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Lacking the thousands of homes needed for the growing local workforce, Mountain View officials are calling on an unlikely group to come to the rescue — the city’s suburban homeowners. As a quick-fix for the housing crisis, Mountain View is following a trend among South Bay cities by loosening the rules for homeowners to build “granny cottages” or companion units, in hopes of spurring thousands of new backyard residences free of the intense scrutiny required for dense apartment projects.
If every eligible home under the new rules built a companion unit, about 7,600 new homes could be added to Mountain View, according to staff estimates. The Mountain View City Council unanimously approved the new companion-unit rules at its Tuesday, June 7 meeting.
Also known as in-law or granny units, companion units are basically secondary residences built behind or alongside existing homes. These units, equipped with their own bathrooms and kitchens, are typically a cheaper form of rental housing as well as an easy income source for homeowners.
These companion units are nothing new for Mountain View, but city officials say their guidelines have clearly made it unrealistic for most homeowners to build them legally. The city’s former rules set prohibitive standards for a parcel size for a companion unit, making nearly 90 percent of the city’s single-family homes ineligible. Since the city’s companion unit rules were first created in the 1980s, city building officials have granted only about 30 permits.
But that’s not to say that homeowners haven’t been building these units anyway. Assistant Planner Diana Pancholi said city officials are well aware there were households that had constructed unauthorized secondary units in garages and backyards. Exactly how many, she couldn’t say. The City Council didn’t have much interest in performing a citywide survey to get a count. For now, the city is only enforcing these rules on a complaint basis or when homeowners need city approval for other upgrades.
As part of the new rules, the City Council agreed to no longer mandate the lots be a minimum size in order to build a companion unit. The council also loosened rules on parking requirements for these secondary units, an issue that previously presented some concerns that some neighborhoods could see an excess of cars parking along the street. Earlier rules mandated that new housing units must have one parking spot per bedroom; but the city’s new standards only require one space per companion unit.
The issue that generated the most debate for the City Council was the question of development fees, particularly for city park lands. Current rules require anyone building a companion unit to pay park fees based on a complicated formula that considers the housing density and property value. In general, this meant most companion units had to pay between $15,000 and $30,000, which served as a major disincentive, city staff noted.
Council members expressed interest in lowering the fee to encourage new home construction, but they were split on whether to completely write it off. Councilman John McAlister warned that the city shouldn’t sacrifice its parks to solve the housing troubles.
“We’re trying to develop Mountain View for the long-term,” he said. “(If we eliminate this fee) we’re going to solve one problem, but we’ll make another one worse.”
Mayor Pat Showalter pitched an idea to make the fees cheaper for early adopters. What if the first 200 companion units built in Mountain View faced no fees, but then subsequent ones would have to pay a smaller amount, she proposed. The city attorney hastily warned this could verge on a fairness problem, so Showalter dropped the idea. In the end, city officials decided to split the difference and lower the fee by about 80 percent.
Notably absent from the city’s discussion Tuesday was any mention of Airbnb or related services. In previous discussions, City Council members expressed concern that loosening companion-unit rules could backfire by encouraging homeowners to use the units as short-term vacation rentals, which could potentially ratchet up local rents.
In their report, staff members noted that trying to craft regulations on Airbnb and its competitors would be a time-intensive process. Other South Bay cities were also exploring this issue, and city staff recommended waiting until later this year when more information is made available.
Even though thousands of homeowners will now be eligible to build new companion units, there are some indications that it won’t create a huge surge of new housing. A recent study by the UC Berkeley Center for Community Innovation found less than 10 percent of East Bay homeowners didn’t build secondary units due to financial or regulatory barriers similar to those addressed by Mountain View’s actions. Meanwhile, the East Bay study found that more than 70 percent of the surveyed homeowners simply didn’t want or hadn’t considered a second household on their property.
Nevertheless, many regional groups, including SV@Home and the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association, have singled out companion units as the best short-term fix to address the widening housing imbalance afflicting Silicon Valley.
Email Mark Noack at mnoack@mv-voice.com
Housing:
Take a brief survey here to weigh in your opinion about companion units and mandatory in-lieu park fees.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/summary/o4zeLMUPzeO9dMgKNkyjHU8Skj0wOQNWsHAdePoZ8Ao_3D
Right now, if you expand, even double your home or more, you can do so without contributing to a park fee. However, if you would like to expand a separate unit or convert or build a companion unit, you must pay an in-lieu park fee. This does not make sense, nor is fair.
