June 2025

From Livable Mountain View: Making Mountain View the Most Livable City in California

Livable Mountain View

230 Houghton Street

Mountain View, CA 94041-1318

Phone: (650)-390-3915

Email: livable-mv-steering@googlegroups.com

Website:  https://www.livablemv.com/

Members of the California Assembly subcommittees:

We are sending you this letter in opposition to Senate Bill 79, introduced by Senator Scott Wiener.

Our city of Mountain View’s highest objective is to be a Community for All and a leader in the Bay Area in providing new housing. We are one of the few cities in the region that has earned a pro-housing designation from the legislature. Our city council has always encouraged participation of all stakeholders when it enacts housing policy. The members and supporters of Livable Mountain View have consistently been advocates for good development and participated in opportunities for community outreach.  The result is housing and zoning decisions that have wide public support, both from renters and homeowners alike.

We oppose SB-79, which upzones properties within one-half mile of trains, light rail, and for bus lines based on frequency rather than connectivity to allow five to seven story buildings, without any further concessions from developers. SB 79 fails to provide for the needs of our local community as it lacks of protection for our irreplaceable historic resources, weakens the state’s own requirements for affordable and low-income housing offered in the state density bonus and overrides adherence to our local community developed precise plans that already include significant upzoning and increased density in all areas of our city, far beyond that required by our state approved sixth cycle Housing Element.  

Because our city is fortunate enough to be served by all three of these modes of transit, about half of our city would be rezoned for high density if this legislation is enacted.  Furthermore, by overriding what is offered to developers by the state density bonus, it would undercut our city’s ability to meet our state mandated RHNA allocation for affordable housing. The result could be a total disruption of our state approved plans and negatively impact our city’s neighborhoods. 

The housing crisis in our area is one of AFFORDABLE housing, not market-rate housing. According to the latest report of our Rental Housing Committee, 12,5 percent of the housing built in our city the last eight years lies vacant because apartment owners will not rent it out at lower rents. Solutions to provide housing for our community need to go beyond bills that can needlessly destroy historic resources and provide massive rezoning without substantial concessions for more affordable housing from the developers who build that housing.

Thank you for considering our views.

Robert Cox, Louise Katz, Nazanin Dashtara, Muriel Sivyer-Lee, Toni Rath, Peter Spitzer, Maureen Blando, Jerry Steach, David Lewis, Carol Lewis, Hala Alshahwany, Carole Griggs, Leslie Friedman, Nancy Stuhr, Natalie Solomon, Sean O’Malley, Diane Gazzano, Lorrie Wormald, Alice DeGuzman, Chuck Muir, and Julie Muir

For the Steering Committee of Livable Mountain View, Mountain View, CA

Mayor Kamei, Vice Mayor Ramos, and members of the Mountain View City Council,

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on Item 8.2 “Reconsideration of Density Increases in R3 Zoning District Update Change Areas”. This matter came before council at a regularly scheduled city council meeting, Tuesday, April 22, 2025 after the opportunity for public notice and comment. Now, almost three months after the decision for the density of designated change areas was made by council, council may change its decision, without any new information or change of development conditions in our city to justify such a change.

We are asking that the council NOT change its initial decision on this question. Making a different decision now undermines the public’s trust that council decisions, once made, can be relied on by all stakeholders, including the residents and voters of Mountain View.

Livable Mountain View wrote this letter to council for the March 25, 2025 public hearing where the densities of the R3 Zoning District Change Areas were initially considered:

Livable Mountain View comment on Item 6.2: R3 Zoning District Update – Increased Densities

Our position on the density of these change areas is the same today.  It mirrors the recommendation of the EPC. Here is the relevant part from that letter:

Question 2: For change areas selected, which density option should the city study as the R3 zoning district update is carried out?

We support the approach recommended by the Environmental Planning Commission: Option 2A (R3-D1 Base), an intensity of 4 stories base, which with the state density bonus is a maximum of 8 stories, except for the Del Medio South for which we support Option 1 (R3-D2 Base) to avoid downzoning the area.

Rationale: As stated above developers are primarily looking to build up to 7 stories. By zoning for 4 stories base and 8 stories max with the state density bonus, developers who want to build higher buildings will need to provide the affordable housing to get the higher densities. Most of the new units we are seeing approved by council now are either state density bonus or builder’s remedy, so we should expect the state density bonus to be used.

Thank you for considering our views on this important item.

