
Mountain View moves forward with 9,100-unit housing option next to Google - apsec112
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/techflash/2015/11/9100-housing-units-google-lnkd-intu-msft-goog.html
======
bobsky
Local elections matter. You can make real impact.

'A quick backstory: More than a year ago, a previous city council approved a
plan for the North Bayshore that allowed up to 3.4 million square feet of net-
new office space, but no housing. That stirred passions from housing advocates
who said approving such massive job growth without adding nearby housing
aggravated the Bay Area's commute patterns and encouraged suburban sprawl...
Voters agreed, and a pro-housing council majority was voted into office last
November'
[http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2014/11/06/mountain-...](http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2014/11/06/mountain-
view-council-election-results-could-mean.html?page=all)

~~~
mc32
It's a start but bay area cities and towns need to realize that as industry
and jobs and income grow they will have to grow too (or face increasing
housing shortages). This is not the 50s and 60's leafy suburbs anymore. It's
an agglomeration and needs to build up --at least along the Camino Real. Allow
high density housing and build rapid transit. Allow mixed use development.

~~~
Johnny555
True, they need to more than just build housing -- if they want people to get
out of their cars and on transit and bikes, they need to build first-class
Bike and Pedestrian facilities.

Too often think that all they need to do is build housing and collect property
taxes and their job is done, and they ignore the fact that most of the
residents are continuing to drive everywhere.

~~~
_delirium
I agree, but I think some densification will help increase demand for that,
especially for biking/pedestrian infrastructure. Even in famously bike-
friendly cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen, biking is mostly a medium-
distance thing: the vast majority of bike commuters live in the range of 1-5
miles from work, not 15. So getting a lot of people living within 5 miles of
their office is a precondition for having a significant portion of people even
interested in the existence of bicycle infrastructure. One way to do that
given the current Valley layout is to really densify the axis from Mountain
View to Palo Alto. (Unfortunately, I suspect Palo Alto is not going to be _at
all_ on board with that.)

~~~
Johnny555
I thought so too when I moved to a "transit oriented development" area near
Caltrain. 2 years later there have been zero bike and pedestrian improvements,
and things have gotten even worse when construction has closed one sidewalk
and blocked a bike lane and new construction has blocked the safest path to
the nearby Caltrain station -- plus, construction workers have placed their
"No Parking" signs in the middle of the sidewalk, and calls to the city have
not changed that.

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forrestthewoods
Once upon a tech TechCrunch did an amazing write-up on San Fran housing
issues. One of my favorite points was the following cascaded issue caused my
rent control.

1) Rent control keeps rent prices down 2) This leads to matching controlled
property tax 3) This incentivizes small cities to prefer uncontrolled
commercial zoning over controlled residential. 4) Which means smaller cities
have way too much commercial space and not nearly enough residental.

Oh what a tangled web we weave when we practice to artificially constrain
rents. Wait. I think I did that wrong. Ah well. Close enough!

~~~
kspaans
Devil's advocate: you think your landlord should be allowed to double your
rent at the end of your lease? (If they can choose to not continue the lease
and evict you, I guess it's the same thing.) In Ontario, for example, there is
essentially an inflation-adjusted rate that landlords are allowed to increase
their rent by every year
([http://www.landlordselfhelp.com/RentIncreaseGuideline.htm](http://www.landlordselfhelp.com/RentIncreaseGuideline.htm))
_without prior approval_. I'm sure there are many flavours of rent control,
tilting either towards landlords or tenants.

~~~
forrestthewoods
Of course I do. You had a lease for a negotiated price for a year. That year
ended. Now you can negotiate a new price based on current market conditions.

A co-worker got tired of moving every year due several years in a row of
homeowners wanted to sell their house when his lease ended. So he asked to
sign a two year lease. The homeowner said no. Then he offered an extra $200 a
month and two years. And the homeowner said yes. Voila!

I work at a small company (<20) and we're looking for new office space. For
some locations we can lock-in a pretty good price if we're willing to sign a
5-year lease.

~~~
6t6t6
That would allow a really dangerous behavior: the landlords would put flats
under the market price, in order to get new tenants, and after one year living
there (furniture bought, new friends, school for the children, etc.) the
landlords would be able to rise the fee as much as they want.

The situations where there's an asymmetrical negotiation like landlords-
tenants or employer-employee must be regulated by law in order to make them
fair.

Law, not wealth, should give rights the people.

~~~
jldugger
Much of the US lives just fine without rent control. My landlord raises rents
every year, in lockstep with local union raises. Doubling rent annually is
hyperbole, and if you really think landlords can afford to pull bait & switch
leases, local only movers cheap enough that clever people should exploit them
by moving every year for the discount rent.