The View newspaper from Spring/Summer 2016 puts affordable housing on its front cover. On page two it covers “City Explores Solutions for Displaced Residents Living in Vehicles” as well as another article titled “More Affordable Housing Options”, where the first sentence says, “The City is updating its companion unit regulations to allow for and ENCOURAGE additional diverse housing opportunities.”
After attending meeting on the subject and speaking with residents, it was the mandatory park fee donation that was the number one block to them choosing to legally build companion units. This is not to say the units were not being built. Homeowners just didn’t get permits when building. Encouraging building be done with permits encourages more safe building standards (fire, earthquake, etc.). I suggest the fee be entirely eliminated and the maximum number of homeowners who would construct companion units be encouraged to do so by all means possible..legally.
In Tuesday, June 7th’s Council meeting, the council preliminarily chose to reduce the fee by 80%, rather than a previously proposed 50%. Using the same calculations the planning department used for projected units added, this would mean that less than 45 homes would be built in TEN YEARS. The fiscal addition to parks, if 45 homes were built at the current 20% fee would only be $162,000 over ten years. Why should only companion fee builders pay an average of $3,600 MORE than any other homeowner has to pay to expand?
Companion units are beneficial in so many ways:
1) They allow more housing units.
2) They are owned and managed by middle class people, not developers, in general.
3) They provide naturally lower rent options (refer back to comments by SV@Home).
4) They help homeowners add living space and value. An accessory structure cannot be calculated as living space, but a companion unit can. Therefore, an average of $1,139 per square foot could be added to the value of homes if accessory structures could be companion units. (This calculated on the past 90 days actual sales in Mountain View dollar per square foot average.)
5) They allow families to help each other.
6) They provide long- and short-term rental options.
etc. etc.
I strongly encourage you to consider the net gain versus the potential net loss, as well as the fairness of the fee in making your final decision about it and hope that you will vote to eliminate the fee entirely.
We must do all we can to help Mountain View stay clean and safe, to help Mountain View’s homeless, to encourage naturally lower rents that companion units provide.
Great… more density and less available parking.
The potential new construction will result in a reassessment of taxable value. No doubt the county assessor will be dancing in the street as our quality of life continues to deteriorate.
Why does the City refuse to investigate the illegal construction? It is not up to Code and is probably unsafe. And, the neighbors get to pay for the trash, sewer service, etc. That is a form of theft.
Regarding the temporary rentals, why is that repeated business use allowed in an area zoned residential?
Not a magic bullet…Watch out! Sounds good, but understand street parking near downtown will become even more horrific, if that’s possible.
Those with influence may get more parking spaces for themselves and their rental units (Airbnb or not), courtesy of the city. Single family homeowners in and around Old Mountain View are (in a separate proposal) asking the city for ~3-4 street parking permits and a “guest” permit along with time restricted streets within defined parking districts to avoid competing for city street parking to accommodate their tenants and can’t seem to find room for their own cars/campers on their own property. It would be awesome for all of us ‘residents” to park out front without those commuters, visitors and workers taking “our parking spaces” on city streets.
The “Residential Parking Permit Proposal” is due for review in the coming weeks. Unfortunately, the current proposal only applies to “residents” in single family homes. Other, less fortunate, “residents” that rent apartments, own or rent condo’s or live in PUD’s (Planned Unit Developments) are not included as they were deemed to have sufficient on-site parking available to them (really?) versus a single family home?
Discriminating against certain classes of “residents” is probably a bad idea when handing out permits for parking. The current proposal should be renamed the “Single Family Home spillover parking permit proposal”. The vast, vast majority of residents are not included.
I think companion units are great. I think single family homes are great.
I also think everyone needs to live within their own footprint and not ask the city to provide restriction free parking to certain classes of residents. Granny units with on-site parking is fabulous, so long as the homeowner is not allowed street parking permits for themselves at the same time.
The beauty of living near downtown is living near downtown. 2 hour parking restrictions work great to deter commuters and workers. Parking will be available for visitors who conduct business, provide services or lunch with friends, etc. Homeowners and their tenants if any, need to park on their own property or compete with others for city street parking, time restricted or not.
