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Mountain View is moving forward with a plan to encourage more dense housing in areas of the city slated for multifamily residences, a major step after years of back-and-forth deliberations about how to balance the needs of current residents with plans for future growth.
In a 5-1 vote, the City Council supported a staff recommendation Tuesday evening to update land designations and development standards in the R3 zoning district, an area that covers about half of the city’s multifamily homes and nearly all of its rent-controlled units. Council member John McAlister cast the dissenting vote while Ellen Kamei was absent from the discussion at the Feb. 10 meeting.
The city began to contemplate updates to the R3 district back in 2019, at a time when the city was seeing rent-controlled apartments being razed to make way for rowhouse developments, resulting in a net loss in housing units. The desire to protect residents from displacement in the face of redevelopment, and to increase housing, provided early direction to the R3 updates.
Since then, state laws have also changed, giving developers more leeway to circumvent local building regulations, a situation that has caused concern among some in the community, particularly over “quality of life” issues.
Not immune to those concerns, council members this week expressed a strong desire to increase housing in the city while maintaining local control, in part by implementing objective development standards.
“We want to make sure that when redevelopment occurs, it occurs in a way that is guided by community and council objectives and vision,” Council member Lucas Ramirez said.
With the exception of McAlister, the City Council backed the staff recommendation to provide more clarity and objectivity to development standards for the R3 zoning district. The updates cover things like building heights, setbacks, floor area ratios and parking requirements.
“What that essentially means is these are written down in plain language so everybody can understand them,” Council member Pat Showalter said.
McAlister expressed opposition not so much to the development standards but to the broader prospect of adding more housing in Mountain View, especially at the potential expense of parks, open space and uncongested roadways.
“I don’t understand why people move into Mountain View liking it, and say, ‘Well, let’s change it. Let’s put all these buildings in and let’s welcome more people,’” McAlister said. “They don’t realize there’s going to be an impact on you personally.”
Council members back development standards
At the meeting, Ramirez added about a dozen more items for city staff to consider as part of the update, largely aligning with recommendations from the Environmental Planning Commission, which weighed in on the proposal last month.
Some of the tweaks Ramirez suggested included allowing for commercial uses in all parts of the R3 zoning district, not only areas slated for the highest residential development. He also recommended that instead of just requiring “setbacks,” the city should focus more on “streetscape” standards to promote wider sidewalks, protected bike lanes and landscaping in front of buildings.
“Right now, all we have is a number,” Ramirez said. “The building has to be set back 20 feet. And we don’t actually want sterile, vacant space. We want that front setback to be programmed in some way.”
Ramirez also proposed forgoing incentives for developers to combine smaller lots, which was presented in the staff report, and instead focus on creating guidelines aimed at meeting city goals, like combining lots to create more parks, he said.
Other suggestions included having staff evaluate the possibility of increasing floor area ratio requirements in certain parts of the R3 district to encourage developers to build stacked flats and condominiums, rather than rowhouses and townhomes, which are pricier and provide fewer housing units.
So far, Mountain View has not seen a lot of stacked flats or condominium developments get built, an issue that the city has been working on addressing with a strategy to increase opportunities for entry-level home ownership.
Ramirez also proposed having the City Council evaluate its development standards more regularly in the future to align with state law and community goals.
The recommendations drew support from the other council members, although Council member Chris Clark expressed some concern that the new additions could detract from getting the R3 update across the finish line.
“My line in the sand was, ‘I’m not going to support anything that extends this beyond the end of this year,’” he said.
Community Development Director Christian Murdock said that several of Ramirez’s proposals could be evaluated within the year while others could be folded into upcoming work items. Murdock highlighted the city’s plan to create new development standards in response to Senate Bill 79, a state housing law that allows for more density near major transit stops. The R3 updates could help inform those standards and vice-versa, he said.
For Council member McAlister, the timeline was not a concern so much as what he described as a decrease in quality of life that would result from the R3 zoning updates.
