Regarding Item 5.1 of the Environmental Planning Commission December 7th 2022:

We’re writing to bring to your attention that SB330 bans any change that would reduce a site’s residential development capacity from what it was on January 1st, 2018. It seems like this may apply to the village center designation, which previously was only vaguely defined in the general plan. While it’s good to have specificity in the zoning, it appears that these new more objective plan standards may actually reduce the residential capacity of these sites. To avoid this, the new open space requirements should be paired with higher FAR and/or higher height limits for these sites.

Mountain View YIMBY is excited for the new affordable housing development at 1265 Montecito!

Mountain View needs more affordable homes!

1265 Montecito Ave will be a new ground up 100% affordable 5-story 85-homes housing development with 45 on-grade parking stalls and 85 indoor, secured bike parking spaces on the 1.04 acre lot. That’s more bike parking than car parking (For those curious that’s a density of 83.18 units an acre, which is a pretty good use of space!)

Mountain View YIMBY is excited to share our full set of endorsements for this year’s City Council elections.

Ramirez

Mayor Lucas Ramirez got our early endorsement back in July. As we wrote back then, Lucas has been a strong advocate for adding more homes in Mountain View. He championed efforts to tackle the missing middle housing problem, supported a local SB 330 ordinance to prevent displacement, rent stabilization of Mountain View’s mobile home parks, and more! During his time on the council he voted for many housing projects. Check out our early endorsement post for all the details!

Re: Concerns on the R3 Zoning Update Process

To Advanced Planning Manager Anderson:

Mountain View YIMBY strongly supports ensuring that R3 zoning is reformed to allow for more homes to be built. However, we would like to share with the Council some concerns about the ongoing process, specifically concerning two items: the structure of the recent workshops and the revised plan presented therein.

The structure of the community workshops failed to honor the city’s statutory responsibility¹ to affirmatively further fair housing. We participated in all six of the recent neighborhood workshops and noted that attendance at these workshops (see Appendix) was not representative of the city. The demographic surveys conducted in the meetings all show renters being a clear minority, despite being a majority in Mountain View. Additionally, while staff did provide Spanish and Chinese translation services, they were little used, indicating a lack of meaningful feedback from these populations. We recommend that the city rectify the deficiency of public input by conducting proactive outreach to tenant and ethnic minority groups.

Mountain View YIMBY is proud to endorse Lucas Ramirez for City Council! Lucas has been a strong advocate for adding more housing in Mountain View, including affordable housing.

He championed the R3 zoning update, so the city could study and solve the problem of missing middle housing not penciling out in the city.

A steadfast and studied advocate for protecting renters, Lucas has supported a local SB 330 ordinance to prevent displacement, rent stabilization of Mountain View’s mobile home parks and even pushed for rolling back the base rents to 2019. He has also supported closing the first three blocks of Castro Street into a pedestrian only zone, which has been very successful.

Executive Summary

The City claims it can accommodate 14,783 units, but a more realistic estimate is 9,941, and the primary drivers of this discrepancy are:

1. The City’s false assumption that 100% of pending projects will be built out by 2031 when historical data shows a third of pending units fail to be built in eight years.
2. The City assumes, without evidence, that development rates will double in the El Camino Precise Plan and triple in the East Whisman Precise Plan.

To maintain the commendable 33% No Net Loss buffer that the City Council and Planning Commission approved, the City should rezone for an additional 4,842 units.

Executive Summary

1. Community outreach, while performed, did not shape the writing of the draft and failed to affirmatively further fair housing (AFFH).

2. The city does not make AFFH a focal component of its site inventory. We find glaring omissions of analysis with respect to school segregation and environmental justice, and the few gestures towards AFFH in the site inventory are insufficient to overcome patterns of segregation.

   [Read More]

To Mayor Ramirez and the members of City Council:

Mountain View YIMBY respectfully proposes a set of reforms that we believe are necessary for the Housing Element to comply with state law. The RHNA target¹ requires approximately doubling our current pace of homebuilding. We believe that the city cannot meet the target without reforming its processes (“removing constraints”, in Housing Element terminology).

The draft Housing Element sidesteps this topic by calling for further study, which can neither bear fruit quickly enough to help Mountain View meet its numerical targets by 2031, nor satisfy the legal requirement to remove constraints to homebuilding². Mountain View needs more reform, now, with direct support from the City Council.

Don’t forget to vote in the election this week. We’re proud of our lead Pardis who voted for the first time today!

Re: Item 5.2 555 West Middlefield Road Residential Project

To the Environmental Planning Commission:

Mountain View YIMBY, a local volunteer advocacy group, expresses enthusiastic support for the proposed project at 555 West Middlefield. We like this project because:

• It is a no-displacement project that adds 323 new homes in place of surface parking!
• It includes 15% on-site below market rate homes!
• Walking distance to downtown, Caltrain, a grocery store, and Stevens Creek trail. This site provides a great location to lead a car-free lifestyle to the residents.
• New pedestrian and bike path connection from Cypress Point Drive to W Middlefield makes Stevens Creek trail more easily accessible to the neighbors living south of Cypress Point Drive. Further bike and pedestrian improvements along Moffett Boulevard to the north and west of this project would be most welcome!
• The 1.34 acres of land dedicated for a new park will be a welcome addition to the neighborhood, creating a space for socializing.
• The developer has listened to community feedback and made an effort to line up the residential frontage facing Cypress Point Drive with existing trees or parking lots to the south of Cypress Point Drive in order to minimize the impact to privacy of neighbors to the south of that street.
• The developer has made an effort to preserve as many heritage trees as possible, transplanting many and planting additional trees to make up for the ones they are requesting to remove.

We hope that you recommend a speedy approval of this project to the council!