And as usual Mountain View residents in the middle are screwed if they can't afford 1.8 million and don't qualify for the few affordable homes that will be built thanks to the city's shakedown.

Time to get an RV

Being a long-time MV resident, I am worried whether or not the city infrastructure can support the influx of many more people. Time to leave MV....feel suffocated...

To be consistent with the rental housing price controls, the city should enact a charter amendment that 10% or 20% of all home sales should go to low-income housing. I'm sure all of the homeowners who voted for rent control would be happy to give up some of their capital gains to help resolve the housing crisis.

Unfortunately, the very politicians we elected to serve us - to work in our best interested, actually want residents to leave. It's better if residents who have been here for a while move out of the Bay Area - heck - move out of state - because it opens up more housing for their only constituent (Google) and brings in more tax payer money. It's a shame - but a harsh reality - I used to believe that our politicians cared about the people they served. They're only interested in lining their own pockets. Sadly, I don't see it changing anytime soon.

I lived in Whisman for nearly 10 years and moved to Los Altos recently.

Even if one can afford to live in Mountain View, infrastructure is a huge problem.

School: Mountain View has a serious shortage of quality schools. Better elementary schools like Huff and Bubb are overloaded with high student-to-teacher ratio and low grade popup classrooms. Even with Slater, there just isn't enough. For parents, dropping off and picking up kids while fighting traffic can be extremely frustrating.

Traffic: El Camino and Central Express are overloaded. During the rush hour, driving from San Antonio to R-85 (and vice versa) can take 30 minutes.

IMO, Mountain View leadership should've never approved these new housings. Yes, the housing cost is ridiculously high. But even few hundred new houses, let alone thousands, aren't enough to offset huge backlog demands.

The local government saw property tax revenue and decided to look the other way. They made publicity generating gesture toward adding few classrooms and called it a day.

It's a common refrain that "oh the housing will not alleviate demand," but what else should we do now? We're going to add 10K new housing units to North Bayshore, will that alleviate demand? If not, why not?

Should we accept that we'll have median hone prices in the $2M range, have long commutes, pollute with massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions? Or should we all act like you, give up, and move to Los Altos (except for the poor people, where should they go?)

You people are silly. It’s good that we are producing new housing. Only by creating more supply will the housing prices stabilize, or at least rise little less quickly. It’s good that people want to live here, and it’s great that we have jobs that people want. It’s preferable to the other side of the problem, such as the one facing Rochester, New York. It’s the city Council‘s job to make sure our infrastructure keeps up with the growth of people and businesses, and I’m sure they will continue to work on that.

Due to repeated violations of our Terms of Use, comments from this poster are automatically removed. Why?

I'm very curious to know if foreign money is responsible for the unrealistic price of housing? If so perhaps it might be best if we took Canada's approach (ref: Vancouver housing).

Is this price a realistic market rate? You might be making $150,000 a year but around here that's paltry income. What would it take to afford a $1.8 million condo with condo fees, taxes, insurance, et al? Close to $9,000 a month.

Nearly any place else in the entire United States that same chunk'a housing would sell for $200,000 . . . perhaps less. I'm a retired school teacher and, except for a generous landlord, I'd be packing up.

And one more thing. Should the bank loan that sort of money on a condominium? Most of these loans are for thirty (30) years. How long will a buyer's income remain at that level? Even a slight "burb" in the tech field means the banks would own an awful lot of unsaleable homes.

The City's 3% in-lieu fee is adversely affecting the affordability of housing in Mountain View. Undoubtedly the developer added the fee to the purchase price. For the 1.82 million dollar home mentioned in the article, the purchaser's increased cost is $54,600. However, the adverse effect of the fee the City is collecting is actually greater than $54,600 because the purchaser will thereafter annually pay an additional $3,000 for the increased real estate taxes and mortgage interest on the purchase price that was inflated by the in-lieu fee.

Actually, this is a good example that the 3% fee has no affect on prices. The developer expected to sell the homes for $1.4 Million and make a healthy profit. Now he's selling them for $2 Million. Clearly, the only thing that went into the end price was "all the market will bear."

Everyone generally sells everything for the price that the market will bear, particularly people doing it for business. The point of building more housing is to reduce what the market will bear, but it's pretty clear that here, it can bear quite a lot, so we'd need to overwhelm it with a whole lot of housing, which isn't going to happen.

Think about selling something used on Cragislist, or selling an old car or whatever, we all try to get the most for these items that we can. It's only natural, and the same applies to big ticket items like housing. Developers aren't going to leave money on the table out of kindness.

Now with rent control, all landlords can sell their affordable rent controlled housing units now for the dirt value to developers to redevelop for big profits for the landlord and developer.

That's what I did and I have already reinvested in other non rent controlled markets regaining appreciation in this upward market with a tax free 1031 exchange.

Why would any landlord stay in Mountain View?

Isn't it funny how the Mountain View Voice removes comments from here.
Notice that my comment was sent on February 15th @ 8:46 A.M. and all other comments were deleted after that?
Is the Voice manipulating the voice of our citizens? YES.
Whomever you are.. the people have a right to speak in your forum and if you don't like their comments because of your liberal agenda.. they have the right!
This is America and you are a media outlet, act like it, Voice!!

Furthermore,
I think debate is healthy not only for our Country and State between Liberals and Conservatives but for the wellbeing of your community, Mountain View.
Let the Liberal viewpoint continue in your forum without protection from you so it can be debated.
What are you afraid of Voice.. that the truth will come out?