The council cant come up with a plan for rv enforcement now they want to form a subcommittee for rent control wow how long will that take .4 years strong and going nowhere .

Over 15,000 apartments are kept (somewhat) affordable by the CSFRA (Measure V). Those rents go up every year.

From 2005 Rock street to Village Lake, around 175 units covered by the CSFRA will be lost to demolition. A similar amount of proposals is in the pipeline but not yet approved. And Mountain View staff will begin studying ways to discourage such displacement this summer.

So Margaret Abe Koga is concerned about hundreds of displacements, which may or may not be motivated by the CSFRA. So her she thinks Mountain View may want to take away rent stabilization from 15,000 families, exposing 15,000 families to displacement by rent increase?

That seems like pretty strange math. Perhaps the missing piece of the equation is asking who does Abe Koga favor - the working families of Mountain View, or well off landlords and their donations.

don't forget to include those who RENT their actual mobile home from the landlord ...
if you are a renter, you should be covered for exorbitant rent increases ...

Yeah, go ahead and hammer the last mail in the coffin to drive out properties that are older and more affordable. Head in sand syndrome as owners sell due to lack of profitability.

Look around. Older rent controlled apartment buildings are being torn down all over Mountain View. It’s a feeding frenzy for investors, producing tons of expensive housing.

Measure V is destroying all the affordable housing that’s left.

Measure V is the only reason there IS any somewhat affordable market rental housing left. Eviction by rent increase is just as hard on families as eviction by a demolition. I think 15,000 somewhat affordable units is a lot better than a whole city of unaffordable apartments.

I was all for rent control until construction continued at my apartment for over a year. My newest lease included that it will continue for the next 3-4 years.

I'm almost tempted to buy an RV. MV seems so welcoming to people living in RV's. Maybe I'll start smoking crack too

What I take away from this story.

Even though the signatures were gathered, it appears that the City Council will not adopt the ballot question promoted by John Inks and his group MeasureVTooCostly The record indicates significant problems with the integrity of the signatures or the large component of formal complaints regarding false promises made by the gatherers.

THe City Council can listen to proerty owners regarding the apartments, but if they are not citizens of the city, they cannot act to advocate for them under the City Council Code of Conduct, the City Code, and parts of State law.

And also, given the new state laws that requires the loss of affordable housing must be replaced witihn 6 months under no net-loss, the issue is will the City comply with the state laws?

So far they haven't replaced the lost units after the enforcement date of Jan 1, 2019 of the currently lost units this year. They are rapidly reaching the deadline. If they do not do so, the residents onf the lost units can go to court to order the City to pay for relocation and any additional costs of rent over the current amount prior to displacement.

Or they can request a temproray restraining order prohibitiing their eviction, and apartment destruction, and may eventually get a permenant injuction to prevent thes events.

This is a very ugly path we are walking on.

With the landlords' sneaky repeal having qualified for the ballot, looks like Chris Clark and Margaret Abe-Koga are hoping for a Measure W that will succeed this time.

Former Mayor John Inks is an outstanding person who did his best to address the inequalities through the best economic system in the world - the free market.

Whereas all you want to do is have someone else pay for you to write all day to spew inappropriate free market half-truths, mixed-in with socialistic utopianism.

I emailed the City Council in response to the agenda item calling for a sub-committee. 5 of 7 current Councilmembers opposed Measure V. Two of them are now on the 3-member sub-committee and those two favored the worthless competing measure ("W") placed on the November 2016 ballot by the City Council majority evidently just to reduce the likelihood that Measure V would pass. That trick almost worked. We should expect more tricks.i hope to be proven wrong.

I'll remind you that John Inks had the strong backing of the landlords and their money, and still came dead last. Rather than own up to his failed message, he just complains about Job. Sad!

In response to @Business Man you said:

“Former Mayor John Inks is an outstanding person who did his best to address the inequalities through the best economic system in the world - the free market. “

An Outstanding person does not blatantly produce videos of people making easily proven false statements. Every video on the MeasureVTooCostly are proven to contain false statements. At the same time the record is clear that inappropriate actions were done to secure signatures from those that eventually discovered they were lied to. Also, so far no signature validation regarding if there were anyone other than the signed names were submitted. And no efforts are taken to do that. So this makes that submission very suspicious to me

Every modern industrialized government has significant regulation on housing markets because the proof is the free market DOES NOT address the inequalities of that market. The fact is that the Free Market condones the underdevelopment of housing by creating artificially high process for housing. The Free Market promotes discriminatory action on customers that are not “preferred” by the suppliers for almost any reason. That is why there are laws regarding the markets behavior. The shortage of housing is the same method being used in the stock market via stock-buybacking. In fact the Free Market was the cause of the Great Recession, because people were manipulated to pay artificially high prices for housing and when the market corrected it via law cases demonstrating fraud in the appraisal and financial parts of the deals. You said:

“Whereas all you want to do is have someone else pay for you to write all day to spew inappropriate free market half-truths, mixed-in with socialistic utopianism.”

