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In Mountain View, affordable housing has largely been concentrated north of El Camino Real. Soon there could be more opportunities south of El Camino Real, as the city is looking to make it easier to build multifamily housing on religious and commercial sites.
The City Council explored options at a study session last week to make changes to its zoning, with a goal of allowing developers to build on sites not typically associated with housing, like churches, grocery stores and gas stations.
The proposed changes would allow for more multifamily housing in an area of the city largely characterized by single-family residences, although the actual number of units would be fairly modest, according to the March 13 council report.
The city is aiming for about 65 affordable units on religious sites and 100 units on commercial sites.
The council report identified St. Joseph Mountain View at 1120 Miramonte Ave. and Mountain View Central Seventh-day Adventist Church at 1425 Springer Road as two religious sites that could accommodate a large number of multifamily homes. It also called out two commercial sites, the 99 Ranch Shopping Center at 1504 Grant Road and Nob Hills Food Market at 1250 Grant Road., which both make up the southern half of the larger Grant Park Plaza.
None of the sites have proposed housing development on their properties or expressed an interest in it, according to Principal Planner Diana Pancholi who presented the report to the council on March 13.
Council members questioned the amount of work it would entail to amend city ordinances, given the limited number of units that could be built on most religious and commercial sites south of El Camino. But they also noted the potential benefits of upzoning to protect community resources from being developed as single-family residences.
“My deeper concern is that this is very valuable land, and in my opinion, it is at risk,” said Council member Lucas Ramirez. “It’s likely a matter of time before some of these sites become targets for single-family home developers.”
Currently, state law, Senate Bill 4, allows for the development of affordable housing by right on religious sites without needing approval from local jurisdictions. However, there hasn’t yet been interest from property owners to go this route, according to the council report.
The report presented the council with the option of codifying the existing state law for religious sites, which would meet the requirements of the city’s housing element.
However, council members opted to take it a step further, providing direction for staff to explore ways to relax development standards and incentivize affordable housing south of El Camino.
The development standards would be applied broadly and not focus on specific sites, the latter being an option that Ramirez favored but did not gain support from other council members.
Council members also focused on educational outreach, questioning why there was seemingly little interest from congregations to build affordable housing on their sites.
Contacting property owners and getting responses from them was a big challenge, Pancholi said. A few thought it was a good idea, but weren’t interested in pursuing it, she added.
Mayor Ellen Kamei pushed back on the report’s characterization that congregations were not interested in affordable housing or did not have the expertise to pursue it.
“I feel (it) doesn’t behoove the city to come with that kind of perspective, but it also doesn’t give credit to our community members who are trying to find creative solutions to address the desperate housing need in our city,” she said.
Kamei also encouraged staff to meet with congregational leaders directly in their offices and talk about some of the affordable housing options that could occur on their sites. Otherwise, the city runs the risk of sending out notices without people knowing what upzoning could mean for them, or the incentives for it, she said.
“In times like these, where religious institutions and churches are thinking about many other issues and I think trying to provide comfort in a very unstable time, we need to be leading with compassion and be thinking about that,” Kamei said.
It’s interesting that the schools south of El Camino Real in MVWSD are both overcrowded now. The extra space the district added to elementary schools went to all the other schools on the north side. There’s a lot of empty room on that side of El Camino Real. There’s also existing housing in progress south of El Camino Real, e.g. the development to replace the Chase Bank and Clarke’s at Castro Street.
Maybe. I mean does St. Josephs’ still need money after their Sobrato deal (where the Diocese still owns the land?). I wouldn’t be surprised if St. Joseph’s school shuts down within 5 years.
This made me laugh:
But they also noted the potential benefits of upzoning to protect community resources from being developed as single-family residences.
YES. PROTECT US FROM THE SCOURGE OF SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENCES! Mr Ramirez was poo-pooing how terrible those townhouses that were. The City Council in 2005(I think) up zoned that area to enable denser housing from R1 to R2…AGAINST the wishes of the EPC, who at the time recommended it remain an R1 because of real concerns about density in this area and abutting single family homes.
So I think the community was actually very well served sir! And now he says the community was poorly served? lol
Long Resident, I don’t think the schools S of El Camino are overcrowded anymore. At least I heard at Bubb the portable classrooms have been removed. And Imai is smaller than pre-pandemic.
Build, baby, build. Lot of terrible old housing in that area that needs to bulldozed and upzoned.
Thank you for telling your neighbors that their housing is “Terrible and old”. Are you referring to the older apartment buildings that have low rents or the dilapidated homes people call their home? Or are you just referring to all the buildings around there…that people paid for and call their home?
@Ramirez – what happened to the housing we were promised at North Bayshore and Whisman? Google expanded their campus but seems to have failed on their promise to increase housing. Please look to the largest property owner in Mountain View rather than our schools and churches.
@Debby: Google is a business. They are not in the business of providing housing. Their stock is down 20%. As a shareholder, they need to stop building housing and figure out how to make more money. The world changed, and they have to adjust their commitments. The City does this, everyone does this. There was no contract to do anything for the city. That’s a promise.
Sorry to hear that your investment is headed south but Google clearly made a promise to build housing and is far more able than churches or schools to do so regardless of their “stock price”.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/04/tech/google-lendlease-end-agreement/index.html
https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2018/12/12/google-pitches-sweeping-plans-for-north-bayshore/
https://www.google.com/search?q=google+promise+to+build+housing&client=safari&sca_esv=45c41d3e543101a5&channel=iphone_bm&source=hp&ei=5v_ZZ-iRErzOkPIPn8vQ0Ag&oq=google+promise+to+build+housing&gs_lp=EhFtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1ocCIfZ29vZ2xlIHByb21pc2UgdG8gYnVpbGQgaG91c2luZzIFECEYoAEyBRAhGKABMgUQIRigATIFECEYoAEyBRAhGKABSIZoUOQKWKxkcAJ4AJABAJgBfqAB8BaqAQUxNy4xNLgBA8gBAPgBAZgCIaACjRioAhLCAgIQKcICChAAGAMY6gIYjwHCAgoQLhgDGOoCGI8BwgILEAAYgAQYkQIYigXCAhYQLhiABBixAxjRAxhDGIMBGMcBGIoFwgIKEAAYgAQYQxiKBcICCxAAGIAEGLEDGIMBwgIQEAAYgAQYsQMYQxiDARiKBcICEBAuGIAEGNEDGEMYxwEYigXCAggQABiABBixA8ICERAuGIAEGJECGMcBGIoFGK8BwgIOEAAYgAQYsQMYgwEYigXCAgUQABiABMICBhAAGBYYHsICBRAhGKsCwgIFECEYnwXCAggQABiiBBiJBZgDD_EFl9eEFGtiUBCSBwUxOC4xNaAHp60BsgcFMTYuMTW4B_kX&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-hp&sei=OzTaZ4–D_bf5NoP_tywkAo
Thank you, Debbie. And they gave Google 30 years to do the housing portion…….. So far Google and certain developers are the only winners in this city. No developer is in the business to build ” affordable” housing. Even without parking.
People are losing their jobs at Google, hundreds and thousands of layoffs….but you want them to build houses. Let me clear up how a business works: if they don’t make a profit There will be no money for building houses. The drop in stock price is a sign that investors think they are going to make less money down the road. So they need to tighten their belt, just like you would if your spouse lost their job.
There were no explicit promises. There agreements on plans. They just don’t have the money any more! Their cash cow is dying.
Well they managed to scrape up more than $30B (yes billion) for the acquisition of that AI startup