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Looking to cut down on pollution, Mountain View approved a citywide ordinance Tuesday evening that seeks to reduce the number of vehicles on the road.
In a unanimous vote, the City Council backed major updates to an ordinance that requires developers to encourage sustainable forms of transportation, like offering transit subsidies, bicycle facilities and carshare services.
“I hope that it will help bring our car trips down as a community and in return give us better clean air and a better environment,” Mayor Emily Ann Ramos said at the May 12 council meeting.
Mountain View first adopted a Transportation Demand Management ordinance in 1994 to comply with regional and state requirements. The goal was to reduce traffic congestion and improve air quality, according to the city staff report.
The approach however was piecemeal and not always clear to the developers and employers who were tasked with meeting the ordinance’s requirements. Specific rules were also added for certain parts of the city, like North Bayshore, East Whisman and El Camino Real, according to the staff report.
The new ordinance approved this week aims to implement the TDM program consistently citywide, with the goal of cutting down on drive-alone trips, according to Assistant Public Works Director Allison Boyer.
The ordinance will apply to all new residential, commercial and mixed-use developments in Mountain View that are expected to generate at least 200 net new average daily trips, Boyer said. Certain projects will be exempt, including all-affordable housing developments and certain “patron-driven uses,” like childcare centers, retail and restaurants, where trips are mostly generated by customers and not employees.
To get a project approved, a developer will need to create a plan to reduce average daily trips (or ADT) by between 20% and 50%, depending on the project’s size, type and proximity to a major transit stop or corridor, Boyer said. Developers also will need to show how they plan to manage the program, which includes maintaining records and annual reporting requirements.
“Non-compliance may result in corrective action and or fines assessed by the city,” Boyer said.
The city has come up with a toolkit of 33 different strategies that developers can use to reduce drive-alone vehicle trips. “Core” strategies include options like making enhancements to pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, as well as having cafés and retail spaces on the ground floor. Developers also can limit parking spots while offering carpool services or public transit subsidies.
The toolkit also includes “auxiliary” strategies, like helping residents or employees learn about and use public transit or providing dedicated parking for carpools, vanpools and carshares near building entrances.
“[The toolkit] is designed to offer a menu of strategies that vary in scale and cost, allowing projects to create site specific TDM plans fit for their purpose,” Boyer said.
Developers will be required to utilize a certain number of core and auxiliary strategies, based on their project’s size.
City Council and public weigh in on new ordinance
The City Council voiced support for the new ordinance, describing the toolkit as a realistic approach for developers to incentivize sustainable forms of transportation.
“It’s just a much more robust program than what we’ve been able to deploy on a case-by-case or site-by-site circumstance,” Council member Lucas Ramirez said. “This is, I think, a very strong foundation for future work, and I’m very happy with where it’s landed.”
Ramirez also praised the toolkit’s flexibility, describing it as a “living document” that could be modified and revised as travel patterns change over time.
However, Council member John McAlister voiced concern about how the ordinance would be enforced, noting that nobody has been fined for not adhering to TDM goals in the past.
“Unless you have somebody to enforce it, analyze it and put some meat into this plan, it’s not going to work,” McAlister said.
Council member Pat Showalter took a more positive view, expressing appreciation that program monitoring would focus on learning how the system works and improving it, rather than merely “monitoring for monitoring’s sake.”
Public commenters generally praised the ordinance, although a few residents expressed some concerns that it could potentially disincentivize new residential development if the requirements are too stringent or costly.
“We do want to be careful going forward about the exact required ADT thresholds because we are concerned that they will end up being unrealistic for a residential project to meet while given a toolkit and given the budgets they have,” said Mountain View Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee member James Kuszmaul, who noted he was speaking on behalf of MV YIMBY, a local housing advocacy group.
A few public comments also shared worries about potential impacts to street parking, if developers opt to limit parking spaces on their properties.