Well you just spewed inappropriate free market half-truth yourself. I am not saying I want a socialist market of housing. But the free market is a failure and some kind of direct intervention is necessary to correct for the above demonstrated issues. In fact many countries do not have a free-market for housing seen here (Web Link and (Web Link">Web Link

To resort to only declare that socialism is the cause of the lack of affordable housing is ridiculous like written here (Web Link">Web Link Where there is market manipulated shortages for housing, the equivalent drop of real competition results in higher prices in the free market. Those with properties in that situation will take any step to prevent significant inventory increase of housing unless it is met with as much a 3 times the customer base growth (job increases in the area).

This has been the Standard Operating Procedure for California, thus this market skew increases profits on existing inventory and inflates the cost of building new inventory because LAND is necessary for any zone (Commercial/Industrial/Residential) and unless we move massive amounts of earth to fill more of the bay, we cannot invent land out of thin air.

In response to @Business Man you said:

“Former Mayor John Inks is an outstanding person who did his best to address the inequalities through the best economic system in the world - the free market. “

Let’s explore that theory regarding housing and the success of the FREE MARKET in the U.S.

Rent control opponents claim that it in New York City rent control is the problem for affordable housing. The reports indicate that:

“The number of New York housing units that aren’t subject to rent regulation has grown 49% since 1991; the number of regulated and subsidized units is down 16%. In 1991, the city’s housing stock was split about 50/50 between regulated housing and not; now 64% of units are unregulated. High-rent decontrol wasn’t the only cause of this shift, but it was a big one.”( Web Link

So if 2 thirds the apartments are “FREE MARKET” than why can’t they be cheaper? The FREE MARKET claims competition will keep prices affordable. But this proves otherwise. In only proves that only with more control can affordable housing be achieved.

In the State of Washington there is no rent control. But it ranks as the least affordable places to live:

“2007 and prior: The city dives into Incentive Zoning, which allows developers to build larger buildings in exchange for something — often, affordable housing. In 2007, the disagreement begins. Then-mayor Greg Nickels contends, “People who work in the city ought to be able to live in the city.”

“What do we derive from increased height and density?” Councilmember Peter Steinbrueck asks. “Clearly developers benefit…but what is the commensurate added value to the public?"

You thought differential equations were difficult?

The city has gone through several iterations of this tool, which is usually created by city experts sitting at a big table with developers.

The city, anxious to appease the many, offers additional building height in exchange for a host of goodies from developers like environmentally-focused LEED certification, daycare and affordable housing. Developers tell the city what is economically viable. Every few years the city adds up the affordable units and money it has received from developers and wonders, like a child after Halloween, if there should have been more. Rules are adjusted. The game continues.

2014: In May, the city hosts an affordable workforce housing recommendations workshop with all the expert teams to develop a set of final recommendations. The City Council calls for yet more expert study on how to tweak incentive zoning. “(Web Link

This would appear to prove that no rent control and “incentives” did not work in Washington. This was the FREE MARKET approach. It failed:

In the State of California the Costa Hawkins Act was passed to provide the FREE MARKET to solve the affordable housing problem that existed in the 1990s. Cities were adopting their own rent controls because the trend was getting bad regarding affordable housing supply where the FREE MARKET is claiming it solves the problem. The current history proves that the FREE MARKET did NOT work in California, and may be eventually determined to have caused more of the problem. HOW? Irrational requirements of double-digit ROI on the new housing investors part DICTATING what gets built. So only LUXURY housing is built, landlords pull available units off the market, and organizations like the CAR and the CAA help the industry reduce competition on an increasing demand and a manipulated shortage of supply.

So, where is the proof that the FREE MARKET provides affordable housing?

