Big companies should be adding office or other business space where there is room nearby for new housing and stores and schools - not where local residents will be overwhelmed with all of the new employees and families and traffic. But the prospect of MORE MONEY for City Hall and maybe still-higher housing prices for homeowners and rents for landlords has evidently inspired local "leaders" to approve still more business expansion. And by the way, North Bayshore has plenty of landfill. Maybe the next big earthquake will help solve the problem of over-crowding these "leaders" have helped create.

"Google is asking permission to remove nearly 900 trees. Of those, about 374 are listed as heritage trees, including many redwoods. To replace them, the company is proposing to plant 735 new trees."

Chopping down 900 trees including 374 huge ones and replanting 735 saplings? North Bayshore is turning into 100% concrete and steel.

Heritage trees in MV are also defined as any oak tree (or several others) that exceed about 4 inches in diameter. So a quite small redwood or oak could classify as "heritage'. I found this out last week when I was starting a project to thin out an overgrown part of my property! Don't let oaks from 'little acorns grow' for too long! It cost me $116 to permit to start to try to remove one 'small' oak close to my foundation and roof. This is not one of my neighborhood's multi-century old oaks!

Recycle large redwoods - into redwood lumber at Big Creek Lumber/mill in Santa Cruz County. I'm sure they will be more than glad to cut and take the trees for free! Google could even reuse/recycle them into heartwood benches. Big Creek says they mill over 20,000,000 board feet of redwood annually.

https://bigcreeklumber.com

Contact their Forestry Department
(831) 466-2430
forestryinfo@big-creek.com

Shoreline was in the past a swamp / bay wetlands. Any tree since then was planted to make the area look industrial and thus a fast growing "waste" trees. Now we are worried about trying to save them? What need to be addressed are the 4000 cars going into the limited access area. And the worst potential problem are the 100s of buses trying to speed down side streets and roads not designed for heavy bus transports. I have to deal with several double parked buses on my way home. Why are they allowed to use side streets and block traffic?

Great more traffic and less housing just what Mountain View needs

It's great to read that Google continues to be committed to the long term success of North Bayshore. Interesting architecture and a positive commitment to the ecological health of the area. Don't forget that trees are a renewal resource.

What's disappointing to me is that the largest image that the MV Voice provides is 600x300. Something about 3x that would make it possible to really view the renderings.

Dan, I think I found the renderings. They weren't in the City's laserfiche collection, but the zoning permit referenced "project drawings by Bjarke Ingels and Heatherwick Studios". So if do a Google search on that, you'll see what they have in mind.

And for those who don't know, Google is also planning 9,850 housing units in North Bayshore, and the first one for 635 just got approved and will probably start construction next year. The others are now in proposal stage, but the locations are known (Pear, Shorebird, and Joaquin).

BTW, the 9,850 housing allocation is not Google but the North Bayshore Precise Plan. Thought I'd better make that clear.

This is much better. It's on pinterest. Wow!

Web Link

that pinterest link is definitely from the plans they submitted in 2015 (or so). The new drawings in the Voice article don't match that web link, though.

"Google is asking permission to remove nearly 900 trees. Of those, about 374 are listed as heritage trees, including many redwoods. To replace them, the company is proposing to plant 735 new trees."
Not even replacing ALL the trees they cut?? What happened to the 3:1 mitigation? Have they finally dropped their "Do no harm" motto?

Google/Waymo continues to negatively impact what was once a quiet neighborhood. They've outgrown their new digs at Central and San Antonio and have nowhere near enough parking for their employees. When will our fair city stand up for its residents?

They can't replace all the trees, because there will be more office space than before. also each newer tree will take up more square footage, since the junk redwoods that litter the area are taller than they are wider. I expect that the total tree canopy size will increase. Lastly, none of the trees are native, they were all planted when the first round of industrialization was done in the 70's. Wait 10 yrs, the trees will grow plenty big.

The prospect of More Money for City Hall and maybe still-higher housing prices for homeowners and rents for landlords has evidently inspired local "leaders" to approve still more business expansion.