natural resources issue of the equation as if it does not exist. It's reality.

In addition to massive infrastructure improvements, Mountain View will need additional schools, most likely an additional elementary, middle school. Mountain View (school district) already miscalculated badly on its growth projections based on the current developments and is now faced with redistricting to try and balance things out a bit, while they figure out if they have the budget for a new elementary school. Doing so takes land, money and time.

Increasing the population by that amount will also require additional, police and fire services...most likely a new fire station. Also, parkland /open space. I'm not even touching on the additional retail required to support that amount of people, but it's going to be needed, and be built somewhere near the housing.

Where is the money coming from to fund these upgrades, the 31K current homeowners?

We're in a similarly stunning housing crisis decades in the making. Infrastructure improvements come from the increased tax base. People living in high density housing use less water per person, and the buildings they live in are easier to install water reclamation tech in than multiple single family detached housing. High density housing can have shops and restaurants on the ground floors. We already have light rail routes that the housing can be built along. This would have been done decades ago if not for the entirely artificial constraints placed upon development in this region (or rather, this state).

So, you are essentially advocating for doubling the density of residents in Mountain View, exclusive of any daytime workforce influx of people for employment or other reasons. And if I understand you correctly, you are saying the money to fund the infrastructure improvements required to support this kind of rapid and massive development would come from...what increased tax base? From whom, where...specifically? What taxes are you collecting and from whom, that is going to be able to support the kind of massive infrastructure improvements required to support 30k additional units, prior to them being occupied...in a ten year timeframe? And the schools, fire stations, police services etc.?

As for the water issue...when the city was doing its calculating/projections of when the city would run out of water (hit its contracted cap) those calculations were not done assuming population growth of detached single family homes (that ship sailed a long time ago) but a rather a combination of housing figures - most of it multi-unit housing, with water efficient assumptions taken into account. The 2023 projection did not envision a population anywhere near 125K+ permanent population. The water issue is real. Selling water rights in perpetuity for a one time payment of $5MM seems short sighted to me, but maybe it will all work out?

What you are advocating for would transform Mountain View forever. Personally, that kind of transformation is probably not the kind of place I would choose to live. You are in essence advocating - in some ways - for the destruction of a way of life that many residents moved here specifically for, or have found they have come to love, yet you seem to criticize those residents who wish to maintain a semblance of that life. (I have read your posts demonizing residents who may disagree with you...they are disparaging. I don't get that.) You and I are different, and that's okay. Your vision is probably going to come to fruition someday and that won't be okay for me, and I will leave. Will I be pilloried simply because I choose might different lifestyle than you might choose? If so, what does that say about you?

Whoops! I mistakenly typed '2023' when it should read...

"As for the water issue... The 2040 projection did not envision a population anywhere near 125K+ permanent population. The water issue is real. Selling water rights in perpetuity for a one time payment of $5MM seems short sighted to me, but maybe it will all work out?"

What does it say about you that you think that buying a house entitles you to a "way of life" that involves restricting who else can move into the city? This is why housing costs so much in California, entitled homeowners shielded from cost increases via Prop 13 pulling up ladders and preventing growth while externalizing the costs onto everyone behind them who is still renting or still trying to buy a place.

"What does it say about you that you think that buying a house entitles you to a "way of life" that involves restricting who else can move into the city?"

I never said, or even implied that. Evidently you are so narrowly focused on a subset of residents and your dislike of them BECAUSE of the fact that they are homeowners, that it clouds your ability to engage in meaningful discourse. You immediately impugn their statements and indeed their character, assigning them motives knowing nothing more about them, other than the fact that they are homeowners.

Whether deliberate or not, you ignored the substance and the important questions in my last post, because you became so focused on railing against those you clearly harbor much ill will towards, homeowners.

I think I understand you, fully, now. I am sorry for you.

Are you one also of those good people who advocates for a tax on folks who may own a 2nd home that is not occupied, because it is selfish to have an unoccupied home when that home could be put to a better use for those needing housing?

Not homeowners in and of themselves. The homeowners who think they bought the city with their home, and would rather have the community suffer high housing costs lest their backyard view be ruined by a tall building.

In a housing supply restricted environment where you already have the advantage of Prop 13, do I think that owning a second empty home should incur a tax? Absolutely.

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