Well said, Jerry & Jean. Thanks for speaking up for the future of our downtown.

Thank you for doing this!!

How dare you try to tell the property owners what they can do with their land. Why is it that local busybodies always find the time to tell other people what they can and cannot do with their property?

@Property Rights

Anyone who buys a historic property (especially from the city of Mountain View) should realize that the State of California has an interest in protecting those properties. Both the Weilheimer House (Chez TJ) and the Tied House have been certified as historic properties by California state standards and therefore must be handled according to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

Thanks Jerry & Jean for protecting the rights of us California against the shameless profiteers.

So easy to go to their website, sign the petition and share on Facebook. Take a few seconds to help. Get involved and actually help create change!

It's nonsense, people should be able to do what they want with their own property. Who are these busybodies trying to dictate to others what they can do with their land?

@Property Rights,

I didn't read anything in there about anybody dictating to owners what they can do with their property. I did read this: "There are viable alternatives to the developer's proposal, such as erecting the developer's office building in a different location that doesn't ruin the downtown's unique character." Alternatives like that have been successful in other places across the country (see examples via the links below). In those cases, the owners exchanged their historic properties for other properties equal to or higher in value and with more flexibility to do what they want than what they exchanged. In other words, everybody pretty much came out ahead.

Web Link

Web Link

Web Link

Telling the developer to build their building somewhere else isn't dictating what a property owner can do with their property? Anyone who wants to preserve what's there had their chance to offer more money to the precious owners. Instead, they're trying to either force the property owner to not build or they'll be paying them off with the tax dollars of the rest of us.

If the Weilheimer House was moved just around the corner in a prominent downtown location, would it still be historic?

In other words, is it the building or the location that makes it historic? If you can preserve the building, but not the location, is it sufficient to feel like you've preserved the character? Why does the house have to be right there? The Immigrant House was moved. The Rengstorff House was moved.

Thoughts?
Comments?

Thank you Jean and Jerry. This proposal is a large office building with a small restaurant attached in front.

When I moved here we had a fairly nice walkable downtown. But so many of these offices have moved in that I think we're losing it. They feed employees free food all day so they don't patronize our restaurants. They take up downtown parking all day so people who do want to patronize downtown businesses can't. They don't follow our Downtown Precise Plan design guidelines created to make new buildings compatible with old ones. And now they just plain propose tearing down our historic buildings.

Our downtown is losing the look and feel that made it a compelling destination. It's losing its walkability and the businesses are suffering. And for what? I thought our council was dedicated to improving our jobs/housing balance. This kind of proposal only makes it worse.

@just curious

Yeah, in the '70s when Rengstorff House was saved moving houses was a common preservation practice. But not today. Today preservation focuses much more on saving walkable streetscapes and keeping America's Main Streets as attractive destinations.

If you look at the downtowns along the Peninsula that work, they are the ones that have solid plans to create downtowns that people love around the look and feel of their city's history. Think Burlingame, San Carlos and Palo Alto. The downtowns that don't work are the ones that have become little more than office parks or strip malls... places that people drive by... And it looks to me like we're headed towards the office park model right now.

Thank you Jerry and Jean for such an informative article. I hope everyone in Mountain View has the opportunity to follow what is happening to our city. There is no debate here. We have a plan called the Precise plan- essentially a contract. The role of our elected Council is to follow that plan, which states clearly that assets such as historical properties "must" be protected. The Council does not represent the building owners. They are elected to protect the interest of the Mountain View Community that voted for them. This is not a business transaction. These buildings are Mountain View historical assets. As businessmen, these two owners took that risk and now they want to retire. Fine, there are plenty of business owners that would love to move into that space.

Why do we insist on keeping every old building as long as we possibly can? What is the benefit of keeping these ancient and otherwise unimportant structures?

There's nothing special about them aside from some random attachment that a few residents have.

I agree -- maybe office buildings aren't the best structures. But, at the same time, we should be in favor of tearing down and redeveloping whenever possible.

I would propose the following -- develops are required to put in trust the amount required to tear down the building they are going to build and return the area to a park. They can get the money back on a sale (at which point, that owner puts the money in a trust.) This way, if there's a significant recession that points towards a need to undo the growth, we have an easy way to fund the removal of the buildings, which would bring back the open land to the city.

Otherwise, we should keep absolutely no value on something because it is "old". That's how eyesores like that stupid hanger one get stuck with us for years.

Dear Think of the Future,
I think it is dismissive of you to suggest that only a few people have some random attachment to these buildings.
Do you have experience or schooling in architecture or urban planning? Why did you move to Mountain View? These buildings are historic. The City of Mountain View states this on the "public notice" sign posted in front of the buildings. Many, if not most, of my neighbors are in favor of preserving these buildings in place.

I would suggest you do some research on the most successful urban centers across America. What you will discover is that the best American cities to live in have one very noticeable feature in common-they provide a sense of place by planning their growth with their historical buildings in place. That is thinking of the future!

"Historic" means more than "old". The most "historic" buildings in Mount View are the buildings on the Google campus. One day, people will come to see where one of the biggest companies that defined the 21st century started. That is historic.

