Dear Members of the Mountain View City Council,

I am writing to you on behalf of Mountain View YIMBY, a community of pro-housing activists with a history deeply connected to North Bayshore. Our organization was born out of a shared passion for creating more housing in North Bayshore and, over the years, has grown to advocate for inclusive and abundant housing throughout our city. As one of the original members who was drawn to this cause because of the housing issues in North Bayshore, I personally want to express our deepest gratitude for your unanimous approval of the North Bayshore Master Plan.

I am pleased to write on behalf of Mountain View YIMBY that our organization strongly

**supports the March Draft **of the Housing Element with the additions in Exhibit E of the

resolution. We believe that, with those additions, the Draft fully complies with state law and

merits HCD’s prompt approval.

The March Draft is the product of two years of community outreach, extensive stakeholder engagement, and data-driven analysis. Ellen Yau, Eric Anderson, Aarti Shrivastava and other city staff should be applauded for the herculean effort and conscientious analysis that they’ve invested into this roadmap for the city’s future.

Mountain View YIMBY is thrilled to endorse Emily Ramos for the open seat on the Mountain View City Council. As a dedicated leader of our organization for many years, Emily has a deep understanding of the city’s housing crisis and a proven track record of working towards creating more affordable housing options for Mountain View residents.

As a member of the Rental Housing Commision and the current vice-chair, Emily has been instrumental in implementing a law that protects 15 thousand families from significant rent increases and evictions. She also has experience as Preservation and Protection Associate at SV@Home, where she gained deep knowledge and experience with anti-displacement policies and as a board member of the Community Services Agency, where she helped connect residents to receive assistance to prevent them from losing their homes during the pandemic. Along with her work with YIMBY, she’s also a long-time member of the League of Women Voters housing committee. Furthermore, her engagement with many different groups, including community organizations, and her understanding of the city’s government and current issues, positions her to be able to collaborate and work effectively with her fellow council members from day one.

Recommended site inventory changes:

1. Add two additional city-owned lots downtown to the site inventory.
2. Add all sites from the “back pocket” into the site inventory. 
3. Add R2 sites in high opportunity areas South of El Camino with density assumptions derived based on SB 10’s allowance for 30’ heights and ten-plexes.

Recommended programmatic changes

1.2 Eliminate Parking Minimums Standards for Affordable Housing Developments

1.3 Review and Update Ordinance and Precise Plan Residential Standards

Executive Summary

On July 14th, 2022, Mountain View YIMBY provided the City with a data-driven analysis of site capacity assumptions in Draft 1. The letter in front of you replicates our previous methodology to update our findings for Draft 2, which likewise fails to justify its capacity assumptions. Our main results are presented in Table 1, and the key takeaways are:

1. Despite HCD’s review letter¹ reminding the City that it “must demonstrate [pending] units are expected to be constructed during the planning period,” Draft 2 shares Draft 1’s unjustified assumption that 100% of pipeline projects will be built by 2031, when data shows a third of pending units fail to be built in 8 years.

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Re: Item 6.1 Revised 2023-2031 Draft Housing Element

To City Council:

MV YIMBY appreciates the work of staff and Council in working to create a compliant Housing Element. However, we are concerned that the revised draft still does not meet the bar of being compliant and, more fundamentally, does not sufficiently address the housing crisis.

We believe there is still time available to make changes, even if it may lead to delays with the EIR. It is better to take time and carefully prepare than to submit a less-than-compliant document requiring future revision.

We continue to believe that this housing element draft is a continuation of the existing policies that have resulted in a shortage of housing.

Site Inventory

We maintain that the general points of our earlier Site Capacity Addendum still apply to this revised draft.

Pipeline Projects

**Already-completed projects: **950 West El Camino Real had its public grand opening ceremony on May 6, 2022. In a Planning Commission meeting on Nov 14, staff stated that the project was opening and occupied under a Temporary Certificate of Occupancy for months. We are concerned that there could be other projects counted in under the 6th despite having long TCOs pre-June 2022.

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!