I'm so glad the Council majority held the line against reducing the number of homes in the development. Homes for people are more important than homes for cars!

I love trees. I especially love redwood trees. I hug them.
When I was on Council, I supported saving the redwoods on Sierra Ave. I tried to save the redwoods that were chopped down to build a parking structure at El Camino Hospital. I voted against cutting down the redwoods along Shoreline Blvd. at Google’s Charleston East development, even though some conservation groups supported removal because they were the wrong trees.
But I am disturbed that some people in our community are using trees as a political football. That is, at Tuesday’s Council meeting some people advocated tree protection as a way to try to downscale or even kill the addition of 323 housing units to 555 W. Middlefield. Some Council members, who had voted to clear-cut trees and homes on Rock Street and elsewhere on Middlefield, all of a sudden became tree protectors.
Mountain View has written, but flexible tree policies, embedded in the Heritage Tree Ordinance and the Community Tree Master Plan. In a nutshell, these policies do not prevent all tree removals. They ask that development projects be designed around trees, to minimize the removal of large trees. They require replanting that will eventually significantly add to our tree canopy.
But in considering the removal or transplantation of mature, healthy trees, the city must consider other, important goals, such as the desirable reduction in surface parking and the essential addition of new homes. As we work to preserve trees, we must weigh the trade-offs. And we cannot afford to heed to pleadings of people who defend trees only when they have an ulterior motive.

Maximizing homes for human beings, saving some trees, and reducing the mandated space for free car storage? Sounds like a win-win!

I’m concerned about the out of-control growth that appears to be a part of Mountain View’s DNA. When is enough enough? When it’s bumper-to-bumper gridlock? Maybe the city is trying to satisfy its insatiable appetite for more tax revenue… Who knows?

If growth is unavoidable (which is clearly the case), creating small communities comprising housing, commercial, and retail — all nearby — will give residents an alternative to crowding our roads.

Thank you Lenny for the detailed and balanced background. I just want to add one thing. This project was first proposed in 2015. In six and a half years, it's gone through 15 public meetings. As much as we might want less parking and more trees, at a certain point we have to say "enough is enough" and approve the project.

That's a really great point, ivg. It seems much more prudent to relax parking requirements across the board (or even eliminate them) in order to give builders more flexibility of layouts, rather than start tacking on these requests at the eleventh hour.

The developer, Avalon Bay Communities, does not give a damn about housing in Mountain View. They are conveniently located in Arlington Virginia – close to DC and the home of lobbyists. The perception of a housing shortage in Mountain View has been artificially created. Drive around the city and you will see, everywhere, “vacant” and “to rent” and “available” signs. There is no shortage of housing but a shortage of affordable housing, for sure. Avalon Bay Communities is not in the business of providing charitable low cost housing. They are in it solely for profit.
Most residents value trees as an important part of their environment. Avalon sees every tree as an obstacle to increasing their cash flow. Let’s save as many trees as we can. Are you listening Ms. Showalter and Mr. Siegel?

Free Speech, I hardly think you can say there's no housing shortage when the average rent is $2896 and homes are selling for millions of dollars. I'd hate to see a shortage if this isn't one!

I’m kind of curious, what is considered affordable housing? $300,000? $600,000? The notion that Mountain View is going to provide affordable housing is a pipe dream. Want affordable housing? Go to Arkansas.

Usually people are considered rent-burdened when they spend more than 30% of their income on housing. It's an imperfect measure, but a good heuristic. To apply that here, the average rent in Mountain View is unaffordable to anyone making less than about $120K per year. You may disagree, but I think people making less than $120K per year should be able to live in Mountain View.

In this project, the developer will provide - at its expense, not the government's - 48 units of below market housing. That means the rent will be based on the income of the residents (30%, I believe), serving residents with an average of 65% of the area median income for their household size.

It will be interesting to see how the current residents of the complex as well as neighbors across the street view the trade-off between parking and trees. In my experience, neighbors oppose reducing parking because of the fear of overflow.

HUGE Redwood #179 is a well loved community pillar here at 555 W Middlefield, and we don’t need as much parking as this plan currently includes! Why rip out 12 centuries old protective mature redwood trees for parking spots we do not need?? I learned from city council members at the public meeting on 2/8 that it is a growing issue: new developments with parking garages with many unused spots. Why would we trade protective mature heritage trees for unused parking spots? As our neighbor, Diane, said so well during the public comment on this, if this is MV’s mentality you will need to remove the trees from the city logo. Will we put a parking garage on the logo instead?
Of course not, let’s just get this right.

Yes, that was an interesting dynamic. The only neighbors in play are the Cypress Point HOA, which has off-street parking. Maybe this is abundant enough that they're not worried about Avalon residents parking on the street.

As irked as I am about the project being delayed yet again, I'm glad that it's for less parking and more trees rather than the other way around!

Kristine,

That's one of the things people often miss in how cities do planning. Did you know that, across the board, the city *requires* builders to put in a certain number of parking spaces when building? Stated differently, they make it illegal to reduce parking! That's why it'd be great to get rid of those minimum parking requirements in the city so we give them more flexibility. Maybe even set a maximum amount of parking instead!

Yes Frank, exactly! That’s what I’ve learned, except it’s actually a city recommendation, not a requirement. Of course we need to have this changed, I agree. That’s essential- changing outdated city recommendations/requirements is always needed. And we’ve reached that point now.

Some people want to push housing through at all costs & seem to not think of these things to match the changing ways of the world. The need for as many parking spaces is a thing of the past with how much has changed in public transportation accessibility (especially in our location), ride share apps, parking space share apps, delivery services, and Mobility Wallets (that incentivize using these options).

Many Avalon residents are young professionals who bike & walk to most of our needs because it is all close by. People I’ve met here at 555 W Middlefield don’t have cars because of this. My partner is one of them and used the Scoop app where neighbors also working in Palo Alto were matched with her to drive her to work (these resources make less cars possible and connect people; she made friends with neighbors in this way too). The world is changing and our parking needs have changed. There will be enough parking for those who need it (We need to prioritize seniors, those who are differently abled, families with children, and those who need cars for their job, followed by others who will be able to lease a spot) but we sure don’t need an abundance of parking especially when it means ripping out centuries old redwoods we can’t get back.

If you listen closely to the 2/8 council meeting the Avalon developer was significantly rounding up the estimation of spaces that may need to be removed from the plan to keep our redwoods,(hopefully all 12) inclusive of #179. If you listen closely, he indicated perhaps 60 places can be removed from the plan. It is feasible and other options like car stackers are a way to maximize parking in less space. There are options to get this right!

@Kristine
In the long run, there is general agreement that we should reduce the number of parking spaces in new development. Unbundling is a great strategy for doing that. But it's complicated.
Reducing on-site parking requirements and/or proposals to unbundle the rental of parking spaces usually generate concerns among neighbors, because IF new residents acquire cars they may overwhelm street parking. This was the concern at Madera, on Evelyn. It turned out not to be a problem there because Google rented a large fraction of the units as an employee hotel. But we can't count on corporate tenancies everywhere.
Around here, families with children and extended families tend to need more parking than smaller households. We take a risk in limiting parking that we will discourage families from putting down roots here.
That said, this is an ideal place to try out a reduced parking requirement, but the city has to be careful not to overdo it.

Re: parking, seems like the developer proposed what City requires and what everyone wanted... up until this past Tuesday :)

If City Council and neighors are now on board with reducing parking for saving a few trees, that's great. But I do hope this doesn't delay approval for too long nor require a gazillion more meetings; this project positives vastly outweigh the few negatives.