Google just stated, the Bayshore project is scrapped.

Looks like more people leaving Mountain View.

More layoffs too

""The substantial increase in property values could signify an influx of higher income residents, which could lead to improvements in the local schools and decrease the poverty rate over time," Chea told San Jose Spotlight."

Decrease the poverty rate over time? That's a very creative way to describe the act of pushing out the folks at the bottom of the ladder from the community.

The realtor's comment is just bogus. 60% of the residents are renters, and the lower income levels have always tended to be renters. So the fact that buying a house got more expensive doesn't even affect them!


There is a lot of new construction and that is almost all rental units.

For ownership housing the cheaper ownership units are in condos, but the people buying them are not poor either.

As demand drops and businesses leave, with empty promises, the city of Mountain View is in a lot of trouble.

The housing element plan that was submitted to the state is now worthless and must be withdrawn, because of the planned Google Bayshore project is cancelled and the city used it as part of the plan.

This is just the start

“There is a lot of new construction and that is almost all rental units.”

Isn’t this wonderful? We are getting a large increase in market-rate rental units! That will most certainly help teachers, service workers, and kids who don’t code.

“For ownership housing the cheaper ownership units are in condos, but the people buying them are not poor either.”

Agreed.

“The housing element plan that was submitted to the state is now worthless and must be withdrawn, because of the planned Google Bayshore project is cancelled and the city used it as part of the plan.”

I am very curious to see what will happen next. There was a time when most Americans believed that government controlled centralized planning was a very bad idea. We had all watched it being practiced in the Soviet Union, and saw that their government officials weren’t very good at predicting the future. It’s starting to look like maybe that is still true, even right here in California.

However, since 1995 with Costa Hawkins and Ellis acts, there was supposed to be improvement. As you said there was no central management, it was solely controlled by the private sector. That didn’t work either. So it appears that no matter what, the problem with affordable housing is worse with private control. When the system was separated from the public sector in in the 1970s and 80s. There was less of a deficit then. Look like it is the lesser of two evils.

“Look like it is the lesser of two evils.”

This comment could only possibly hold true if the housing policies that have been forced upon us actually yield “improvement”. That is unknown at this point, it’s too early to tell. And it begs the question, improvement for who? MV is on a path such that we will FAIL to create the 6,225 affordable units that the state “requires” of us, but will VASTLY EXCEED the target of 4,880 units for the highest wage earners. That is not "improvement" for low-income and average workers, who are the majority of residents in MV.

And what does “improvement” even mean? Is the goal to increase supply of market rate units? I thought the goal was to lower the cost of housing. Somewhere along the line, the goal posts seem to have gotten moved. We are on a path to achieve the former, but not the latter.

The principle of root cause analysis helps in the process of problem solving. If you get the diagnosis wrong, your “solution” will fail. Our high housing costs are not caused by a “lack of supply”; they result from multiple factors, all related to economics based on the principles of capitalism. The bottom line: we lack affordable housing because for-profit developers build most housing, and they voluntarily choose to build as few affordable units as they can get away with, because that maximizes their profits. State politicians have done nothing to address this fundamental root cause.

For-profit developers will only build if they can make sufficient profit. If they can’t the building stops. As long as there is a market for expensive housing, developers will attempt to meet that demand. State politicians have created a "solution" that will increase the supply of expensive, market-rate units, as long as the demand for such units exist. Period. It is not even a recipe that will lower the cost of market rate units. It is a fantasy to believe that developers are lemmings who will continue to build even if they lose money when doing so.