STANDING OVATION!

It is unclear if this is just yet another NO GROWTH reflexive effort. I think many of us here do not consider NO CHANGE to be the same as the "smart growth" urbanization philosophy that the two authors seemly hold in high esteem. In that case - many historically significant cities throughout the world would not have been able to hold on to some of their heritage and yet grow for the future.

Downtown planning also needs to consider, as they say in Europe, "urban densification", "compact city" or "urban intensification" ideas. Wikipedia:
Web Link

My studies of urban planning, and my world travels, have taught me that REUSE sometimes with major relocations or rebuilding/incorporation can also lead to keeping the historical character of an city, and yet not stifling the use of a city
for it's current and future inhabitants. Cities are used and inhabited by people, not old buildings!

This piece is a thinly veiled attempt to stop progress, much like anything that uses "heritage" in nostalgic form. Maybe they can save all the brothels that Mountain View was known for as well. I am on the verge of starting a call to boycott all these advertisers that support this ridiculousness.

Why should the council act to stop two property owners who have run successful businesses in Mountain View for a very long time from redeveloping their own properties? There are two sides to each story, and those buildings are owned by two long time Mountain View business people.

I'd hate to see some kind of generic box built on top of those two buildings, so perhaps we should appeal to the property owners to build something "nice", instead of having the strong arm of the law come in and sabotage their property rights.

The Tied House and Chez TJ buildings aren't steeped in history. Can you name something historic other than their being old? One is a former laundry, the other is an old victorian which has been partially gutted to make a commercial kitchen. Their disappearance would certainly change Villa St, so let's just be honest and say don't want to see the street changed, instead of trying to find something historical about them. What if they were on the other side of Central? They'd probably be a lot less historic there.

Thanks, Jerry & Jean, for standing up for what makes our downtown special!

Smart growth to me means how much more traffic will it bring?

If the new building brings equal amount of traffic than ok.

But building a skyscraper that would create massive traffic jams, then no.

So if they can build in those perimeters then it's all good.