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Mountain View is moving forward with its plan to get rid of parking requirements for residential developments in certain parts of the city, a new approach to spur additional housing growth.
In a 4-2-1 vote, the City Council approved a recommendation Tuesday evening to eliminate minimum parking standards for residential developments in areas of the city slated for housing growth. The policy change also will impact mixed-use developments, but only for the residential portion.
Council members Lisa Matichak and Margaret Abe-Koga voted against the changes at the meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 12, while Council member Alison Hicks abstained.
State law AB 2097 already prohibits jurisdictions from imposing parking requirements on developments located within half a mile of public transit. Mountain View is taking it a step further by allowing developers to forgo parking for residential projects that fall within the Downtown, San Antonio, East Whisman and El Camino Real precise plans.
The objective is to get more housing built by bringing down the costs, as parking is a huge expense. But for some council members, the plan to eliminate parking requirements is a step too far without the guarantee of reliable public transit.
“We’re still dependent on automobiles,” Matichak said, adding that there is a lack of efficient and effective public transit in the Bay Area, other than Caltrain and BART.
Abe-Koga, who sits on regional transportation boards, was also skeptical. “I just don’t think this is realistic at this time,” she said, noting that massive funding shortfalls were on the horizon for transit agencies.
Hicks expressed concerns as well, noting that the removal of parking requirements would create accessibility issues for electric vehicles and people with disabilities.
Under the changes, if residential developers decide not to provide parking, they would not be required to put in EV and ADA parking spaces. They would have to include it, however, if general parking is voluntarily provided, according to Principal Planner Diana Pancholi, who presented the recommended zoning changes to the council.
The proposed changes would not impact bicycle spaces, which are based on residential unit counts, Pancholi said.
For Hicks, the rollout of the plan was problematic. “It kind of has the potential to give a ‘gift’ to the first developer in the area,” she said, noting that they likely would take over street parking while subsequent developers would not have this option. It also would make it more difficult to add in bike lanes and wider sidewalks later on, she said.
The majority of the council, however, backed the recommendation to remove the parking requirements. The changes are stipulated in the housing element that the city adopted last year, and Council member Lucas Ramirez cautioned against failing to advance its goals so early on.
Ramirez also noted that the impact of the changes likely would not be very big. Parking requirements already have been removed for 100% affordable housing projects and parts of the city within half a mile of public transit. “Even if we did nothing and we took no further rapid action, we can’t enforce minimum parking requirements in those areas anyway,” Ramirez said.
It also was unlikely developers would provide no parking given the market demand for it, Ramirez said.
Community Development Director Christian Murdock backed this claim, stating that developers in Mountain View have been including parking in their plans, even when not required to do so. The parking has been in high proportion to what would have existed prior to AB 2097, he said.
The public comments submitted to the council supported the recommendation, with Mountain View YIMBY, a prohousing group, making the point that removal of minimum parking requirements is not the same thing as no parking – it just leaves it up to the developer to determine how much, it said.
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So we let the developers decide, and of course they are going to do away with it. Why build something that doesn’t generate revenue? They have no incentive to build adequate parking. They’ll build one spot per apt and and all the extra cars will park on the street. Just look around Eagle park, finding Parkin is hard with all the apts.
With the elimination of parking on El Camino, the YIMBYs enjoy stuffing it on the neighbors.
Impractical.
I understand the motive for eliminating parking and reach goals.
But these utopian ideals are typical for MV.
With that said, there should have been a discussion of autonomous taxi service. Schedules are further off than most people realize for Category 5 ** autonomous vehicles. But there is a small chance that MV could be ahead of the game because of all the 3D mapping going on in the more densely poplulated parts of MV. The 3D mapping may decrease some of the compute requirements of an autonomous vehicle, and accelerate the rate of practical deployment for autonomous taxi within a limited geographic area. You would have to check the latest Waymo docs for what their current plans are since I am out of date. Anyway, Autonomous Taxi Service might improve practicality of dense housing with no parking. But this is not reality, and it is still aways off.
