Mountain View stuck in past when it comes to housing policy

A group of tourists crosses Charleston Rd. under a Google street sign on the Googleplex campus in Mountain View, CA, Saturday May 24, 2014. A group of tourists crosses Charleston Rd. under a Google street sign on the Googleplex campus in Mountain View, CA, Saturday May 24, 2014. Photo: Michael Short, The Chronicle Photo: Michael Short, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 38 Caption Close Mountain View stuck in past when it comes to housing policy 1 / 38 Back to Gallery

With the likes of Google and LinkedIn filling dozens of buildings near Highway 101, Mountain View can lay claim to having some of America's most innovative addresses.

But when it comes to mapping a future with housing options for the talented people who work within its boundaries, the South Bay city of 75,000 is stuck in the past.

During the next 15 years, Mountain View's plans allow fewer than 8,000 housing units to be added within its city limits. Within the same time frame, more than 20,000 new jobs are expected to be created - an imbalance that's sure to exacerbate the strains on a community where monthly rents on the newest one-bedroom apartments start at $3,400.

This problem isn't unique to Mountain View: Almost every municipality in Silicon Valley wants to grab a share of the tech economy while pretending that the workers don't need places to live. This decades-old attitude, which pushed sprawl into the Central Valley, now has driven the median price of a single-family home in the South Bay to nearly $800,000. It also intensifies the pressure on San Francisco and East Bay cities, themselves torn by debates over how much growth is too much.

Still, the disconnect in Mountain View is especially stark. And not just because of the numbers involved. This community, more than most, has the chance to be a model of adventurous planning as well as technological change.

A tranquil suburb

Much of Mountain View retains the appearance of a tranquil suburb, with attractive homes along attractive streets in an attractive climate. City Hall shares a plaza with a performing arts center. The shops along downtown's Castro Street include a tropical fish store.

After 5 p.m., though, the mood shifts. Parking spaces along the sidewalk become outdoor seating for the three dozen restaurants along the way - several of which exude the hipster vibe of the "beers, burgers, bao" joint Buffalo, whose menu is designed to look as though it was hunt-and-pecked on a manual typewriter.

Castro Street was redone in the early 1990s with wide sidewalks, including bulb-outs with shade trees between the parking spaces. But only in the past few years has the scene come to be an after-hours destination for the young workforce from the business parks along the roads off North Shoreline Boulevard.

Many of these workers live in San Francisco, where the large buses that deliver tech employees to their jobs have become symbols of the economic divide within the city. But it's not as if the travelers have a range of options to choose from in Mountain View instead.

Consider Madera, a 209-apartment complex that opened last year "just 57 steps from the Caltrain station," on Evelyn Street, to quote Madera's website. Built on the site of a former lumberyard, it's the first batch of market-rate apartments built in Mountain View in more than a decade. Monthly rents for the one-bedroom units begin at $3,400 - slightly more than a comparable space in San Francisco's Mission Bay.

Across the way is Classics at Station 361, 20 town houses and 45 small-lot single-family homes that, like Madera, are a short walk from Castro. The final town houses released last winter had $1.25 million price tags; the same developer is about to release 12 more compact houses that probably will go on the market for $1.5 million and up.

Rather than the suburban stereotype of couples with school-age children, Scott Ward of Classics Communities described his buyers as "predominantly informational technologists, employed by the usual suspects" who value "the ability to live in such close proximity to transit and a vibrant setting."

This cultural shift sets the current housing debate apart from earlier economic booms in Silicon Valley. The tech workforce increasingly consists of young adults who grew up in the suburbs and don't want to relive their parents' lives. Quality of life is measured by easy access to lively neighborhoods, rather than a cul-de-sac where the nearest place to eat is in a distant shopping center.

More open-minded

Mountain View, to its credit, is more open-minded than other Bay Area communities that act as though anything less than a single-family home is unpatriotic. Portions of downtown had height and density limits raised slightly in the 1990s to take advantage of the proximity to commuter rail. The most recent general plan, passed in 2012, calls for El Camino Real on the west side of town to evolve as "a revitalized grand boulevard with a diverse mix of commercial and residential uses."

But when the city had the chance to strike out in a new direction, it froze.

The field of opportunity was North Shoreline Boulevard, where broad street trees shade the wide lanes of asphalt that wind past tech campuses. During work on the general plan, planners recommended making the roadway the spine of a mixed-use corridor with 1,100 housing units above shops and cafes. The idea was to add a human scale to the clogged artery while creating housing options for younger workers who wouldn't mind small units if they were close to their jobs, with things to do downstairs.

"Our thought was 'Let's start there, prove the concept, see if it can expand,' " recalled Randy Tsuda, the city's director of community development.

Housing advocates and business groups turned out in support. Google weighed in with a letter praising "a bold vision for what should come next in Silicon Valley." But when the council approved the general plan - on a 4-3 vote - housing was left out of what is called the "North Bayshore Change Area."

The city instead makes room to add 2,900 housing units in the next eight years, half of which would be located along El Camino Real. Developers are taking the cue: Roughly 500 apartments are under construction in three projects, two of which are replacing motels. Six other projects are approved or proposed.

It's a good location for infill growth. But filling in the blanks only goes so far.

North Bayshore could be something different, a 21st century vision of a suburban district that isn't filled with towers, but has a complexity and sense of potential in tune with our emerging society.

A more detailed plan for the "change area" will be done in the coming year; at the very least, it should include housing as an option for future city councils to explore. Other South Bay cities with evolving business parks should look at pushing the mixed-use boundary as well, if only to set themselves apart from neighbors.

That would mark a difference from the status quo in most cities from Palo Alto south to Cupertino and Los Gatos. Some are comfortable with seeing shopping centers reborn as complexes with offices above shops, downscale versions of theme park-like Santana Row. Some won't even go that far.

"Many people are inherently afraid of what they don't know," said Shiloh Ballard of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, which has had fitful success in lobbying for additional housing at all price levels. "They know what traditional suburbs look like, and downtown San Francisco, but not that you can do something in-between in a respectful way."

Silicon Valley is a technological field of dreams, because it opens itself to the unexpected.

With open-minded foresight, its communities could translate this to the neighborhood scale with engaging, inclusive twists on the suburban norm that other regions will seek to emulate - rather than traffic-choked, expensive enclaves that show the perils of sticking our heads in the sand.