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Mountain View is inching closer to updating a plan to allow for a lot more housing in parts of the city zoned for multifamily residences.
Last year, the city honed in on areas to target for increased density growth 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.
The City Council selected certain parts of the R3 district to permit more density, largely around the Palo Alto and Sunnyvale borders and major traffic corridors. Taken together, the changes would allow for the creation of between 10,000 and 16,000 housing units in Mountain View, according to a July 2025 city memo.
Now Mountain View is taking steps to add more clarity and objectivity to development standards in the R3 zoning district, with the aim of making it more feasible for developers to build multifamily homes.
The Environmental Planning Commission weighed in on a draft of the proposed changes last week, largely backing the staff recommendations. The changes cover specific development standards like maximum building heights, setbacks, floor area ratios and parking requirements.
“In general, I’m supportive of the staff recommendations,” Commissioner Bill Cranston said at the Jan. 7 meeting. “This is all raising the density.”
But commissioners also expressed concern that some of the staff recommendations were too restrictive, especially with respect to lot consolidation. They did not favor a proposal to try and get property owners to consolidate small lots into bigger ones by applying negative incentives.
“I’m much more in favor of carrots than a stick,” Cranston said, a sentiment shared by other commissioners.
The staff report proposed only allowing larger lots to build at the highest densities in the parts of the R3 district zoned for the most dense housing. The report argued that this would create an incentive for developers to boost their profitability by reaching out to neighbors to consolidate lots in order to unlock the potential to build at a higher density.
Generally, it’s more difficult to accommodate high housing density on small lots as compared to large ones, according to the staff report. It’s also challenging to put in amenities like parking and open areas that would pencil out for developers as well as other community benefits like retail.
“If properties have additional value with additional allowed density, especially if that opportunity comes with consolidation, we’re creating an incentive by allowing more density with consolidation,” said Eric Anderson, the city’s advanced planning manager.
The argument did not sway commissioners who expressed skepticism that the strategy would work as intended.
“That’s actually not an incentive,” Commissioner Alex Nunez said. “It’s almost like negative coercion.” Nunez proposed that the city focus more on positive reinforcement to achieve the desired outcome for lot consolidation, like an expedited review or higher height limits.
Commissioners also pressed city staff to allow for commercial uses in more parts of the R3 zoning district, not just in areas slated for the highest density housing. They expressed a desire to see more neighborhood-serving businesses in multifamily residential areas and urged the city to take a less micromanaging approach.
“I would like to think that the market would solve what’s a viable and non-viable place, how much density you need around you to have a viable business,” Commissioner Hank Dempsey said.
Ultimately, the commissioners viewed the R3 zoning district updates favorably, although a few also expressed concerns about the applicability of the proposed changes in light of state laws that could erode local control.
“I worry sometimes that what we’re doing is we’re building sandcastles,” Dempsey said.
However, Community Development Director Christian Murdock took a more positive view, noting that the R3 zoning updates would provide more clarity for developers by setting out the city’s expectations.
“Maybe one of the most important things that these standards will do is communicate an intent and a desire on the part of the city,” Murdock said. “Trying to meet in the middle with as many of the standards being met as possible is really the goal of our process.”
Close to me over in whisman station they haven’t been able to fill that space in reveal with retail for years. I looked it up and it’s been empty since October 2022!!!
Goes to show the council has no business telling developers to put retail at the ground in residential districts. This is not Brooklyn. And retail sounds great but it’s just not feasible for many reasons.