A plan for 10,000 new housing units in the North Bayshore development set to feature a huge new Google campus has been slashed to include as few as 1,500 units.
A draft plan released by the city in October called for creation of three new neighborhoods totaling 154 acres with 9,850 housing units, 20 percent of them classed as “affordable.”
The North Bayshore project has generated tremendous excitement in a region plagued by a housing shortage, sky-high rents and home prices, and horrendous traffic. These ills have been blamed in large part on the booming technology industry, including Google and its parent firm Alphabet, which have plans for a drastically expanded Silicon Valley footprint.
But a review of the North Bayshore project by City Council members and Mountain View’s Environmental Planning Commission found that even with transportation improvements including a new Highway 101 offramp, the development could only support 1,500 to 3,000 housing units, according to a city staff memo to the mayor and council that was released June 22.
However, the memo noted that the proposal for greatly reduced housing numbers does not prevent the City Council from approving the earlier plan for nearly 10,000 units.
The draft plan for North Bayshore had called for housing in new neighborhoods called “Joaquin,” “Shorebird” and “Pear.” Joaquin, the largest, would spread over 68 acres, with 3,950 units. Shorebird and Pear would each cover 43 acres and contain 2,950 units.
Small “micro-unit/studios” were to make up 40 percent of the housing, followed by 30 percent 1-bedroom units, 20 percent 2-bedroom units and 10 percent 3-bedroom units.
Silicon Valley housing-advocacy group SV@Home called on Mountain View officials to approve the 9,850 units proposed in the draft plan.
“Santa Clara County faces a serious housing shortage,” the organization said in a June 21 letter to the city’s Environmental Planning Commission. “With monthly 2-bedroom rents averaging more than $3,700 (in Mountain View), even households earning 120 percent of area median income experience housing affordability challenges. Clearly, we need more housing now.”
Mountain View has 2.7 workers for every housing unit, the second-worst ratio in Santa Clara County behind Palo Alto’s 3.8 workers per unit, according to SV@Home.
“Everyone is commuting into these communities from places like the East Bay or Santa Cruz or even further out in Fresno,” said Pilar Lorenzana, the group’s deputy director. “The reason we’re seeing so much traffic … is precisely because we don’t have enough housing and affordable housing.”
But building housing in a city doesn’t mean the people who live in it will work nearby, said Mountain View council member Margaret Abe-Koga, who supports the reduced housing number for North Bayshore.
“If they’re going to go work somewhere else, that’s still more cars on the road,” Abe-Koga said.
“We have to be mindful of the existing residents and if adding more housing just means it’s going to take twice as long for me to get to where I’m trying to go or for my neighbor to get where they’re trying to go, then it really isn’t helping improve quality of life,” Abe-Koga said.
As for who would develop and pay for North Bayshore housing, Google has talked about building 2,500 to 3,000 units, Abe-Koga said.
“There’s no indication they would do the 10,000,” she said.
The company declined to comment on any housing plans it may have for North Bayshore.
Google’s place in the North Bayshore development was confirmed in March, when City Council members unanimously approved the tech giant’s plan for a futuristic “Charleston East” campus there. The campus is to feature a colossal main structure with a scalloped, solar-paneled canopy roof and areas open to the public, including a park, plaza, pavilions, cafes and shops.
Google’s expansion plans for Silicon Valley also include several new office buildings at Moffett Field, for which it’s reportedly going to add 300 pre-fabricated apartments as temporary worker accommodations. The firm is also working with San Jose on a huge new village in the Diridon Station area, where 20,000 employees could work.
The Mountain View council is to consider the amended plan in a meeting Tuesday. The plan “will then be finalized based on any direction from this meeting” and “council meetings will then be scheduled to consider adoption,” the staff memo said.