Ranking The 2026 Mountain View council field on housing

01 — THE BOARDCandidates & Councilmembers on Housing

This represents each person's estimated chance of taking the pro-housing side of a contested question. Records made in office and at the podium count at a higher weight than forum, questionnaire and website answers.

More on uncertainty: Each dot represents the probability that the given candidate will take the pro-housing side of a disagreement on a question of building housing. Further, the bars represent our level of uncertainty. The expectation is that 8 times out of 10, the 'real' probability that the candidate will take a pro housing position will be somewhere within the range represented by the line. When two candidates have bars that overlap a lot, that means we can't differentiate them.

Why did I rank the weights this way? Since city council is where the decisions are made, it made sense for the default action to be arguing before council for or against building new homes. The others are ranked less in recognition that they're less impactful on housing construction. Further, the whole methodology here depends on finding disagreements between candidates on the same issue, so it made sense to look for places where non-councilmembers took concrete positions on discussions that also contained councilmembers, to make it easier to put them all on one scale.

02 — WHAT EACH PLACEMENT IS MADE OFCandidate pro housing position ratio by venue

17 of 17James Kuszmaul

I want to say I support the rezoning. Um more people living in Mountain View is good. More housing options in a part of the city where you can only live if you can afford a three million dollar home needs to happen. It's unconscionable that right now we have a vast neighborhood where you cannot afford to live if you cannot afford to live in that type of housing.

16 December 2025, City Council · watch · the rezoning near El Camino Hospital.

Having to provide 25% BMR units plus some amount of parkland dedication plus the other requirements is in all likelihood just going to result in zero or near zero projects using that process. And like 25% BMR units of no projects is not fulfilling the City's goals.

24 June 2025, City Council · watch · the streamlined gatekeeper criteria. The one place in the podium record where a candidate names the trade-off between affordability requirements and homes actually built, and picks a side.

I am much more wary than some of the others here about trying to spend staff time on a local alternative plan.

27 August 2026, Chamber of Commerce forum · watch · the only candidate to dissent from the panel's consensus that the city should write its own SB 79 alternative plan.

3 of 35Robert Cox

However, we urge the council not to go beyond what staff has recommended as this will add to our city's already stressed traffic and parking situation.

11 February 2026, City Council · watch · adoption of the R3 zoning update: the staff recommendation and nothing further.

Senate Bill, uh, 79 could eliminate our historic downtown.

9 December 2025, City Council · watch · opening a slide presentation asking for a downtown historic district by 1 July 2026 and a six-month pause on other land-use work to build an SB 79 alternative plan.

We need to be able to have an alternative plan that allows the council to take those first three blocks of Castro Street and say we want to be the ones who determine how it goes forward.

27 August 2026, Chamber of Commerce forum · watch · on SB 79 and Castro Street.

17 of 43Paul Donahue

But that's the way the rules work and unfortunately there's nothing we can do about that.

4 February 2026, EPC · watch · one of three concerns closed by the same formula inside ninety seconds, on a project carrying twenty density-bonus waivers.

One thing that concerns me is that the we're not done. In another seven years we're going to be back uh having to uh go through this again. And if we um we need to have something left I think.

13 March 2024, EPC · watch · arguing to hold R3 density in reserve for the next housing-element cycle rather than zone it now.

…this one-size-fits-all approach from Sacramento uh is not really right for the conditions on the ground in Mountain View. It [an alternative plan] allows us to still develop the housing but to shift it around to places that are appropriate

27 August 2026, Chamber of Commerce forum · watch · on SB 79.

Yeah, I think this is a great project. Um, it's it meets housing needs.

18 February 2026, EPC · watch · 38 rowhomes needing a General Plan and zoning change the city had no obligation to grant. He can take the pro-housing side, and does.

04 — SAME ROOM, SAME NIGHTCox against Kuszmaul on the same item

05 — THE FIVE ON PAPERSylvester, Poicon, Amoroso, Paymer, Ali

Of these candidates, only Amoroso has taken a side on a housing question in front of the council, at two meetings this spring. For the other four, what we have is what they wrote for their own sites, what they wrote on the YIMBY questionnaire and what they said to the Chamber.

forum 3 of 5IdaRose Sylvester

One way to achieve this is implementing the long-awaited R3 zoning standards, which will enable us to build stacked flat units, and other diverse housing types.

Our residents are concerned about state mandates, such as SB79. I will work to ensure mandates work for all of us.

Campaign site · idarosesylvester.com/priorities

I will double down and say yes, we need to make permitting faster and predictable.

27 August 2026, Chamber of Commerce forum · watch · on permitting. She also told the room the city needs its own SB 79 alternative plan.

forum 2 of 4Erik Poicon

I support completing the long-overdue R3 zoning update with form-based standards that favor stacked flats, duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes over large townhome developments.

I support the goal, more homes near transit is good for the environment and for affordability.

Campaign site · erik4mv.com/on-the-issues

I'm a pro-housing, a pro-tenant candidate who wants to provide a full range of options such as missing middle housing and transit-oriented development

27 August 2026, Chamber of Commerce forum · watch

podium 3 of 3Alexander Amoroso

…there is something to take into consideration to not take our eye off the ball when it comes to just housing period

12 May 2026, City Council · watch · on the BMR ordinance amendments.

I'm also not for housing and building for the sake of building, unless there are standards involved.

27 August 2026, Chamber of Commerce forum · watch · on SB 79.

forum 3 of 4Silja Paymer

We are making big decisions about housing and progress, but we cannot lose our soul in the process.

Campaign site · siljapaymer.com

…there's ways that we can add this density with beauty and with retaining this historic feel

27 August 2026, Chamber of Commerce forum · watch · on downtown and the SB 79 alternative plan.

forum 2 of 3Samuel Ali

No council appearances and no campaign website found.

…housing near transit is is a great, great idea.

27 August 2026, Chamber of Commerce forum · watch · on SB 79.

06 — THE COUNCIL THEY WOULD JOINPro-housing share on split votes, 2024–26

07 — LIMITS AND CONSTRAINTS

• This entire analysis only covers the data that I could find and analyze. This included the city council and EPC meetings since February 2024, along with 6 of Cox's EPC meetings. It also included public comments I could find going back to 2021. I didn't analyze earlier EPC meetings because it's harder to perform transcriptions further back.
• James Kuszmaul is a lead with Mountain View YIMBY, and regularly delivers our statement to council, similarly Cox is a lead with Livable Mountain View, the anti-growth group in the city. So naturally, they both have large numbers of public comments on opposite sides. Even though they are speaking for their groups, we have counted those as their own views as well.
• The decisions about how to weigh the various kinds of positions, questionnaires, public comment, forums, are somewhat arbitrary. It makes sense to us to weigh pro housing answers on a YIMBY questionnaire lower than statements made in other venues, but others might disagree.
• This is only a score of the candidates positions on building more homes. Tennant regulations are orthogonal to that, and aren't part of this ranking.