“I always like to take care of the people that we have here in the city, and take the limited resources we have and to try to improve their lives as best as possible,” McAlister said.
However, Mayor Emily Ann Ramos said that it did not have to be a tradeoff, as the city could do both – improve people’s quality of life and meet its housing goals. Ramos added that the changes would not occur overnight but would happen gradually.
“This is why we spent so much time on this framework,” she said. “We’re creating the right incentives to have the development that we as a city want.”
Mountain View residents launch app to help homeowners navigate building permitsMarch 11, 2026 8:29 am
Stuffing 200 more people on a block designed for 100 residents is a recipe for disaster. Even our modern cities were designed for density. The CITY of Mountain View was designed as is. But sure keep electing people who want to stuff your block full of cars and not spend the billion it takes to have an equivalent amount of parkland.
“more clarity and objectivity to development standards for the R3 zoning district. The updates cover things like building heights, setbacks, floor area ratios and parking requirements”
Are these the issues that are getting in the way of building more housing? Not the core issues according to my real estate advisor. He indicates that even approved projects are not being built because they don’t pencil out. Rent control discourages building here also; who want to own a building where you are subject to a bureaucracy, some of which is ineffective. He also cites the Building Permit Process. The Building Permit process is fraught with delays and drives up the cost of building. My personal experience with the permitting process is mixed, but with some negative experiences. You get into process, then they tell you to start all over again because they are upgrading the system. Well, why don’t they tell you that in the beginning. Inspectors also get their inspection wrong but there internal rules allow them to get away with it. What is the point of this story? Well, if you want more housing, you need to directly address the issues which get in the way of more housing. Resetting set backs etc is ok, but it does not address the core issues. Seems like our the City of MV dances around the core issues and only nibbles on the edges. On another note, creating buildings with degraded parking with only bus service is not a winning formula. One of the advantages of MV is that it is already heavily 3D mapped and self-driving cars along with a car rental agency nearby could make fewer parking spaces more doable. But they never talk about this
Rent control only applies to older buildings — see Costa-Hawkins. The building permit process is being fixed separately. We’re moving forward, folks! If only it didn’t take 7+ years for this R3 update.
“how to balance the needs of current residents with plans for future growth.”
Where is the evidence that the needs of current residents are being factored into any of this City Council’s decisions related to housing?
In fact, why are we even talking about this now? Don’t we have an approved Housing Element? The State asked MV to devise plans to increase our housing stock by over 30%, and we came up with plans to do so. When is enough enough?
“The desire to protect residents from displacement in the face of redevelopment, and to increase housing, provided early direction to the R3 updates.”
Back then, the COST of housing was the issue, especially for our less wealthy residents. The issue “back then” was to prevent the loss of naturally affordable units as they were being razed for new construction which brought higher rents.
“Since then, state laws have also changed, giving developers more leeway to circumvent local building regulations, a situation that has caused concern among some in the community, particularly over “quality of life” issues.”
Our State laws now focus on the SUPPLY of housing, not the cost. The goal posts have been moved. 90% of all new units in MV are being constructed for the highest wage earners in the land. Less wealthy residents are literally being pushed out of the community.
It makes me sad to see the words “quality of life” used in this ambiguous way, without specifying more clearly the COMPLETELY EXPECTED negative impacts that will come from dramatically increasing the population of a community by over 30%. Strains WILL be exerted on the common infrastructure: parks, schools, libraries, police and fire protection, traffic on local roads, parking spots, etc. And the same folks who are lobbying for density, namely CA YIMBY, are also lobbying to cut the “developer impact fees” that have historically been collected to pay for adding capacity. This is the opposite of responsible urban planning. It is a recipe to DEFUND services that the entire community benefits from.
“McAlister expressed opposition not so much to the development standards but to the broader prospect of adding more housing in Mountain View, especially at the potential expense of parks, open space and uncongested roadways.”
John McAlister is absolutely right.