Their latest language is softer, but I still don't trust Google not to bring this up again. If they have any decency, they will let this "potential issue" disappear. We'll see. MV City Council - hold your ground.

Google has no choice but to bring this up again because they say they include it in their own evaluation of transportation demand management and trip cap. They claimed they would only ask for added square feet if their first 3 developments from no succeed in staying way below the trip cap and have excellent TDM profiles. It will be quite amazing if they do this, so of course they can always ask for some reward if they achive a better than required performance by a significant amount. The question is, can they really do this? They also have other projects pending already beyond the first 3, namely the former Linked IN large mixed use project with SyWest and another residential project. The numbers won't be in yet about the transit loading from these projects when they will be
wanting to claim victory.

"A Google spokewoman said the company received some pressure from their own employees in recent days, highlighting the severe need for housing." Googlers keep it up! Time for workers to realize that when salaries don't keep up with housing costs, and their companies report record profits, all the while buying more land to build more offices for more employees and more profits, then they are essentially subsidizing shareholders.

"they are essentially subsidizing shareholders."

Well said, @Christopher Chiang. I made the same point the other day when a report circulated saying it would cost California $26 billion to build enough housing just for the people who are already here, let alone for the millions more the tech companies want to cram into our overcrowded state. That puts a number on how much we are subsidizing Big Tech profits.

@Anke

Cost California or cost developers and land owners who buy and pay for that housing to get built?

I wonder how much it's costing California to subsidize the property tax of everyone like Anke who are busy trying to drive out tech and slow the economy down, all in the pursuit of maintaining the "suburban neighborhood character" of cities in the Bay Area.

A leopard never changes it's spots. It will wait until the time is most advantageous and jump then. More than likely when the prey has no way to back out. Any feral cat will purr when it really needs food.

This is good to see. Can't understand what Google was thinking when Google is already talking about expanding in Central SJ which has a glut of office space, has transit and is getting more. Why expand in MV when it is already so crowded? MV already has 2 jobs for every resident worker. Only Palo Alto is worse. Checkout Web Link for the details

Asking for more MV office space makes no sense when Central SJ has 1.5 million sq. ft. and North SJ has 3.7 million sq. ft. of office space (total 5.2M!!) available right now! And Santa Clara has another 3M - see:
Web Link
(near the bottom)

Or Google got an agreement from another city to build the 800K sq ft of offices, so they don't need it in MV.

@Christopher Chang- are you suggesting that Googlers are underpaid and therefore subsidizing the shareholders? If so, I’m scratching my head on this one. Googlers and their other highly paid tech cohorts, are the ones that have driven up the housing prices so high. They’re the only ones that can afford to buy here.

Lets move some of these jobs to Modesto, Stockton, Bakersfield where young workers can afford to buy a house. Did you know that a lot of people who work for Google work really for subcontractors? They make about $22-25 an hour no benefits, like healthcare and vacation pay. How are these people supposed to get ahead in this expensive area. DO NO EVIL!! HA!

@Huh? you're absolutely right that the population explosion caused primarily by the massive influx of techies in recent years is the cause of both the jobs-housing imbalance and the housing unaffordability crisis (not to mention traffic etc). But it's reached the point where even 6-figure techies are utterly unable to purchase a home and in fact are doing careful budgeting to make ends meet. So yeah, in that sense they are doing some of the subsidizing that the rest of us have been doing for years now.

@Anke- they may not be able to afford the house they want but the local techies are very well paid. If corporate raised their salaries it would just make the situation worse because they'd have more money to throw at their competing house buyers, driving the prices up even further. I'm in real estate so I know. Until we reach a saturation point - that is until there aren't enough people that can afford the high prices- the situation will continue to get worse. The solution is for city governments to stop allowing the corporate expansion that is crowding our towns and roads unmercifully and creating a continuos housing shortage.

"The solution is for city governments to stop allowing the corporate expansion that is crowding our towns and roads unmercifully and creating a continuos housing shortage."

Precisely. This cannot be overstated. To solve a problem, reverse the thing that caused it; very simple. But the people in charge seem to want to tackle one imbalance by adding another.

I don't understand why Google can't just open a new campus somewhere else. Their current campus is so sprawled out now, employees I know there rarely visit distant buildings anyway. If they want more office space, let them built the office space in a locality that needs more employment, and let the land here be used to make up for the lack of residences that cause the prices to be so high.

@Alex

Do you think that there are localities with unemployed engineers just sitting around and waiting for Google to open an office there and give them a job?

Product teams that are spread out geographically simply do not work. Or rather, they work, but just not as effectively as a team co-located. Companies that split up their teams geographically end up getting destroyed by their competitors that adopt a centralized office model. It's not a co-incidence that the cutting edge campus designs are a single building! (Facebook, Apple)

I dislike the confrontational tone that the mv-voice is taking with this. It is not a game of chicken.

Google is Mountain View, and Mountain View is Goggle. So many people have both roles, citizen and employee that to fight with Google is to fight with ourselves. We need to figure out how to make this work, that should be what all of us concentrate on.

The alternative is that our neighbors have to commute out of our city, creating more traffic,less free time for community service and more stress. We'd lose a strong partner in creating more housing that is desperately needed. That would not be a benefit.

Google building a new campus in somewhere far isn't that simple. A husband works for Google and wife works for FB/Apple. If Google moves to GA, would the husband move to GA? No, he will join FB/Apple. It's chicken-egg problem. Companies are in the valley because engineers are in the valley and the engineers are in the valley because companies are in the valley...

"Companies are in the valley because engineers are in the valley "

If that's the case, why do they keep bringing in outsiders from far away by the tens and hundreds of thousands and clamoring for more H-1B's? If they were hiring locals, we wouldn't have the imbalance.

"If that's the case, why do they keep bringing in outsiders from far away by the tens and hundreds of thousands and clamoring for more H-1B's? If they were hiring locals, we wouldn't have the imbalance."

Because outsiders view Silicon Valley through rose-colored glasses. They are not yet worn out by the high COL and sitting in traffic for hours on end.

There is also a finite supply of local engineers under the age of 35. Having Google/Apple/FB, etc. on one's resume can be a significant boost professionally. Tech companies know this, and leverage it to hire anyone they want.

At the same time, mid-career level professionals who have already been here a while may find their skills in demand elsewhere, with a better work/life balance.

Web Link

And so continues the revolving door of temporary residents.

When will Google and other large techs finally become good neighbors? What exactly are the benefits of having Google, Facebook and Apple in close proximity?

They don't pay tax here
They are the main culprits of ever escalating home prices
They provide a private transit system - their own buses - for their own employees, but no one else
They provide meals and services on site, driving businesses in their neighborhoods into the abyss

Alphabet removed the original Google motto "Don't be evil". It seems obvious why...

@noTECHFAN

The culprit for high housing costs is home owner groups lobbying against any new housing from being built.

You guys complain about all the traffic tech causes around here and then complain about the tech shuttled in the same breath. Unbelievable.

Any other company providing free food to their employees would be looked upon as benevolent, but when Google does it it's hurting the community. OK.