A Bay Area group’s “report card” giving Mountain View an “F” for not providing adequate housing for its residents is drawing the ire of city officials.
City Hall roundly rejected the report from the Bay Area Council, saying that it does not reflect the housing realities of a city that already has the highest housing density in the county.
Among its shortcomings, officials said, the report didn’t take into account the 2,902 units likely to be built here in the near future. In order to receive an “A” grade, the city would have had to issue permits for 3,423 units between 1999 and this year — more than triple the 1,267 permits actually issued. (The report incorrectly stated that Mountain View issued only 1,136 permits.)
“I’m not sure how anyone can reach any conclusions except that there is a really strong commitment to building housing in Mountain View,” said city manager Kevin Duggan. “In our view it doesn’t tell the whole story.”
Council member Laura Macias lambasted the report, calling it “arbitrary at best” and “classist at worst.”
“Classist” because the report, released last Wednesday, awarded “A” grades to cities with expensive housing and low density such as Los Altos, Los Gatos and Saratoga, and “F” grades to cities with lots of industrial development such as Mountain View, Sunnyvale and Redwood City — despite the fact that those are the cities working toward “smart growth,” i.e. transit-oriented, high-density housing.
“The cities doing the heavy lifting are expected to do more heavy lifting,” she said. “We are providing jobs for Los Altos — we should be given credit for that.”
According to an e-mail from city staff, Mountain View averages 8.4 units per acre “compared to 4.5 units per acre for Palo Alto and densities ranging from 0.6 to 2.8 units per acre for the “A” cities of Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Monte Sereno, and Saratoga.”
In contrast, a report from the Greenbelt Alliance ranked Mountain View eighth in the Bay Area out of 101 cities for its “smart growth” efforts.
The 60-year-old Bay Area Council describes itself on its Web site as “a business-sponsored, public-policy advocacy organization” which “advocates for a strong economy, a vital business environment, and a better quality of life for everyone who lives here.”
Its report gave the Bay Area a “B” grade overall, and Santa Clara County got a “C” in meeting housing needs.
The report was based on how successfully cities met growth targets set by the Association of Bay Area Governments. City officials say ABAG’s numbers, set in 1999, were flawed and that last week’s report just amplified those flaws.
Jobs-to-housing balance
While council member Greg Perry said that he preferred other projection methods over ABAG’s, he differed from his colleagues by calling the report “a sign that neither we nor other cities have done enough to accommodate the growth we’ve spurred.”Perry said people can “quibble” over the grades, but the bottom line is that no city is doing its share.
While Mountain View is dense relative to other cities, there are more jobs here than there are places for workers to live. As a result, Perry said, many people end up commuting from the “bedroom communities” into Mountain View each day, creating air pollution and traffic problems. This is illustrated, he said, by 15,000 more car trips coming into Mountain View every morning than leaving it.
Perry said it’s easy for someone who can afford to own a home with a yard to criticize efforts to build high-density housing, like that which was recently approved at the old Mayfield Mall. While many in Mountain View complain about the loss of old trees and open space, many more people would just like to be able to afford a home, he said. And building homes to meet demand makes homes more affordable.
The report said the median home price in the Bay Area has more than tripled since 1990, when it was $208,000.
Density vs. charm
Council member Matt Pear said it wasn’t an issue of being for or against housing, but rather what is plausible and what isn’t. Mountain View is already built out, he said, which is why it is behind only San Francisco in terms of density in the Bay Area. The city also has 57 percent of all homes as rental units, the highest ratio of rentals in the county.“You don’t want to build housing and diminish the charm of the city,” Pear said.
Pear pointed out that what most people seem to want in Mountain View is a little bit less development, as made evident by the large organized effort on the part of the Monta Loma Neighborhood Association and others to preserve old trees, save open space, build more parks and design new housing to fit in with existing neighborhoods.
“How does one group say we don’t have enough, and another group say we have too much?” Pear asked.
Perry said a solution would require the city be more willing to approve housing developments the way it approves office and business space. He pointed to the difficult and time-consuming process to build 530 homes at Mayfield. A few weeks later, with little fanfare, the city zoned an area near Shoreline Park for more than 1,000 jobs.
The housing-to-jobs balance just goes from bad to worse, he said, and the only thing that may change it is when businesses start complaining about having to pay people to convince them to drive long distances to get to work.
“Every politician and city staff member is aware that the Bay Area is in a housing crisis,” said ABAG spokesperson Leah Zippert. “Figuring out how to accommodate people who live here is part of cities’ and counties’ roles.”
With 2,932 units in the pipeline, Mountain View officials predict enough housing is in the works to meet the projected ABAG housing allocation for the next seven-year cycle.
City officials say ABAG didn’t listen to them when making projections in 1999. Zippert responded that while developing the state-mandated predictions for the next cycle — a process slated to begin soon — the city would be listened to, just as it was in 1999. (ABAG’s numbers weren’t changed in response to the city’s concerns.)
If a city’s housing needs can be met in another city, Zippert said, the two cities can approach ABAG to help satisfy the housing requirements for the city in need. And smart growth will be taken into account as well, she said, because ABAG has started to place importance on transit-oriented development so that the region as a whole can develop in a beneficial way.
The Bay Area Council report can be read at www.bayareacouncil.org/hp3
E-mail Daniel DeBolt at ddebolt@mv-voice.com
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