And if John Inks believes that the FREE MARKET is the ONLY solution that means he would take every step necessary to prevent any “affordable” housing solutions be even considered. NOT EVEN ANY INCENTIVES. This doesn’t seem to make any sense.

Measure V is poor quality legislation which has the un-intended consequences of reducing the housing supply. This exacerbates the housing shortage. Housing shortage plus expanding demand from the High-Tech industry is what is driving up housing prices and rent.

Please note that the High-Tech industry now accounts for much more of the National Gross Domestic Product than it did 10, 20, and 30 years ago. Silicon Valley remain the premier Research and Development area on a planetary basis. Not making enough housing + soaring demand = increased rent and housing prices. This is how the world works. Supply and Demand.

For those who think you can just pick up and re-locate the Silicon Valley eco-system into the middle of nowhere do not understand how Silicon Valley works. It is an eco-system of suppliers/expertise/capital/education which is hard to replicate. Over the last 10 years, every major autonomous vehicle design/mfg. has opened up an R&D lab here. Not in Detroit where it is cheap. Did they want to open up labs here? Nope. They had to/were forced to open up labs here because this is where the eco-system of expertise is. I had the good fortune to be on teams that built some of the largest systems coming out of this valley. Also note that a lot of non-core functions such as break-fix, professional services divisional HQ and pretty much all manufacturing have left the valley. The number of start-ups here is declining also because it is too expensive.

I. Key areas where reform is needed.

1. Include direct price increases in water/sewer/electricity into the yearly allow rent increase
a) There have been two increases in these expenses since measure V implemented
b) Expense recognition of these items have been excluded for political reasons

2. Streamline petition process
a) 70% of housing is 11 units are less (according to Abe-Koga)
b) These are mom and pop operations
c) Mom and Pop operations try to do everything themselves because many can’t afford expense items like bookkeepers. Some of these housing providers have limited understanding of accounting or finance.
d) The current petition requires a lot of record keeping, then organizing into a presentable format
e) I get frustrated by people supporting a lot of government reporting. It takes time/money/expertise to comply with government reporting. And then they ding you if you don’t get it just right. Bigger companies can hire a compliance office with dedicated experts. Mom and Pops do the best they can with what they have. For me, I’d rather spend my time sending a motorized snake down my sewer system to make sure I do not get unplanned outages rather spending a bunch of time keeping records for government.

3. Fee Sharing
a) Fees to support the Petition Process should be split evenly between tenants and housing providers

4. Measure V calls for housing providers to absorb all expenses above 5% inflation rate
a) All expenses beyond 5% inflation rate should be shared between tenant and housing provider
b) At best, this provision of Measure V is very unfair and un-business like and should rescinded
c) At worse, this is an abuse of power. Who ever wrote this provision is seeking to place the entire burden of increased expense on the housing provider? Why would a housing provider want to do business under this kind of governmental rule? Government forcing the private sector to operate at a loss in an inflationary environment? This rule fundamentally conveys the follow message: City of MV want to wants the mom and pop operator to bear a disproportionate burden of increased expenses in an inflationary environment.
d) Some may argue 5% inflation is unlikely. I suggest you pay attention to the following 1) US Federal Reserve -Chairman Jay Powell 2) Secretary of the Treasury – Steve Mnuchin 3) CNBC/MarketWatch 4) Independent Financial Analysts. Net/Net: Increased risk in inflation in context of wide difference between what the Administration is asserting and what the raw economic data is telling us.

5. Housing providers should be allowed to pass on the cost of earthquake retrofit
a) Additional investment of capital into real estate results in more value (earthquake resistance) justifies cost recovery

6. Make it clear in advance what the program will cost.
a) First year it was $2.6 Million dollars- how many people really voted for this?
b) No cost data was disclosed other than “A small fee”
c) “A small fee” is an amateur level of financial planning
d) This level of financial planning would be unacceptable in the private sector

II. I am disappointed by the knowledge or behavior of people who advocated for Measure V.

1. Lack of recognition of the Supply/Demand imbalance is the primary cause of price/rent increases
2. Instead they choose:
a) Demonize housing providers
b) Base their demands on platitudes such as “Housing is a Human Right” which every one can obviously can agree on but does nothing to solve the problem of supply/demand imbalance.

Lenny Siegal demonizes the housing provider community. Jobs Lopez demonizes the housing provider community. Job Lopez was caught tearing down the campaign signs of someone he opposed, and removing signs from the property of private citizens – he seems to be against a private citizen’s right to free speech. Yet the MV Voice continues to portray him as an activist rather somebody breaking the law and seeking to silence the opinions of others.

