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Years in the making, construction of Mountain View Whisman’s subsidized housing project for teachers and other staff is finished and the district plans to open rental applications next month.
Located near the corner of Shoreline Boulevard and Middlefield Road, the 144-unit project is meant to provide below market rate housing to school employees who may have trouble finding an affordable place to live locally.
Out of the 144 subsidized units, 123 will be reserved for Mountain View Whisman School District staff and one apartment will be set aside for a property manager. City of Mountain View employees will get first dibs on the remaining 20 units.
On a recent tour of the site, the building – dubbed Mountain View Whisman at The Sevens – looked nearly complete. In the apartments, kitchen appliances were in place, shades were installed on windows and the electricity was connected. Much of the outdoor landscaping was also done.
The kitchen in a one-bedroom apartment in Mountain View Whisman’s new affordable staff housing project. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
The staff housing building is five stories tall and includes a courtyard area. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
A divided bathroom in one of the apartments. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
The exterior of the staff housing project. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
Some bedrooms include a walk-in closet. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
The kitchen in a two-bedroom apartment. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
Many first floor apartments have exterior patio spaces. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
The main entry to the staff housing project. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney.
“We’re super excited to have it going,” Superintendent Ayindé Rudolph told the Voice. “We can’t wait.”
In recent years, there has been a push from some local school districts to offer affordable staff apartments as a way of retaining teachers and other employees in a region where housing is particularly expensive. Other local projects include a multi-district initiative in Palo Alto spearheaded by Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian.
Mountain View Whisman intends to have employees apply for its apartments from Oct. 15 to Nov. 1, with applications processed in November and December. If necessary, a lottery will be held to determine who gets to rent the units. The goal is for people to be able to start moving into their new homes in January, according to the district’s website.
That timeline is dependent on PG&E connecting electricity to the parking garage, which is necessary to get the sign-off for people to be able to occupy the apartments, Rudolph said. The district is currently anticipating that this will be complete in time for the January move-in timeline.
The parking garage will be shared with market rate apartments that are being constructed on the same site.
The district partnered with real estate developer Miramar Capital to build the employee apartments as part of a larger development, which includes 572 market rate units adjacent to the affordable ones. The market rate units are still under construction and expected to be completed after the staff housing portion.
The below market rate units are a mix of studios, one-bedrooms and two-bedrooms, ranging from roughly 500 to 1,000 square feet. The majority of the units have one bedroom.
The building is five stories tall and features amenities including a roof deck on the fourth floor, a community room, outdoor barbecue area, bicycle storage and courtyard. There is a laundry room on each floor. There are also some spaces in the market rate buildings that are expected to be shared once construction is complete, including a swimming pool and gym.
The staff housing project features a number of shared spaces, including a community room. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
Bike storage is included in the staff housing project. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
An exterior barbecue patio is among the amenities. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
There is a roof deck on the fourth floor that faces Shoreline Boulevard. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
The mail room in the staff housing project. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
There is a large courtyard as part of the staff housing project. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
The project includes chutes for compost and recycling, as well as regular trash. Sept. 11, 2024. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney.
The district is still determining rents for its apartments, which will be based on an employee’s household income. To be eligible for the project, a single employee could earn up to $154,800 and a four-person family could make up to $221,160, according to the school district’s website.
The district is tentatively estimating rents will fall somewhere between $1,450 and $2,500 for a studio, $1,550 and $3,000 for a one-bedroom, and $2,250 and $3,500 for a two-bedroom.
Those numbers could change and the district plans to keep prices as low as possible, Rudolph said. The intent is to have the project be cost neutral, with rents covering the roughly $1.9 million annual ground lease that the district will owe Miramar Capital, as well as maintenance and operations costs.
“The idea is they’ll be affordable, really affordable, but it fluctuates based off a lot of different variables,” Rudolph said.
The district funded the project with roughly $88 million from Measure T, a $259 million bond measure that voters approved in 2020, district spokesperson Shelly Hausman said. Miramar also contributed $13 million and the city of Mountain View paid $3 million.
The district has a 55-year ground lease with Miramar, with the option to renew for up to four additional 10-year terms, the district has previously said.
At a meeting last month, the district established a committee to oversee the staff housing project, including approving rental rates, reviewing contracts, working to resolve tenant disputes and reviewing the budget.
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Although this seems really late to me, it is good the MVWSD Board, finally got around to publicly discussing this Board oversight committee. What took Board President Conley so-darn long? She controls the Agenda for the Board.
There is a Discussion and immediate Action (VOTE) on the rules of this new Board standing committee this Thursday, Sept 19. (link to Coversheet below). https://mvwsd.novusagenda.com/AgendaPublic/CoverSheet.aspx?ItemID=4902&MeetingID=248
IMO this seems like a very important Policy. Shouldn’t Board President CONLEY at least give two meetings for this? That is what BP (Board Policy) recommends, a First Reading then a Second Reading (meeting) for important district policy. Ah, it’s already been decided by CONLEY/Rudolph? No need for deep discussion? All decided? All discussed/decided by CONLEY/Blakely? (2:2 confabs do not technically violate Brown Act OPACITY in a 4 member Board 🙂
U might tell, I’m not complete enamored by the way Board President CONLEY runs the legislative part of The Mountain View Whisman School District. But some think she is really swell! And this is Good Governance! (??)
Steven Nelson is a former Trustee of MVWSD; who has successfully taken Blakely/CONLEY to court to have a Judge enforce the Brown Act against their actions as Trustees.
(search for MV-Voice article “Former school board member wins Brown Act case against Mountain View Whisman School District” posted Jan 4, 2021)