"Can you imagine being so close to the high-tech mecca, the advantages the students at the school would have?"

Does knowledge magically flow through the air? Besides lots of traffic and seeing Googlers going to and fro on their bikes and walking, there's no real benefit to being near a large corporate headquarters.

@Marc

Many of the Googlers tend to use their 20% "free" time to volunteer in schools. It's one of the reasons the MV High School Robotics team is so good. The skills these kids would have access to is nearly unprecedented. Additionally, many projects that are conceived at local companies could be experimented and tried out on at the adjacent schools. Again, a learning opportunity that would unbelievable.

A big red flag in this discussion. "...developer fees would only cover about 10 percent of the cost of school construction...". So that pretty clearly states that our developer fees are too low by a factor of 10x. Guess who makes up the difference - the rest of us! This is a huge windfall for the developers. On top of the windfall they get when they convince council to change zoning to allow housing where it wasn't allowed or at higher density.

Council members, please fix this ASAP! In this housing market, we don't need this huge perk to developers to attract them to our city.

Ross, it appeared the council is trying to do everything they can, but state law doesn't allow them much flexibility. There were a few slides about this at the council meeting that should be online.

Schools are only part of the equation. What about hospitals, jails, cemeteries, garbage disposal sites? And how about the current lack of natural resources to sustain people who are already here?
This is an assault on our quality of life and should be stopped.

Build the schools and uncap property taxes by repealing Prop 13 in order to fund them properly. We shouldn't be subsidizing home owners at the expense of schools and infrastructure.

Let me get this straight, your plan to build the schools necessary to support 10,000 new homes depends on repealing Prop 13? What happens if your plan fails? Will we bulldoze the homes we just built, or just pack all the kids in 50 to a class?

@Juan

For what it's worth, as much as Prop 13 should be repealed, any new homes being purchased will result in those occupants being taxed at the current property value, so their contributions to the coffers would be doing more to pay for those schools than most of our current residents. Let's be frank though, you don't actually care about this issue beyond having any possible reason to be against new housing being built.

YIMBY, How about those of us who pay taxes to the schools yet don't have kids going there? Do we get our taxes back?

@mvresident2003

Clearly there's no way that your tax dollars going to educating children that you didn't produce could have any possible benefit to you in the future.

Goog is pushing back Bayshore for a handful of reasons, here are two:

First, if you work in tech, then you look at purchasing a home in terms of your company stocks. If said company builds 1000 units per phase, that could be a lot of stock being sold at once which may lead to a lower stock price.

Second, the tech companies want a young workforce. You will be laid-off mid-30s and the last thing tech wants is you trying to raise your family in their town sharing your angst with the young H-1B visa who just replaced you.

@Reality

How is anyone supposed to afford a family around here? When it costs $2000+ a month to rent a tiny studio how is someone going to start a family? Kids are expensive, and as long as residents like you push against new housing stock, you're showing that you don't care one bit about how people are supposed to raise families.

@YIMBY. You are factually mistaken.
Currently, $6 M per year in General Fund property tax is diverted from MVWSD - all new taxes are also to be diverted.

In the Shoreline Community quasi-redevelopment district, any new increment of property tax growth (by assessment or new building) does directly to the Shoreline District! None to schools according to the relic 1969 quasi-redevelopment state law setting up the Shoreline District. By "a contract" that can be dissolved by 4 council members - 1/3 of the $9,124,000 in MVWSD school property taxes that was diverted in 2016-17 FY is restored to the District. That's the "Share Shoreline" compromise of half a decade ago (as renewed). In contrast, when Gov. Brown worked out how to dissolve about 1000 RDAs statewide, the MVWSD permanently got back about $1,000,000 a year in General Fund property tax from the closed-down Castro Street RDA. That money is guaranteed in state statute and the city Council has no say whatsoever in if the MVWSD gets those property tax revenues! Gov. Moonbeam scored a grand slam!

primary sources
data from the County Tax tax assessment report for FY 2016-2017 and the MVWSD unaudited FY 2016-2017 Budget
(something like the last page H-9 or so in the Co. report)

If the Shoreline District gets funds from property taxes from new building then it can go to a school district there. It's a general fund.

@YIMBY. Almost - but not so fast. North Bayshore District is within the borders of the MVWSD (and MVLA). I do not think the local agency formation process for new school districts - would support the creation of a Google District! (amusing to think of though) So, that idea is a non-starter! Ask the MVWSD, MVLA and County school boards.

With the change of the organizing state stature for North Shoreline "Community" District, 100% of the general property tax of MVWSD, could be permanently and unambiguously guaranteed for the public schools again (normal throughout the rest of the state). Can our state Assemblyman Marc Berman deliver us this public school district money? I'd agree with those who say North Shoreline District has become a sop of a tax transferal scheme (Business Man?) to developers and business up there. FAIR SHARE is 100% of school property taxes into the public school General Fund.

woosah Yimby.. $2000 / month for a studio is a steal! I am the last person to push against new residential housing.. I am in the real estate business :) Also, I grew up in Mountain View and care about preserving our cities cultural legacy. I sure do miss the old pumpkin patch on Grant around this time of year..

Build condos! Council knows we need condos.. maybe "donations" keep them at cross-roads. Do what is best for future living in our city. Many young adults have a deep appreciation for our city while others see it as temporary. Do not let Mountain View become a transient city.. we must preserve the integrity.

North Bayshore is Mountain's View last frontier, but it will not be developed for many, many years :( The exception is Charleston East which I'm assuming will begin construction in 2019 when autonomous vehicles hit the roads. That is the thing about land, it doesn't depreciate even with a superfund site.

In response to Response you said:”woosah Yimby.. $2000 / month for a studio is a steal! I am the last person to push against new residential housing.. I am in the real estate business :) Also, I grew up in Mountain View and care about preserving our cities cultural legacy. I sure do miss the old pumpkin patch on Grant around this time of year..”

It is only a steal because the apartments are under resourced if you look at ABAG's 2007-2014 RHNA (regional housing needs allocation) update, Mountain View has the following profile:

Mountain View needs Very Low (0-50% AMI) housing units based on 571 - 237 = 334 units to remediate the current report.

Mountain View needs Low (50-80% AMI) housing units based on 388 - 28 = 360 units to remediate the current report.

Mountain View needs Moderate (80-120% AMI) housing units based on 488 - 4 = 484 units to remediate the current report.

Mountain View needs Above Moderate (120%+ AMI) housing units 1,152 - 2,387 = a surplus of -1,235 units to remediate the current report. Thus someone who owns the 1,235 units will have to either destroy them, or they will need to be shifted over to the other housing brackets if that is done you get this:

The Above Moderate (120%+ AMI) housing units 1,235 units surplus – (Very Low (0-50% AMI) housing units 334 + Low (50-80% AMI) housing units 360 + Moderate (80-120% AMI) housing units 484) which still leaves a surplus of 57 units.

The City council now has the authority to allocate those surpluses into the other needs groups, and it still has a surplus of apartments according to the ABAG report.

It would seem the cost of housing is being artificially inflated in Mountain View by only providing luxury units at luxury prices. The simple truth is that we should be equally proportional ualities of housing in Mountain View. Until such time, the prices are not actually market values because if you were to plot the statistics, the market is not a normal bell curve. It is single slope from the left and peaking at the right.

[This post, and those following, are being removed because the conversation has devolved into personal attacks. Discuss the topic, but stop attacking other posters.]

Schools are no more important to the overall community than police, fire, public health, parks, social services, etc. They don't have taxing authority.