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There were a lot of major news events in Mountain View over the past year, but perhaps some of the biggest and most notable were the times when thousands of people took to the streets to make their voices heard.
The year kicked off with a large January protest in which hundreds rallied in support of women’s rights, environmental justice, immigration and racial equality, just ahead of President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
In April, the numbers had swelled to over a thousand, as people gathered to protest the Trump administration and its federal spending cuts, among a host of other hot-button issues. The demonstrations continued throughout the rest of the year with people joining both small street-corner protests and massive rallies.
Tens of thousands lined the sidewalks of El Camino Real in June, followed by two more big protests in September and October. An impromptu vigil also was held in October in response to the Trump administration’s threats to deploy federal law enforcement agents in the Bay Area and its crackdown on immigrants more broadly.
Commercial real estate market slows in Mountain View
While the large-scale protests that took place in Mountain View were relatively unique to 2025, many perennial topics continued to make news. As is typical in Silicon Valley, the real estate market generated substantial interest. What was different about 2025 was that many of the biggest stories were about slowing growth, particularly in the commercial sector.
Notably, Mountain View had the lowest property value growth in Santa Clara County, an abrupt turnaround from the previous year.
Adding to the city’s woes, Google indicated this year that it was exploring the sale of Middlefield Park, a sprawling, 40-acre office park in the East Whisman area. Three years ago, the tech giant had proposed to redevelop the site with 1,900 homes and roughly double the amount of office space. It is now unclear what will happen to the property, including 2.4-acres that Google had planned to dedicate to the city for affordable housing.
The news came on top of the tech giant abandoning a mega-office project in North Bayshore in 2024. Before terminating that project, Google chopped down more than 800 trees, including 316 heritage trees on the site – prompting community members to question the point of the city’s heritage tree ordinance. To mitigate the loss, Google agreed this year to pay the city up to $703,000 in fees to plant hundreds of new trees throughout the city.
Despite some of these setbacks, there also were a few bright spots for the city. Two major mixed-use developments are moving forward at a prominent intersection in downtown Mountain View.
In November, the City Council approved a proposal to build a six-story apartment building at the southeast corner of El Camino Real and Castro Street. The plans include a newly constructed bank that will preserve elements of the existing historic Chase Bank building.
Just across the street from the Chase Bank redevelopment, an eight-story condominium project is also nearing city approval. The project was scheduled for a public hearing in December but has since been delayed. Combined with the Chase Bank development, the two projects could add nearly 450 new homes at a key entrance to downtown Mountain View.
Some projects prompt community pushback
There were several other housing developments this year that received substantial opposition from neighboring residents, particularly two builder’s remedy projects that the City Council ultimately signed off on.
In April, the City Council approved a seven-story condominium development on Tyrella Avenue. The project was controversial from the get-go and generated a lot of public discontent. In May, a group of residents filed a lawsuit against the city alleging it violated environmental laws when it approved the project.
Six months later, the City Council backed an even larger builder’s remedy project, a 15-story apartment complex on Rengstorff Avenue near Highway 101. Proposed by a former Mountain View mayor, the building could become one of the city’s tallest structures.
There also has been a lot of scrutiny of Senate Bill 79, a recently passed state housing law that will allow for high-density residential development near major transit stops. Supporters of the legislation say it will bring much-needed housing in areas connected to jobs and other public amenities. But some historic preservation advocates have expressed concern that SB 79 will incentivize developers to tear down historically significant buildings on Castro Street, near the Caltrain station.
A plan to rezone existing commercial sites for housing south of El Camino Real sparked controversy this year as well. In November, Blossom Valley residents launched an online petition opposing land use changes at Miramonte Avenue and Cuesta Drive. The City Council ultimately voted in favor of the rezoning, moving forward with plans to adhere to its state-mandated housing goals.
A plan to put in pickleball courts at Cuesta Park and the adjacent Cuesta Annex also prompted a groundswell of opposition this year, leading the city to backtrack on its proposal and consider additional sites for possible pickleball courts. At a community meeting in August, city staff announced that they were considering privately-owned properties that could be developed as publicly accessible pickleball courts. The city has not yet approved a site for new pickleball courts, an item that is hotly anticipated and expected to come up in 2026.
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