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Letters to the Editor

Time to build homes at Mayfield site

Editor:

As a Mountain View resident — and as someone who is currently renting but hoping to buy a home and raise my young family in Mountain View — I would like to voice my strong support for the proposal to build homes at the Mayfield site.

The Mayfield proposal makes perfect sense. We live just across the Caltrain tracks in the Monroe Park neighborhood. We pay nearly $3,000 a month for a small two-bed, one-bath apartment for my family of four. The homes in the neighborhood — small and old — sell for more than $1.2 million. We are priced out of home ownership.

The Mayfield proposal will bring a mix of new home stock — single-family homes, town homes and condos — and two new public parks to the area. Mayfield is walking distance from the San Antonio Caltrain station, and the increase in ridership will keep cars off the road and possibly convince Caltrain to increase service to San Antonio.

Let's get it done now, so young families can have the opportunities for home ownership that is part of the American Dream.

Anthony Marek

Monroe Drive

End the holdup on Mayfield project

Editor:

For years now, the city has been planning what to do with the Mayfield Mall site. What is the holdup? Why is this taking so long?

Our community has a housing shortage. Rental vacancy rates are low and housing prices remain high. Yet, when we find a perfect site to build condominiums and town homes, the kinds of homes affordable to those struggling to get a foot in the door, we say no. That's not right.

Not everyone can afford to buy a typical home with a big yard. In fact, the price difference between a condo or town home and a single-family home begins at $200,000. That's why it's important for us to build homes that, in essence, are the bottom rung on the ladder to building equity.

We have the opportunity to do that on this site. Let's get moving and bring those homes online.

David Jackson

Harpster Drive

Posted by Olaf, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Jul 9, 2007 at 8:43 am

Growing up between Showers and Ortega, it was great, really great to have a few open fields left to walk the dog, play ball and bike around on with the BMX. Now, there are too many cars, too many people and too many rules. Convert Mayfield back to an orchard or better yet, a community garden. Driving through Livermore Saturday, they're building acres and acres of condos. Why don't you move there?

Posted by Matt Raschke, a resident of the The Crossings neighborhood, on Jul 10, 2007 at 1:01 pm

Olaf,

That was quite rude. Why should anyone be forced to live 40 miles away from where they work? I down-sized and moved into the Crossings so my Wife and I could live 4 miles from where we work. The Crossings is highly successful smart growth, and so is the Mayfield proposal. The jobs-to-homes imbalance and suburban sprawl of the SF Peninsula is finally catching up with it. We need denser infill housing, NOW!

Mayfield will never become orchards again unless you buy it and make that happen. Got $100+ million sitting around to buy it?

Posted by dan, a resident of the Shoreline West neighborhood, on Jul 11, 2007 at 2:03 pm

I agree with Matt. That was rude. The orchards are gone. You can't go back there unless you personally buy back the land to plant them.

Posted by Don Frances, Mountain View Voice Editor, on Jul 12, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Don Frances is a member (registered user) of Mountain View Online

Hi guys,

Olaf's comment seemed OK to me. I think this debate is basically *the* debate of Mountain View and it boils down to this: do you want this city to become more urban, or remain suburban? Olaf's comment seemed in line with that.

Posted by Olaf, a resident of the Castro City neighborhood, on Jul 13, 2007 at 12:17 am

Hey, I appreciate your comments. I'm not in favor of a 476 condo complex and I consider it rude to heave this type of stress and congestion on to the current citizens who have settled into Mountain View. I don’t mind a 50 - 100 home project but the current proposal is horrifying. On the other hand, why doesn’t the City of Mountain View and surrounding cities ask employers to build up? Implement retail stores that have 4 levels of departments! Require Walmart to build up not out. Why don’t we have high density business parks rather than high density housing?