Of course, a home without a driveway could be given an exception for the homeowner or a caregiver if appropriate.
While this may seem like a good idea, it is not. Mountain View is over crowded already. You can only fit so many people into an area, unless you stack us like cord wood. There should be an ordinance on how many people per acre. I think we have reached a maximum capacity.
For example: One acre is roughly the size allotted for 49 orchard trees. Do you think that people should have at least as much space as a tree? According to my calculations, Mtn View is about 7,831 acres with (according to Wikipedia) a population of 75,000 (I think it is more). That comes to 104 people per acre. Just food for thought.
Have you ever been to Disnyland on a day of maximum capacity? Their idea of maximum capacity is WAY more than I think it should be. You can barely walk, lines are so long. That is what is happening to Mtn View.
I think the powers that be should rehome/relocate several of the largest employers. Morgan Hill perhaps? There is still a lot of land out that way. I keep thinking about moving, but I’ve been here for 50 years and I like my home.
What about our surrounding communities? Is Mt View the only city that feels the need to add housing? What about Los Altos, Menlo Park, Atherton, etc; How are they contributing to low income / affordable housing?
Hi all,
Neighbors Helping Neighbors welcomes all new housing stock. But we would welcome more rent stabilization measures.
As many of you know, NHN has a large housing networks.
Each week our clients who are renters enrolls in our Housing Networks and they receive rental listings and supportive services.
@ Deniece Smith and others. We strongly disagree with this statement you have made.
“3) They provide naturally lower rent options (refer back to comments by SV@Home).”
Our client data does not support that statement. Rents in MV for inlaw or companion units and cottages are at the same unacceptably high rent as comparable 1 & 2 bedroom units at apartments and duplexes. The rents for these second units are NOT lower. And we see no indication that landlords of these units are going to decrease their rents.
As of Memorial Weekend, rents in MV took another big jump, increased dramatically for Studios, 1 & 2 bedroom units.
There is some help for renters. If you are a renter or know of someone who needs help.
Contact Us, NHN.HousingProgram@gmail.com
Phone 650-283-0270
NHN Housing Program Team
Denise Smith, it would have been appropriate for you to disclose that you are a real estate agent. Mountain View should encourage developers to go elsewhere and if fees do that then so be it.
Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) are one of the easiest and least disruptive ways to increase the supply of housing, which our growing population and booming economy desperately needs, before even more of our neighbors are forced to move to faraway towns or to live in their cars. So I support this lowering of fees and relaxing of burdensome requirements. Also, with all due respect to the excellent group Neighbors Helping Neighbors, I would oppose rent control on such units. There needs to be some incentive for a homeowner to go through the trouble of building, maintaining, and renting an ADU. So limiting the potential income from ADUs seems counter-productive to me.
According to my calculations, Mtn View is about 7,831 acres with (according to Wikipedia) a population of 75,000 (I think it is more). That comes to 104 people per acre.
How do you get that “104” ?
75,000/7,831 = 9.6.
@Jeremy Hoffman,
Thanks for the nod. But with all due respect to you as well, NHN does not advocate for rent control under the currently unacceptably high rents. There are other measures that are needed. Such as Just Cause ordinance with 90 day requirement plus amendments to existing ‘right to lease’,Relocation Allowance and RHDRP ordinances.
The Mountain View Rental Housing Dispute Resolution Program (RHDRP) went into effect May 26, 2016. The RHDRP provides a mandatory dispute resolution process for certain tenant/landlord disputes. Information about who and what it covers, as well as dates and times of Landlord and Tenant Workshops can be found here: http://www.mountainview.gov/…/preserv…/disputeresolution.asp
Expanding ADUs is a good thing but we hope more measures will be adopted to help reduce rents and further aid in balancing the ‘imbalanced rental market “.
NHN Housing Program Team
Greg David is exactly right when he wrote: “We are certainly getting far more population growth from low income families cramming more and more people into rental units, simply to be able to afford the sky high rents. Something to chew on.”
We need to deport non-citizens and build a wall to keep them out because clearly the fact that MV is the highest density city in Santa Clara County is solely due to “them”!
