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As Mountain View prepares to transform Castro Street into a permanent pedestrian mall in the coming years, the city is beginning to implement changes that streamline outdoor dining downtown and expand opportunities for community favorites like live entertainment.
At its May 9 meeting, the Mountain View City Council approved a new Outdoor Patio Program, which will replace the existing Sidewalk Cafe and Castro StrEATs programs.
“The new Outdoor Patio Program includes design standards and guidelines that are simple, unobtrusive and convey the look and feel of an attractive and vibrant area across the three blocks of the Castro pedestrian mall, and throughout the greater downtown area,” said city Transportation Planner Aruna Bodduna at the May 9 meeting.
While outdoor dining is largely associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, longtime Mountain View residents will remember that the city has actually had a Sidewalk Cafe Program on the books since 2000. The program allowed downtown businesses to operate outdoors in the sidewalk areas and parking stalls along Castro Street. Prior to the pandemic, there were 27 operating sidewalk cafés within parking spaces and five others operating on sidewalk areas only, according to a city staff report.
Then when the pandemic hit in 2020, the city shut down a few blocks of Castro Street to vehicular traffic and established the popular Castro StrEATs program, which allowed restaurants to spill out further into the street, instead of being confined to parking spaces.
“This program was a temporary solution to keep businesses operational during the COVID-19 pandemic and did not include design requirements,” the staff report said. “Many restaurants utilized existing or easily obtained furnishings and equipment to quickly meet outdoor dining demands.”
But with this temporary program set to sunset next year, city staff recommended that the council adopt the new Outdoor Patio Program to create a consistent set of standards for businesses using the pedestrian mall for their operations. The program also establishes the specific parts of the sidewalk and street that businesses can operate in, as seen in the graphic below.
The new standards include rules around furniture that businesses use in their outdoor patio operations: Furnishings must be freestanding, can’t be permanently installed and must be easy to move in the case of street cleaning or special events. Patio spaces must also be compliant with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations, providing an accessible path and seating. Structures and platforms aren’t permitted, and neither are floor coverings, but businesses can continue to use umbrellas.
While live entertainment is already permitted on private property in the Downtown Precise Plan, under the new Outdoor Patio Program, it would also be permitted within the “B” and “C” areas, as shown in the graphic above.
“Live entertainment (is allowed) as an ancillary use,” explained Public Works Director Dawn Cameron at the May 9 meeting. “It would have to be part of (a business’s) application when applying for the patio license.”
The space for live entertainment within an outdoor patio can’t exceed 50 square feet. Entertainers are not permitted on sidewalks, can’t use amplified sound, and are restricted to the hours of 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
After members of the public and council brought up concerns about how the new rules would impact busking, Cameron clarified that the Outdoor Patio Program rules don’t apply to what’s happening outside of the patio license areas in the public right of way. That means that busking won’t be impacted by the new standards.
“The key item that does regulate what happens in the public right of way is the city does have a requirement that there be no amplified music,” Cameron said. “Therefore, if somebody, a busker, did set up shop and have amplified music that was very loud, they would be basically asked to stopped.”
As long as buskers aren’t obstructing sidewalks or “causing any other problems,” Cameron said, “there’s no specific regulation that says that they cannot operate within the public right of way portion of the Castro ped mall.”
The council enthusiastically supported the creation of the new Outdoor Patio Program, passing it unanimously. Council member Ellen Kamei noted that while other cities have done away with pandemic-induced street closures, Mountain View is making moves to make the pedestrian mall permanent.
“People ask me all the time, how were we able to keep Castro closed, and evolved to this program we have today?” Kamei said before seconding the motion to approve the new program. “And I say that it was a joint partnership with the community, our residents, our city council, our staff and our Chamber to make it successful.”
That’s great to hear about the ban on amplified music. There’s nothing worse than enjoying a quiet dinner and conversation only for it to be disrupted by a cacophony of noise.
The headline is misleading. Live music and busking for musicians are usually interpreted differently. This changes will not attract live music to downtown as Mountain View still has the most restrictive policies toward live music entertainment. If anything, Mountain View will just legalize and attract with this new policy every shade of busker, truly talented or not, on every corner. Head on over to Los Altos First Fridays or Palo Alto Third Thursdays if you want some great professional live entertainment by local groups not under the threat of getting cited by the police or having whining diners throw shade.
Despite the unsubstantiated claims in this article, tax-payers, in fact, were not involved in any meaningful way into the decision to permanently ban vehicles from Castro Street.
This was a top-down decision made by bureaucrats who had their thumb on the scale. Permanently banning vehicles from Castro Street was a really stupid, top-down decision.
Consumers like convenience, and unless you live walking distance to the area, getting to and around downtown MV now is the opposite of convenient.
By the way, why is it you can exit downtown MV onto Central Expressway, but you can’t turn from Central Expressway onto Evelyn Avenue — given that the first half block of Castro Street is actually open to vehicles?
Crickets from the city of Mountain View. Way to go, geniuses.
Tonight, Sunday 14 May, there was a guitarist with an amp busking on Castro St. Perhaps he didn’t get the memo regarding no amplified music that is currently preventing professional acts from providing music.
@Billy -tax payers- are US. There is not any special tax that makes any of us special (is there? or did I get that wrong?).
I pay property owner Tax (some to City)
I pay sales tax (some to City when purchased in Mountain View)
(I don’t pay Business Tax to the City)
I pay Federal Income Tax (some small part returned to City)
– I also happen to be a USA Citizen, (it’s on my passport)
– That also does not entitle me, IMO in specific “city resident” issues
just a tax-paying, citizen-resident of MV (oh Yes – registered Voter)
/Peace and Love to all in this Castro Street Public Process/
Two nearby sentences contradict each other in rapid succession: The first crows about how busking will get better, but the one right after that says no amplifiers are allowed.
Does the City realize forbidding amplifiers kills 90% of busking? Only a tiny amount of busking is by, say, acoustic guitars or perhaps horns.
Nowadays, most busking is with small, not-particularly-loud amplifiers and moderns lithium ion batteries. Agreed: Players with gigantic PA systems that can be heard at a great distance need to be reined in, but not users of small, respectfully-sized amplifiers.
That guitarist referred to above plays quietly and tastefully, on solo jazz guitar or duos with a standup bass. He’s there often and has been a positive for many years. Sayonara, buddy…
A proper noise ordinance should simply copy that of other cities: Base it on decibels, not the platform used. Set the mark at 15db above the ambient noise and you eliminate that obnoxious lady with a big public address system who sings Karaoke to a vast repertoire of B-52s covers. You can hear her a block away. Not so with buskers who play tastefully and quietly today, but who now must go away.
Such is the flawed ‘no amplifiers’ policy.
Another missed opportunity from our City Council and city staff. This article makes it sound like there will be more amateur music downtown. The reality will be exactly the opposite… sigh.