Restricting the legal use of land is an act to diminish its value, a clear and definitive "taking" of property. It is not the sole responsibility of the owners of pre-1995 multifamily housing to carry the burden of solving an affordable housing crisis brought on by city government wooing corporate headquarters and turning a blind eye to importing tens of thousands of employees to a community with absolutely no forethought to the housing consequences.

To all you pre-1995 multifamily housing owners, you best protest in kind over the reality that your Mt. View properties are being purposely diminished in value, while raising the "cap rate" of your investment and surreptitiously granting you a bogus "fair rate of return" in the process. Unless you get better organized and stop this grubstaking enterprise by city government, you will become the proud owners of public housing.

What?

It’s not enough that if you own pre 1995 property the city is blocking you from letting you charge the same as the apartments next door.

Now you can’t even sell your own property? Wow !

I don’t believe most people understood this when they voted on the issue.

That’s pretty extreme!

The story is clear.

The Developer pulled out, that’s all.

The City is not going to destroy buildings if there is no building going to take place after the destruction.

NOTHING about taking or “community property” The DEVELOPER is the one at fault.

PERIOD

MV would be FAR better off if all obsolete, dilapidated, and code violating multiple housing rental complexes built pre-1995 were razed and replaced with upscale, Owner-Occupied, single-family housing --- row houses, townhouses, and (whenever possible) detached single family houses on lots of at least 1/4 acre. It would improve quality of life, traffic problems, and most importantly improved the quality of residents in MV. MV needs to learn from Los Altos --- detached single family housing brings economic stability and quality of life to cities --- rather than going down the "urban ghetto path to Hell" advocated by well-meaning but ignorant "affordable housing" idiots.

William Hitchens believes MV would be better off if all those bad apartment complexes (with hundreds of tenants) were torn down and replaced with some upscale, Owner Occupied homes on lots of at least 1/4 acre (with dozens of owner families)--leaving hundreds of people trying to find a place to live in Mountain View.

I don't agree.

We have a city housing shortage measured in the teens of thousands, and a state housing shortage of three million.

Look, I'd love to live in a magical fantasy world where people making minimum wage could afford detached single family homes and commute to work on a Jetsons flying car fueled by happy thoughts.

But in the real world, if you don't give people a place to live near their job and other times, they move far away into worse housing and drive in gasoline-burning cars in hours of traffic.

Where are the people who teach our children and prepare our food going to live?

Los Altos is wrong to deny housing to their less affluent community members. Mountain View is right to be leading the way on providing good housing opportunities for all members of our community.

As to this development, why not encourage the property owner to build MORE units, not fewer?

I live on the same block of Rock St, so I get to say YIMBY -- Yes In My Back Yard -- literally!