How disappointing another ugly buliding.

An "exciting day" when council members get to spend tens of millions of dollars of OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY.

Creating affordable housing is a worthwhile goal. This is a stupid way to get it. 62 new units minus the loss of 12 units = almost $800,000 per unit for 50 units. Today, there are existing apartment buildings for sale in Mountain View selling for $350,000 to $550,000 per unit. Why are they spending more to build an "affordable" unit that won't be finished for at least a year than it costs to buy existing market rate units today? Alternately, you could give a rent subsidy of $2,000 per unit per month for more than 30 years and still spend less than this project.

62 units?!!! Wow. That's impressive.

There is no hope for Mountain View. The City is in crisis because of the unfettered building, lack of environmental impact studies and planning, lack of infrastructure. a Peter Pan approach.

We have more crime than we’ve ever had and it will only get worse. We are becoming Los Angeles- a crappy place to live.

@ Croc Dundee

"Today, there are existing apartment buildings for sale in Mountain View selling for $350,000 to $550,000 per unit."

Okay, we buy an existing apartment building. Now where do all the people currently living there go? Do we kick them out and put different people in there? The issue is we have a housing shortage and we must increase the housing stock in order to stabilize prices.

"Alternately, you could give a rent subsidy of $2,000 per unit per month for more than 30 years and still spend less than this project."

Still doesn't solve the housing shortage, and Shorebreeze is section 8 so the residents are already receiving housing subsidies. Constuction prices have gone up in the Bay Area because there's a shortage of construction labor (mostly due to housing shortage) and labor rates have increased dramatically (mostly due to housing shortage). So not doing anything is only going to further increase the cost to build new units.

Do any of you commentators recall that last week it was projected that Mountain View, in ten years from now, will have the population density of Oakland? If you know Oakland you know what to expect. Shoreline is section 8 housing? Like someone else said above, spending other people's money is just too much to resist for the bureaucrats.

Only a recession will "fix" this housing shortage...nothing else

The tech jobs need to spread out across the country. Period. Stop gentrifying what doesn't need gentrification. Google needs to get tfo out of Mountain View. Enough is enough.

@bornandraisedmv

Tech companies build where engineers are. They're not going to build a campus out in the middle of nowhere and then try to advertise people to move out just because some locals think that there's too much tech here. I suggest that if you're adverse to being around a lot of tech companies, Silicon Valley may not be the place for you.

@Tom

Yeah, only lots of people losing their jobs and having their lives destroyed will fix the housing shortage. That's the attitude to have.

I can see that YIMBY is still expressing his deep concern for our local environment, the effect that over-building and over-taxing resources will and already has had on our land, our environment, our lives.

At what point do we all stop, look around and DEMAND that this stop? That as a society we really really need to study development, look at it's actual effects on our resources and DEMAND that our beautiful city/Bay cannot take anymore and businesses need to move elsewhere?

I love how California prides itself on being "green"......and yet welcomes the big business with welcome arms until we are drought-stricken, fire-ridden and traffic over-dosed.

What a bunch of total and complete hypocrites.

@mvresident

Uh huh. Tell me more about how concerned you are for the environment while you advocate for more low-density suburban sprawl.

@YIMBY

I'm as pro-housing as anyone gets, I want to see Mountain View build to the sky, if that's what it takes to make prices fall. However, the tech cycle here is very strong since we're now basically a single industry area.

I've been living here for twenty years and have seen several ups and downs. The cyclical downturn does drive prices down, since people leave the area and the crunch gets smaller. Other people can afford to move in, and the whole thing repeats. It's not something that we should wish for, but when it does happen, it will make things a little easier for those still looking to move into the area or stay here, particularly with rents. Actually, come to think of it, Measure V made it so that landlords will be reluctant to decrease rents lest they be locked in at the lower prices. Man, the housing politics around here stink.

How about the impact of having a high turnover renter population? Drive around MV on any given day, and you can find a mini-yard sale in every other apartment complex dumpster.

"Palo Alto Housing's 62-unit project that is currently under construction at 1701 W. El Camino Real is costing about $424,000 per uni." So "Palo Alto Housing" is building affordable housing in Mountain View. Are they building any in Palo Alto, as their name would suggest? I think Mountain View has enough. Time for some other cities to catch up, mainly Palo Alto.

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I was not clear earlier, I will try again.
If you are spending $800,000 to build a unit that others are selling for $500,000, then you are spending too much.

Council is bad for spending Other People's Money.
Council is bad for spending Mountain View's Money.
What's a council to do?!

I think you simply don't like council/government. I recommend a new hobby. This one simply frustrates you.