Join Greg by voting for me and let’s return to the enlightened times of the 1950’s!
Would altering your property also allow the state to recalculate your property taxes?
Just keep the spics out
@NHN, thank you for this “Expanding ADUs is a good thing.” Adding more supply allows for demand to be more balanced and therefore has a natural reduction effect on cost. More supply equals less cost. As you know.
@MV Resident 2 Yes, I am a local Realtor. I am also a wife, mother, neighbor, community president and resident. To that effect, I post wearing multiple hats and a unique perspective. I work with all types of Buyers and Sellers and I have friends and neighbors in Mountain View, and I reside here.
I hear families say they wish they could help their children, and when they are not the “rich” people who can just go buy another local home for their kids, they would choose to build a dwelling unit for them in a lot of cases. I hear other families say that their stresses of trying to survive locally could be eased with a granny unit for their parents. I hear others say they’d like to build to rent on AirBnB, yes. I hear others say they would like a little more space and it could be easier to get it with a partial garage conversion, rather than a home expansion.
It’s difficult for me to hear voices despise the money in this area yet not act toward keeping the middle class here. “Rich” can mean so much. To me “rich” is when all people are considered and respect each other’s different views and freedoms.
I believe that more housing units in the way of companion units, that can be qualified as legal living space creates a win for the majority of people. First of all, from a safety perspective. Legal housing units must at least pass a permitting process that encourages more safe construction. The city wins with tax monies, less homeless potentially, and less debris issues from the homeless (which I understand is a great concern). The residents win by creating their own equity by being able to call the space living space. Currently the average dollar per square foot in Mountain View is $1,192. Adding a few hundred legal square feet can raise an owner’s equity by a lot. (Would we rather only allow increased equity to go the hands of big developers? Or could it be a good thing for middle-class homeowners to get some too?) Tenants win by adding more supply.
Whether we like it or not, we are an incredibly strong economy with the nation’s strongest job market right here, and this causes more people to want to be here and the need for more housing. While we are developing tons of 4-story apartment buildings with incredible amenities for people to pay exorbitant rents, companion units do not provide movie theatres, roof-top bbqs, gyms and other amenities. Because of this, they may not be able to ask as much. This idea was put fourth by SV@Home. Who knows? But is there another resource we can tap from that you can suggest that would at least have this potential?
If I didn’t appreciate the opportunity for someone to agree or disagree with me, I would not have put my thoughts out publically. So please, share as you wish and think what you think. I appreciate a decent and kind educated debate about housing. I sit on many sides of the fence.
Good move.
Granted, we will have more density and need for parking
If we incentivize carless renters or home owners by providing tax credits it will work.
Respectfully
I thought Mountain View couldn’t move backwards to a time when there non-permitted companion units on undersized lots, re-purposed garages and RV vehicles parked on lawns or driveways.
Now we’ll have the same, except city sanctioned! and they’ll come with street parking permits, Ha!. Green Acres here we come.
Build more high rises. More traffic. More problems will bring more solutions.
Imagine if we had today’s South Bay homeowners running the show in early New York City. NYC would look like Long Island today. But actually, no, they are ridiculously dense. Traffic? oh, they simply built subways. Business? Better than ever. Did it make living conditions worse? Last I checked, it remains one of the most sought after city in terms of residence.
Most of the homeowners here in this area run a cartel that prevents sense housing. Sad. Selfish.
Two thumbs up for City Council. This measure makes perfect sense.
Parking wouldn’t be a problem if people kept their cars in their garages. A few homeowners converting their garages into in-law units wouldn’t cause a parking shortage if their neighbors didn’t convert their own garages into sheds.
@MV Rsident
You might want to check your math. Using the figures you quote of 7831 Acres and 75000 population, density would be a bit under 10 people per acre. Granted people don’t live on every acre of MV, but I would say our density is not out of hand… yet.
By comparison, Mountain View, using Wikipedia data, is a bit over 6000 people per square mile. San Francisco, by comparison is over three times as dense, with over 18000 people per square mile.
Even if 500 homeowners, and that would be a stretch, chose to build cottages, you’d be looking at a net population growth of maybe 1000. We are certainly getting far more population growth from low income families cramming more and more people into rental units, simply to be able to afford the sky high rents. Something to chew on.