At the municipal, country, regional, State, and National level, *shortage* is recognized to be the problem. And that is why Senate Bill 50 was introduced as a means to break the roadblock to increasing supply. Whether you support/oppose SB 50, we should recognize the level of desperation at the State level to increase housing supply to address the core problem: Shortage.

Yet, Lenny and Job have focused on demonizing housing providers. And if you go to their rallies, you will see signs “Housing is a Human Right”. Nothing wrong with stating the obvious. But demonizing housing providers and stating the obvious does not do anything to solve the core problem: shortage.

There is a sub-field of Economics referred to as Econometrics. How is this relevant? The point is you can create mathematical equations that show that the rate of price increases accelerates the more severe a shortage is. We are in a severe shortage situation, and that is why prices gone up so high. This applies to pretty much everything in the marketplace; from firewood, cooking oil, and yes, houses. Price discovery is an important element to a healthy market since it acts as a signal to attract (or repel there is not margin) more investment to alleviate shortage. Of course, modern markets do not act precisely to according to market theory, and that is why the State is hashing out all the different perspectives around SB 50. We should reject the behavior of Lenny Siegal and Jobs Lopez stop demonizing housing providers, and focus on solving the housing shortage.

If Lenny and Jobs was to be constructive, they should help sort out the issues around SB 50, and stop demonizing housing providers.

I was listening to a nice young lady explain how rent control in Berkeley worked out just fine, and gave housing provider enough money to maintain their properties. She pointed out the housing provider went out and got a home equity loan. What she didn’t understand is the reason why you go out and get a loan is because you don’t have enough cash on hand. Furthermore, it adds more debt on top of your primary mortgage. Not good.

I was referred to as a “Liar” by a Measure V supported for merely citing official City of MV cost for
Measure V at $2.6 Million. The poster insisted the cost was just “Just a Small Fee” instead of the more accurate and factual $2.6 M. Is this the level of skill you want advocating for rent control?


The point of this last few stories? The advocates of Measure V seem to be:
1) Focused on wrong things; prefer demonization, opinion suppression instead of working on shortage
2) Limited understanding of how markets work
3) Limited ability to understand the importance of accurately understanding and representing financials
4) They are advocating one-sided policies which are dis-incentives to mom and pop housing providers to stay in business in MV.


To close, Measure V is a poor-quality piece of legislation which needs to be reformed.

Yimby #2, people may actually take you seriously if you call them "landlords" rather than the apartment association approved, focus-group tested rebranding euphemism of "housing providers." You're not helping the YIMBY brand shake its appearance of being developer shills when you do silly things like that, but I suspect you may just be a landlord yourself, rather than an actual member of the local YIMBY groups.

In response to Yimby #2 you said:

“Measure V is poor quality legislation which has the un-intended consequences of reducing the housing supply.

IT WAS NOT LEGISLATION IT WAS A BALLOT MEASURE, YOU NEED TO CORRECT YOUR HISTORY You said:

“For those who think you can just pick up and re-locate the Silicon Valley eco-system into the middle of nowhere do not understand how Silicon Valley works. It is an eco-system of suppliers/expertise/capital/education which is hard to replicate.”

Simply not true, when a corporation like Google has $155 billion in accumulated net profit, they have the resources to do anything, even build their own City to replace Mountain View. Especially if they team up with APPLE. IT groups need no Suppliers for anything. The Expertise can be paid to relocate. The Capital can be moved anywhere. The Education is the easiest thing to move since knowledge is available by wire. You’re not making any sense. You said:

“2. Streamline petition process: a)70% of housing is 11 units are less (according to Abe-Koga), b) These are mom and pop operations c) Mom and Pop operations try to do everything themselves because many can’t afford expense items like bookkeepers. Some of these housing providers have limited understanding of accounting or finance, d) The current petition requires a lot of record keeping, then organizing into a presentable format, e) I get frustrated by people supporting a lot of government reporting. It takes time/money/expertise to comply with government reporting. And then they ding you if you don’t get it just right. Bigger companies can hire a compliance office with dedicated experts. Mom and Pops do the best they can with what they have. For me, I’d rather spend my time sending a motorized snake down my sewer system to make sure I do not get unplanned outages rather spending a bunch of time keeping records for government.”

