Re: Agenda item 6.2

Dear Mayor Ramos and Members of the City Council,

Mountain View YIMBY recognizes that city staff has the tough work of revising a municipal code that assumes significant local discretion with state law that shortens approval timelines and curtails per-project ambiguity.

We are concerned that the newly-proposed appeals process can delay project approvals past what they are now. While the Permitting Streamlining Act sets a general approval timeline, it does not apply if there is an administrative appeal (GOV 65922(b)). The city code (Sec. 36.56.50) does not set a timeline for deciding appeals nor criteria for their basis, so a project could be indefinitely delayed just by paying the appeal fee. This is against the spirit of streamlining housing approvals.

The May 12th Council meeting was the shortest in recent memory — Mayor Ramos adjourned at 9:29 PM with a “woo-hoo!” and noted it was the earliest she’d ever adjourned a meeting. The brevity wasn’t because the agenda was light. It’s because both public hearings landed as unanimous 7-0 votes with no friendly amendments, no carve-outs, and no McAlister speech against housing. Two long-running planning efforts crossed the finish line on first reading.

Re: Agenda item 6.2

Dear Mayor Ramos and Members of the City Council,

We support the changes that align the BMR program with current economic conditions and past project experiences, specifically Amendments 4 (addressing “exactly 100% AMI”) and 5 (removing obsolete HOA reserve fund).

On Amendment 6, we continue to support a graduated fee schedule, given anecdotes of how much the fees have impacted small unit development. However, we will reiterate our request that the schedule extend to projects up to 10 units, as directed by council. Subdivision projects are already penalized by the city via the park land dedication requirement; some form of fee relief is necessary to facilitate small-scale, local-developer homeownership projects, especially as the economic climate worsens. Deferring to the Low/Middle-Income Homeownership Strategy or the 2028 BMR Review delays the ability to measure actual outcomes and increases future scope of work for not a lot of benefit.

Re: Agenda item 6.1

Dear Mayor Ramos and Members of the City Council,

Mountain View YIMBY supports work on a Citywide TDM Ordinance. A standardized framework with a parking exemption pathway for residential projects is a significant step forward from the current ad hoc, project-by-project approach. We appreciate the exemptions for residential trip caps, travel surveys, and driveway counts, and the decision to keep TMA membership optional given Prop 218 concerns identified.

Re: Agenda item 5.1

Dear Chair Hicks and Members of the Council Transportation Committee,

Mountain View YIMBY supports work on a Citywide TDM Ordinance. A standardized framework with a parking exemption pathway for residential projects is a significant step forward from the current ad hoc, project-by-project approach. We appreciate the exemptions for residential trip caps, travel surveys, and driveway counts, and the decision to keep TMA membership optional given Prop 218 concerns identified.

Re: Agenda Item 6.1, April 28, 2026 City Council Meeting (Mixed-Use Development at 843-903 Castro Street, 700 West El Camino Real, and 750 Fairmont Avenue)

Dear Mayor Ramos and City Council,

Mountain View YIMBY recommends that Council approve the project known as Castro Commons, including approving the vacation of a portion of Fairmont Avenue.

The project has had a long history, starting as a 16 unit project in 2015 that would have replaced Gateway Park. It has since become the 140 stacked flat condo project it is today, with a paseo to maintain neighborhood connectivity and ground-floor retail to retain commercial opportunity. This was the product of extensive outreach to many members of the community and voluntary review by Design Review Consultation, a rarity given streamlining reform in state housing law.

The Assembly Housing & Community Development Committee heard AB 2252 (Lee) this afternoon on what the chair described as a presentation-only basis. No vote was taken, and AB 2252 is done for this session with no four-story fallback version planned.

We’ve been pushing for single-stair reform for a while. I spoke in support at Council in December. We asked it be included in the 2026 legislative program, and Council adopted it as platform item C.37 in February. Most recently, we asked the City to make AB 2252 a priority at the Cities Association.

Dear Staff of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission,

Regarding the preliminary draft map of where Senate Bill 79 applies, we are in general support of the map as it relates to the transit stops within the city of Mountain View.

A potential clarification is that for stations like those on Caltrain whose platforms generally face the public realm, that the “pedestrian access points” be instead the full perimeter of the platform in order to avoid jaggedness of the Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Zone boundaries. Alternatively, additional PAPs could include any Clipper Card reader stations on the platform.

Dear Mayor Ramos and Council Members,

Mountain View YIMBY would like to offer our bill priorities to the City and the bodies the city participates in, including the Cities Association and League of California Cities.

AB 2252 (Lee) on Single-Stair Reform

AB 2252 directs the state to allow single-stair projects in buildings of up to six stories in the building code by 2028; it would also allow local governments to do so earlier.

The Environmental Planning Commission met on April 15 to consider two items we’d written to them about earlier in the week: AB 130 streamlined approval and the citywide TDM ordinance. Our letters were the only public comment submitted on either item.

Item 5.1: AB 130 Administrative Approval

EPC voted 6-0 to recommend adoption, with a minor cleanup to strike a duplicate “small animal keeping” listing from the residential use table. The administrative approval process in the ordinance is what we asked for.