Year in review: City pulls a U-turn

It depends on your outlook. For some, 2019 will be remembered as the year that politics in Mountain View finally sobered up after years of clumsy policies and wishy-washy rhetoric, and dealt with the serious realities of its challenges.

But those on the other side see the new city leadership as uncompassionate, uninspired and inclined to turn the city into a carbon copy of its neighbors.

From either perspective, 2019 was a year in which Mountain View pulled a U-turn, reversing a string of policies and priorities that might have seemed lovely a few years ago, but now appeared fraught with risks. On rent control, homelessness, retail cannabis and other issues, Mountain View officials came to question, if not overturn, many decisions made by their predecessors.

Homelessness

Perhaps no other issue has been as divisive this year as homelessness. Emboldened by a 2018 election in which two incumbents lost their seats, a newly reformed City Council perceived a mandate from voters to do something about the surging number of homeless people living on the street. With many of the city’s streets transformed into ad-hoc campgrounds for people living out of their cars or RVs, many residents blamed the city’s inaction for drawing homeless people to Mountain View, whom they accused of illegal dumping and criminal behavior.

Over the course of the year, council members tried to clamp down by enacting citywide parking restrictions while working to open several new overnight safe parking sites. What resulted was a series of heated meetings that brought out dozens of homeless people who described the city’s actions as draconian, saying they had no options for securing housing.

The city went forward with enacting tougher parking rules, but it created a difficult balancing act. Under threat of a civil rights lawsuit, city attorneys expunged any mention of homelessness in the parking restrictions, and instead the crackdown was recast as a traffic safety measure. Rather than banning inhabited vehicles, the city reframed its ordinance to encompass all large vehicles parking on narrow streets.

The carrot to that stick — designated safe parking lots where people can legally stay — has not materialized yet. The city’s plan to launch 70 safe parking spaces has remained in a holding pattern for months, and it has suffered from limited participation.

Meanwhile, the city’s parking restrictions have prompted a political backlash as opponents gathered signatures to overturn it through a referendum. As it stands now, the city could be forced in early 2020 to bring the matter to voters for a decision.

Rent control

In contrast, things appeared surprisingly calm when it came to rent control, which has typically been the city’s most stormy issue.

For most of 2019, the city’s Community Stabilization and Fair Rent Act (CSFRA) entered an eerie equilibrium. Rental Housing Committee meetings were shorter and more subdued. A new set of appointees to the committee seemed less combative, more willing to work together. Additionally, the city’s CSFRA program was operating on a leaner budget, cutting its costs by more than a third, which meant lower fees for apartment owners.

But this period of calm may have been just the eye of the hurricane, because there was still plenty of discontent beneath the surface. City officials acknowledged that many landlords are simply declining to pay the city’s annual apartment fees, which fund the rent control program.

For many politicians and property owners, chipping away at rent control is still a No. 1 priority. A ballot measure put forward by the California Apartment Association, a lobbying group for landlords, would essentially overturn rent control if it passes. That measure, “The Mountain View Homeowner, Renter, and Taxpayer Protection Initiative,” was originally submitted to the city in 2018, but it missed a deadline to get on the ballot that November. That measure is now slated to come to voters in November.

City Council members decided to bring their own proposed changes to voters. In an effort led by Councilwoman Margaret Abe-Koga, elected leaders spent much of the year drafting a wish list of rent control tweaks that they packaged as a ballot measure. In general, their changes would inject flexibility, giving the council more authority over rent control and allowing landlords to pass through more costs to tenants through rent increases. It is scheduled to come before voters in March.

While 2019 saw efforts advance to undo rent control in Mountain View, the opposite trend was playing out across the rest of California. At the state Capitol, legislators approved California’s first rent control law as a direct response to the demand for solutions amid the state’s housing crisis.

Statewide issues

Aside from rent control, many other statewide issues came home for Mountain View residents.

Early in the year, the possibility of recreational cannabis shops sucked the air out of the room for a series of combative City Council meetings. In public hearings, a large and coordinated opposition group pressured city leaders not to grant any foothold for recreational pot shops to get established in town.

This backlash came as Mountain View was set to be one of the only Peninsula cities that would allow retail cannabis shops. Among her first actions in office, Councilwoman Ellen Kamei asked to revisit the process in order to further restrict where cannabis shops could be located.

What resulted was another delay in the city’s efforts to create local policies for a state law approved back in 2016. While 10 business owners had already signed leases and submitted extensive paperwork to get permits to open cannabis shops in Mountain View, their applications were either rejected or invalidated because city officials rewrote their policies mid-process.

As of this fall, city officials decided to open a new round of applications for up to three cannabis delivery businesses to open in Mountain View. As of this month, city officials say one business has applied.

Mountain View also tightened its restrictions on short-term rentals, such as Airbnb. The rules were a long time coming, and companies like Airbnb had faced minimal taxes or scrutiny in Mountain View for more than a decade. In that time, the number of short-term rentals ballooned to more than 850 listings, including some apartments that had been transformed into de facto hotels.

Under the new restrictions, most property owners are prohibited from renting out homes or apartments on short-term rental sites for more than 60 days per year. The new rules went into effect in September.

Business

On the business side, 2019 was a tough year with the loss of some beloved local stores. In particular, the local grocery store Milk Pail Market dropped a bombshell by announcing it would swiftly close down to make way for a new office tower.

For many years, the small market seemed to be Mountain View’s version of the David and Goliath story, as owner Steve Rasmussen refused to sell his property to developers. But while it remained a popular cause, the Milk Pail was steadily declining amid tighter revenues and competition. Echoing the troubles of other shop and restaurant owners, Rasmussen said he couldn’t keep a stable workforce amid the high cost of living in the area.

Another popular local business that shuttered ended up being revived. In 2018, Orchard Supply Hardware announced that it would close all 99 of its retail locations, including the Mountain View store on Charleston Road. The hardware retailer originated in the South Bay and expanded throughout California, but it had been struggling for years amid tight competition.

The good news came in August when Ace Hardware announced it would open at the Mountain View OSH and rehire many of the employees.

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