First, Abe-Koga is guilty of making false claims on the MeasureVTooCostly video and you know it. You cannot rely on her claims unless you have proof of this with actual records. Records that simply don’t exist because the housing industry in Mountain View refuses to participate in any registration of their business activity. Second, you haven’t even understood that these “Mom and Pops” are likely fronts of larger corporate investors taking advantage of tax breaks or limiting liabilities of their business. So This argument is highly suspect. You said:

“3. Fee Sharing: a)Fees to support the Petition Process should be split evenly between tenants and housing providers”

Why when it is free for both the landlords and the tenants to file the petitions. The fees paid allow the property owners to file infinite petitions for free. Thus it is not unfair. You said”

a) 4. Measure V calls for housing providers to absorb all expenses above 5% inflation rate: a) All expenses beyond 5% inflation rate should be shared between tenant and housing provider, b) At best, this provision of Measure V is very unfair and un-business like and should rescinded, c) At worse, this is an abuse of power. Who ever wrote this provision is seeking to place the entire burden of increased expense on the housing provider? Why would a housing provider want to do business under this kind of governmental rule? Government forcing the private sector to operate at a loss in an inflationary environment? This rule fundamentally conveys the follow message: City of MV want to wants the mom and pop operator to bear a disproportionate burden of increased expenses in an inflationary environment, d) Some may argue 5% inflation is unlikely. I suggest you pay attention to the following 1) US Federal Reserve -Chairman Jay Powell 2) Secretary of the Treasury – Steve Mnuchin 3) CNBC/MarketWatch 4) Independent Financial Analysts. Net/Net: Increased risk in inflation in context of wide difference between what the Administration is asserting and what the raw economic data is telling us.”

First, Then go to the voters and get it rescinded. But the City Council cannot do it. You have to convince the voters to do so. That is your right to do. But it was not legislation it was a ballot measure. Second, you have no actual data establishing that there is DISPROPORTIONATE impact on “MOM and POPS”. Until you do so, please stop trying to play that same song over and over again. Third, The Ellis Act allows anyone to quit the business. So they can choose to leave. They are not forced to stay in business. But they cannot just destroy the building if they quit the business, so someone else can take over. You said:

“5. Housing providers should be allowed to pass on the cost of earthquake retrofit: a) Additional investment of capital into real estate results in more value (earthquake resistance) justifies cost recovery “

WHY? These costs simply were known to have to be paid ever since the San Francisco and Los Angeles quakes in the 80s and 90s revised the safety standards. It took this long to get them done because of persistent lobbied delays by the CAR and the CAA. You said:

“6. Make it clear in advance what the program will cost: a)First year it was $2.6 Million dollars- how many people really voted for this?, b)No cost data was disclosed other than “A small fee”, c)“A small fee” is an amateur level of financial planning, d)This level of financial planning would be unacceptable in the private sector “

Everyone knew about the startup cost in the vote for the measure. In fact the landlords argued the issue prior to the election. Your argument is simply false. And as the trend has proven, the fees are going down rather quickly. The fee started at $160 per unit because of the fronted money required to be borrowed from the City, That fee has shrunk to $101 the next year, if you anticipate the trend will slow the next year is likely to be $80. A unit. So you are in fact not correct regarding this argument. You said:

“II. I am disappointed by the knowledge or behavior of people who advocated for Measure V.: 1. Lack of recognition of the Supply/Demand imbalance is the primary cause of price/rent increases 2. Instead they choose: a) Demonize housing providers, b) Base their demands on platitudes such as “Housing is a Human Right” which every one can obviously can agree on but does nothing to solve the problem of supply/demand imbalance.”

The people do have the right to use the correct process to establish market regulations. If you feel the people made an error, got to the people and educate them. But you’re not going to convince voters to retract Measure V by insulting them like you just did. You said:

“Lenny Siegal demonizes the housing provider community. Jobs Lopez demonizes the housing provider community. Job Lopez was caught tearing down the campaign signs of someone he opposed, and removing signs from the property of private citizens – he seems to be against a private citizen’s right to free speech. Yet the MV Voice continues to portray him as an activist rather somebody breaking the law and seeking to silence the opinions of others.”

There is was no validated evidence regarding the video. The fact is the technology is called DeepFake Videos. The fact was it was a private produced video, not provided by the Mountain View Police Department, it was never forensically validated for not being digitally manipulated to insert Job’s face into it, just look at this website (Web Link