Robert Cox, a Livable Mountain View member and City Council candidate, urged the city to consider impacts to the downtown area if parking for new developments is restricted.
“Somebody could just decide, ‘Well, I don’t want to pay for an expensive parking space inside my development. I’m just going to park it on the street,’” Cox said. “It hasn’t done anything to reduce greenhouse gasses, but it has had a negative side effect when that happens.”
The TDM ordinance is expected to come before the council again for a second, and final, vote on May 26 and will go into effect 30 days later. As part of implementing the ordinance, city staff plan to further refine the program standards and toolkit, according to the staff report.
The poster child for TDM is what Santa Clara forces Stanford to have. They do an amazing job at minimizing car traffic while growth. What’s proposed here seems comical in comparison. Put a cafe on your first floor? (PS people drive TO cafes!)
Is our “pro-housing” City Council actually going to reject a proposal if a developer has not “encourage[d] sustainable forms of transportation, like offering transit subsidies, bicycle facilities and carshare services” sufficiently?
Be honest now. I don’t think it will ever happen. IMHO, this new ordinance is simply silly, virtue signaling.
““I hope that it will help bring our car trips down as a community and in return give us better clean air and a better environment,” Mayor Emily Ann Ramos said at the May 12 council meeting.”
Is MV considered a smoggy city with a lousy environment? I’ve never heard anyone describe it as such. IMHO, our City Council just “solved” a “problem” that MV doesn’t actually have.
I have to agree with “longtime:” any costs associated with these rules will have to be paid for out of the rent stream of these developments (or fund a “sinking fund” if they’re condos) which will simply increase housing costs. Some units are subsidized but that just makes the “market rate” units more expensive, so the “missing middle” gets bigger. There’s no free lunch!
Once again, I urge the city council to remember that a significant percentage of Mountain View’s population is elderly or of limited mobility. Limited mobility means everything from being confined to a wheelchair to needing a cane for balance. I would love to see every single city council member, housing advocate and bicycle advocate spend a day in my shoes. They would likely be shocked at how difficult it is to travel from my home in northwest Mountain View to Castro Street without a car. I’m only partially disabled. The bicyclists would be particularly challenged because most of them can’t imagine getting old or having reduced independent mobility after an accident. Think your grandparent getting around the city alone and in the dark.
I totally agree with Susan. I am a single senior with a disc problem and need a walker. I keep it in the trunk of my car, which I have no intention of giving up in order to abide by Mountain View’s proposed Ordinance. I cannot take public transit due to the back pain. I need to drive to Kaiser on Castro, reach the BMO Bank, go to CVS shopping for items which I need a cart to get purchases to my parked car, and occasionally drive to the hairdresser on Showers. Not to mention driving to Shoreline Park where I like to take walks and eat lunch. And of course grocery shopping at Safeway which is always a challenge with grocery bags, but I do it all myself to stay as fit as possible. Being afraid of getting a Citation for driving single is absurd. I might as well take all my business to Sunnyvale. Perhaps others may have to consider this as well. This idea is outlandish. Our Mountain View is no longer what it used to be with high rise expensive apartments buildings, California Street now more narrow with odd looking flower pots and safety poles to distinguish bike lanes, or parking weird angles on the street. As well as giving almost all the businesses along El Camino notice to close in order to build your expensive housing. I’ve live in Mountain View for 26 years which I loved as a small city, and around Santa Clara County for 34 years. There’s not a City that has suggested such tight restrictions than what I am reading from Mountain View’s City Council. It will drive people away who may be retired and who may want to continue to live here especially if they own a home. The older you get the harder it is to live life. This is a free country and we should not be ordered where to go and how to get there. This is certainly something the Council needs to take into consideration before making any hasty decisions. B Rose
New development near San Antonio is supposed to have 116 units and just 16 parking spaces. I would not say it encourages people to take public transit. It will add to neighborhood blight. While you’re building, you could add underground parking. This is building on the cheap, not environmentally sound.