Robert Cox, Louise Katz, Peter Spitzer, Muriel Sivyer-Lee, Li Zhang, Maureen Blando, Leslie Friedman, Hala Alshahwany, Jerry Steach, Toni Rath, Nancy Stuhr, Natalie Solomon, Chuck Muir and Julie Muir  

For the Steering Committee of Livable Mountain View

Mayor Kamei, Vice Mayor Ramos, and members of the Mountain View City Council,

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on Item 8.1 “New Council Policy G-9, Gatekeeper Application Policy and Procedures.

The proposed new gatekeeper policy represents a major deviation from Mountain View’s established historical gatekeeper process and we urge that the council reject it. This proposal is being set forth in this hearing without significant advance public outreach. It makes about one-third of the city’s area eligible for streamlined gatekeeper projects. Our understanding from reading the staff report is that these could be approved on a single council vote. It is unclear from the staff report whether a public hearing would even be held, or if that vote would be on the consent calendar. It is also unclear how the public is expected to participate in the approval process or even how the public would become aware of what streamlined gatekeeper projects have been filed. All these questions need to be answered before considering such a major change.

Many of the included areas for streamlined gatekeeper projects are in the R3 zones that were specifically not selected in the R3 upzoning process. So, it appears that the streamlined gatekeeper process could be used to circumvent the council’s choices for the R3 high intensity areas. Note that there is no minimum lot size, and yet the streamlining criteria (B)(2) requires a provision for open space. The report provides no rationale for this (contradictory) proposal in contrast with the current protocol where, gatekeeper projects generally were of a significant enough size to produce significant housing and merit consideration of a zoning change.  Note that, also unlike what was considered in the R3 zoning changes, there are no density or height limits indicated, or even suggested, for streamlined gatekeeper projects.

Finally, not only is this a major change that would be implemented without the public outreach that council has previously acknowledged to be of the utmost importance, this proposed change could even deny residents the right to know what a developer is going to build since the staff report also includes consideration of gatekeeper applications with no associated development.   The purpose of a gatekeeper application has always been to consider whether a specific project proposal which is not currently zoning compliant merits special consideration. What benefit is there to the public if a developer can obtain a zoning change without revealing what they intend to build?  

For all these reasons, we ask that the council adopt Alternative (2): “Do not adopt Council Policy G-9 and direct staff to open the Gatekeeper submittal window under the existing Gatekeeper Process (utilized in 2024).” Also, we request that the council conduct public outreach and a publicly noticed study session to gather input from the public before adopting a new gatekeeper process.

Thank you for considering our views on this important topic.

Robert Cox, Louise Katz, Maureen Blando, Hala Alshahwany, Muriel Sivyer-Lee, David and Carol Lewis, and Nancy Stuhr

For the Steering Committee of Livable Mountain View

LIVABLE MOUNTAIN VIEW OPPOSES SB79

Senator Josh Becker: 

We are sending you this letter in opposition to Senate Bill 79, introduced by Senator Scott Wiener.

The city of Mountain View has consistently been an advocate for good development. We are one of the few cities in the region that has earned a pro-housing designation from the legislature. Our city has accomplished this with the participation of all stakeholders when it enacts housing policy. 

SB79 would allow five to seven story buildings to be built 5 feet from a single-family home or small apartment building. We have these small buildings throughout our community. This proposed legislation, SB79, would not conform to the precise plans that we already have in place, which support increased density. SB79 fails to require any affordable and low-income housing, and does not require a single concession from developers.  It fails to protect any historical resource now or in the future. 

According to our Rental Housing Committee, Mountain View has a 12.5 percent vacancy rate for market-rate apartments built in the last eight years. The owners of these apartments are obviously willing to let housing sit vacant to keep rents high. Allowing five to seven story buildings that deny the occupants of neighboring buildings light and privacy will not change those high vacancy rates, and will not lower rental pricing.

Thank you for considering our views. 

Robert Cox, Louise Katz, Nazanin Dashtara, Muriel Sivyer-Lee, Toni Rath, Peter Spitzer, Maureen Blando, Jerry Steach, David Lewis, Carol Lewis, Hala Alshahwany, Carole Griggs, Leslie Friedman, Nancy Stuhr, Natalie Solomon, Sean O’Malley, Diane Gazzano, Lorrie Wormald, and Alice DeGuzman 

For the Steering Committee of Livable Mountain View, California