The only historic claim that the Chez TJ house has is that a member of the House of Representatives lived there in the 1920s. He has an official residence that is considered his historic house somewhere else. This is not historic. Nobody is visiting Mountain View to see the Chez TJ house.

Keep historic things. Tear down old things.

A lot of good points -- and, at the same time, a lot of real head-scratchers -- here in these comments. Let's agree that because something's old doesn't necessarily make it historic any more than something new is automatically edgy and hip. But think about this: When you visit, or better yet live in, a town/city that blends "old" with "new" together intelligently and with appreciation for aesthetics and appeal, isn't there a *net gain* in terms of the overall appeal that blend emanates to visitors, residents and employees?

If Mountain View has any hope of striking a balance of old and new, and maintaining the very appeal that's helped buoy the downtown's steadily growing vibrancy and vitality, it needs to find a way to preserve the tangible, visible examples of its heritage. And that doesn't mean pulling up architectural treasures and plopping them down on places that have no meaning to the city's history. Not to disparage the Immigrant House at Heritage Park, but, c'mon, the location just doesn't match the history of the house itself.

So, developers and land owners, work toward an alternative, rather than endure a showdown with a community that, based on the majority of comments here, would really rather see *true* preservation than some ersatz attempt at it.

@ property rights:

Who is telling the property owners that they can't sell their property? If I buy the house next door to you I can't go ahead and build a 10 story building, or put in a toxic waste dump. There is zoning, permits, and community approvals to be considered. Why are you so bent on taking away a community's right to have a say in process? There are already many limitations on what a property owner can do and for good reason.

Sorry, your rights end at the property lines. Why do you get to decide what I build? So long as everything is contained within my property, it's none of your dang business.

"How dare you try to tell the property owners what they can do with their land."

Bwahahaha, have you ever heard of zoning? ordinances? building codes?

No one in Mountain View can do whatever they want with their property!

I don't get this new mindset of "It's my land so I'm going to do whatever I want"
You have some land, not your own country. Abide.

I don't get this new mindset of "I'm going to tell everyone else to do whatever I want." You have your own land, not anyone else's. Abide.

As I read all of the comments above, some I agree with-some less so, I am reminded that working together as a community is what makes any city a great place to live. I'm grateful we have this platform to share our ideas.

Much of Mountain View has already been sold to developers. Nearly all of the design is contemporary, low-cost, box construction. What concerns me, and many of the neighbors I have spoken to, is that these developers have slowly encroached on our historic downtown. Whether these people have lived here all their lives or moved here recently, most feel that Castro Street and the crossing side streets (between El Camino and Evelyn) belong to the entire community as the heart of our City. Our Precise plan defines this area as our center. Portions of this area are defined as historic.

The remarkable growth Mountain View has experienced was not in the minds of the planners when our precise plan was developed. This is why Council must stop future development, pending the review and revision of our precise plan
There are many new challenges our city faces such as increasing traffic, parking, housing, walkability and yes, historic preservation. This is the time to stop, think and plan wisely. We all want a vibrant downtown. We don't need to rush any of this development. We can't undo the mistakes we make under the spell of developers, especially the destruction of our history. Let's be smart!

@Property Rights; you continually post this diatribe of "I don't get this new mindset". What are you talking about "new"? This isn't new, this is age-old history. For hundreds of years people, and Cities, have been advocating the preservation of their design and history. And thankfully so. If not we would lose so much of our rich history, architecture etc.

Why are you so hell bent on railroading over this? All I can think is you're a developer?

Seriously, none of these buildings have any historic value. One was a laundry, for Pete's sake. This is simply the manifestation of more NIMBY busybodies trying to stop development under the guise of "preservation."

The above poster tipped their hand: they want to stop all development. Perhaps they meant "until we figure out what's going on." Now where have we heard that before...

to: Property Rights

"Seriously, none of these buildings have any historic value. One was a laundry, for Pete's sake."

The use of the building doesn't affect whether it has value. It could have been a peanut and popcorn shop. Doesn't matter to me. What I like is what I read on the LivableMountainView.org site, which talks about the one-of-a-kind nature of the former Airbase laundry:

It's a blend of Hamberg Warehouse style and California Mission. Doesn't exist anywhere else on the planet. Totally unique and valuable as is.

This building brings character, charm, inviting us in because of its human scale. When I've been out there in evenings, I see people walking around in front, enjoying the scene, and looking inside down the row of windows that goes all the way to the back, there are people in the roofed garden. Mountain View needs to save buildings like this as gathering places that are working for us right now.

Offices with hermetically sealed office workers who drive in and eat in for free, don't add to our community, they just take. Their people park in front of ours houses or buy *all* the parking passes for the city parking, taking spaces away from customers of downtown businesses, aren't helping us. The city, and we, paid for those lots and here we are without the use of them? If developers want another office.. then put it somewhere on blank land, or where the building is a nothing place.

Tied House / Airbase is too important and one-of-a-kind to throw away.

I want us to be a place people want to come to, so that in the next recession when 23andMe or Quora or Whatsapp take a dive and shrink, we have something else attractive to bring others in. Our downtown can't survive on just the nearby residents given all those restaurants.