At this point it seems like the only places with rent control are where rents
are refucking-diculus.

~~~
Frondo
Doubling annually probably happens rarely enough you can ignore it. Where I
live now, though, in a medium-sized Pacific NW city, rents in various of my
friends and relations buildings/complexes have seen increases 50% in four
years.

That's still pretty bad, and I know several people myself who were forced out
due to rising rents becoming unaffordable.

That kind of disruption to people's lives doesn't make the kind of society I
want to live in.

------
raldi
Mountain View currently has 75,000 residents. It will be interesting to see if
all these new voters kick off a pro-housing virtuous cycle.

Something similar happened in Loudoun County, VA circa 2000-2007.

~~~
sliverstorm
That certainly would be nice- but another possibility is pull-the-ladder-up-
behind-you NIMBY-ism.

~~~
rahimnathwani
If the new units are primarily owner-occupied, NIMBY-ism is a risk. If the new
units' residents are renters on 1-year leases, they would probably vote for
ever increasing supply.

~~~
MBlume
Yes, this. I've often thought that in terms of long-term strategy, pro-housing
groups should focus on getting rental housing built, and leave owner-occupied
condos alone.

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TulliusCicero
This is great news, but they really need more than 9k units up there,
especially as they'll continue to add more office space. Now that there's a
pro-housing city council, I wonder if some of the existing low-density office
buildings could be redeveloped to be taller and mixed-use.

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kevan
One of the biggest reasons I'm hesitant to move to the valley is the housing
situation, things like this are great to hear.

~~~
j_h_s
This is not going to make a dent in prices. It would take developments of
similar scale in every municipality in the region to begin to address the
problem.

------
ojbyrne
The article isn't quite as positive as the headline makes it sound - it
includes the statement that "it's not all going to be built."

But it's still good.

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kiba
Finally! Somebody did the sensible move of adding more housings in urban
areas.

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tobico
Good. Building up is the way to go. Here in Melbourne, >30-story apartment
towers have become the norm, and it's succeeded in slowing the rise of housing
prices in the inner city quite a bit. I also think it's helping to delay our
transportation crisis.

~~~
matt4711
Too bad there are no minimum size restrictions and all apartments in those
30-story towers are essentially shoe boxes.

~~~
prawn
If people are buying them, then they're obviously OK with that trade-off.

~~~
Tsagadai
Many are bought without inspection and are not lived in. Some of the large
apartment buildings in the north of the CBD and Docklands are largely empty
while being completely sold.

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SCAQTony
That is incomprehensibly dense. 500-acres is .78-square-miles and to drop
9,000 people in there would be like living in Tokyo.

The largest cities in the world by land area, population and density:

[http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/largest-cities-
density-...](http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/largest-cities-
density-125.html)

~~~
psyklic
Not necessarily. For individuals who want to live close to work and rent
condos/apartments it could work out well (e.g. young professionals just out of
college). For example, West Hollywood is ranked as the most walkable city in
California (by Walkscore), has a population density of ~19000 people/sqmi, is
~60% individual households, and ~80% of the housing is rented.

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FullyFunctional
As a Mnt View resident myself, I strongly applaud this, but am disappointed
that families got the short end. I get that the media age at Google is low,
but I bet that a short commute is disproportionately important to parents.

~~~
jfim
How have families received the short end?

Having more units for singles/couples will lower the pressure on 3BR+
apartments; I know a few people staying in large apartments in SF as it's the
most rational decision to minimize rent on a per-tenant basis.

~~~
FullyFunctional
That is certainly true, but it's not clear to me if that effect is better than
just creating [some] 3BR+ apartments as part of this. Regardless, there's no
debate that this development is a good thing overall.

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beambot
Given Google's audacious projects, I expect housing designs similar to classic
SimCity arcologies: [http://imgur.com/4k7csZg](http://imgur.com/4k7csZg)

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rajacombinator
Sounds like a huge win for the Bay Area. Now just rinse and repeat about 100
times ...

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zavi
How are they going to build on Google's land? Will Google own the housing?

~~~
umeshunni
I don't think this is a Google's land. This (better) article has a map which
shows it being along Shoreline blvd: [http://www.mv-
voice.com/news/2015/11/11/city-opts-to-max-out...](http://www.mv-
voice.com/news/2015/11/11/city-opts-to-max-out-housing-in-north-bayshore-
study)

~~~
dgacmu
Most of that main pink area is existing Google buildings. Regardless - housing
in that area will be _awesome_. (There are quite a few other companies with
buildings in the same area, dotted in with the google buildings.) Add some
nearby grocery and shopping capabilities, and the planned improvements for
biking in the area, ... huge improvement to the traffic and automotive
pollution situation.

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kushti
"Access To Website Blocked"

Maybe because I'm using an ads blocker?

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intrasight
What does "pro-housing" mean? Isn't everyone who lives in a house pro-housing?

~~~
jdminhbg
It means "pro-new-housing" generally. So someone who lives in a house they own
in a desirable neighborhood that other people would like to build in would not
be "pro-housing" by that colloquial definition.

------
Animats
Dorms next to the trailer park. Figures.

Maybe they could also take over the Microsoft buildings next to the bus yard.
Microsoft cut staff at that location a few years ago.