** Category 5 is how engineering departments describe true atonomous vehicles. Key point: It is further off than you think, and all the marketing claims add a lot of confusion. About 2 years ago, Category 5 schedules were pushed off from around 2030 to 2040/2050. (This made headlines in the industry magazines but not the mainstream media) Not a typo. In other words, they really don’t know and truely autonomous vehicles are harder than what is being represented. But I’ve outlined a medium term work around where 3D mapping is used, and may help in a limited geographic area. But somebody *serious* with technical experience needs to look into this. Not pie-in-the -sky dreamers.
I applaud the Council’s decision. Several times in my life I’ve lived close enough to work to walk, bike, or take transit to my job. When I was in graduate school at Cal I lived in a 1920s era 4-story apartment building with a ground-floor garage. There were far more apartments than parking spaces. Because I didn’t have a car, I didn’t have to pay rent on a parking space in addition to renting my 300 sq. ft. studio apartment. My next door neighbor was a retired physician who was in his early 80s and I don’t think he had a car either. One of my friends from down the hall worked at a record store just a block away. I don’t think he had a car either. Now that e-bikes are affordable and popular I think there will be an ever-increasing number of adults who don’t want the expense of owning a car. I live 3 blocks from Castro and 2 blocks from El Camino and I estimate that at least 50% of available street parking is unused at night on my block.
Thanks Bruce. That’s just not the case in most neighborhoods. Ask anyone living in these areas how they feel about people parking in front of their houses.
So the intent is that people who live in the projects won’t own automobiles? That is incredibly poor planning.
Why does the article omit the names of the four YIMBY endorsed City Council Members who voted for this change? Let the world know that Pat Showalter, Emily Ann Ramos, Ellen Kamei, and Lucas Ramirez decided that the awful YIMBY sponsored AB 2097 didn’t go far enough to create parking shortages in Mountain View. They decided to take things even further. Why? Who exactly is the City Council trying to please with this action?
AB 2097 eliminates parking requirements in new housing projects constructed within ½ mile of a bus stop. This action now eliminates parking requirements in ALL new housing projects. Only the able-bodied will be welcome here. How progressive of our fine city!
Council members Lisa Matichak, Margaret Abe-Koga and Alison Hicks understand REALITY. “We’re still dependent on automobiles,” said Matichak. “I just don’t think this is realistic at this time,” said Abe-Koga. Hicks noted that “the removal of parking requirements would create accessibility issues for electric vehicles and people with disabilities.”
When AB 2097 was signed into law, The only people who knew about it were those in the CA YIMBY movement. Isn’t that crazy? The bill was essentially signed “in the dead of night” back in 2022 and most of the public had never heard of it. Sadly, I suspect that’s the new reality going forward: state and local politicians making bold decisions without input from anyone but the YIMBYs.
“Ramirez also noted that the impact of the changes likely would not be very big.”
If this is true, why was valuable Council time even spent on this issue? Ramirez’s logic makes no sense to me. The Council took this up for a reason. I think the four YIMBY endorsed City Council Members who voted AYE are trying to please some constituency. The question is, who?
A housing development without parking would have almost zero market value for many people, and I think developers know this. Who would consider buying or renting a place where they cannot park? Only the desperate who cannot afford a car.
No developer would want to build housing for which there is no market.
We are looking to move out of our condo and into a townhome. Tight garage spaces and lack of exterior parking are deal breakers for us; most townhomes don’t even have a driveway you can pull your car into if you need to do some work in the garage.
Alex, there are enough people out there who will rent, if the price is low enough, without a dedicated parking space. The developers can do the math to see how low rent can go given they don’t have to pay $25k a parking spot.
The issues in the middle. They’ll maybe build 25% of what they should build. And the rest will park on the street. There’s no way we don’t end up with more cars parked on the street. For those on el Camino, within two block….sorry!
City staff already said that developments subject to AB 2097 have been providing parking, so the fears expressed by many commenters are overblown.