DATE:
September 26, 2023
TO:
Honorable Mayor and City Council
FROM:
John Lang, Economic Vitality Manager
Aarti Shrivastava, Assistant City Manager/
Community Development Director
VIA:
Kimbra McCarthy, City Manager
TITLE: Draft Economic Vitality Strategy
PURPOSE
The purpose of this Study Session is for the City Council to provide direction to staff on the Economic Vitality Strategy, including goals and strategies to further support the small business community.
BACKGROUND
The City Council has adopted seven Strategic Priorities and a work plan that charts a thoughtful and achievable path forward to accomplish the community’s highest priorities. One of the strategic priorities identified is Economic Vitality.
Mountain View’s last full Economic Development (Vitality) Strategy was completed in 2003 . A review and brief update was completed in 2008 . Significant changes have occurred since the adoption of that first Economic Development Strategy. According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau information on Mountain View, the amount of new housing has grown by approximately
7.5%, the population has grown 13% , and the number of jobs has grown 59%. Over the course of the pandemic , local small businesses, office work environments , and other busi ness sectors have undergone structural changes as they seek recovery.
On October 12, 2021, the City Council provided feedback to staff on an outline for a scope of work for a Request for Proposals (RFP) for consultant services to aid in the development o f an Economic V itality Strategy (EVS) for the City of Mountain View. The Economic Vitality team contacted 21 economic consultants to solicit proposals for a Request for Proposals (RFP) issued in January 2022. Out of the five proposals received, a total of three firms were interviewed, and Community Attributes, Inc. (CAI) was selected as the top choice by an evaluation committee consisting of staff from Economic Vitality, the City Manager’s Office, and an outside consultant.
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OUTREACH
CAI began work on the project by first conducting interviews with a range of Mountain View stakeholders. The initial approach in interviews wa s conversational with a focus on asking between five and nine open-ended questions depending on the focus group, thus providing the broadest range of feedback. CAI worked with City staff on identifying a range of stakeholders to interview. CAI conducted a total of 19 interviews with the following stakeholder and focus groups:
• Advisory Group meeting (City staff, Mountain View Cha mber of Commerce, and NOVAworks);
• Interviews of Councilmembers and City Manager;
• Orientation interviews with key stakeholders; and
• Focus groups (Developers and Business Owners, Food and Retail, Health and Biotech, Office and Tech, Real Estate Prof essionals and Brokers, Small/Micro Businesses and Entrepreneurs, Travel and Hospitality).
The initial outreach and engagement with stakeholders and focus groups led to the identification of the five following strategic themes:
• Housing, mobility, and quality of life concern all businesses. Citywide quality-of-life issues, particularly housing affordability and mobility, rank high for all businesses, including large technology employers as well as retail and small businesses . City resources devoted to housing and mobility (parking, transit, bike lanes, traffic circulation) will serve all intere sts economywide.
• Independent retailers and small businesses need help, especially downtown Mountain View. Small businesses, including office tenants, retail, and restaurants want downtown to thrive, but the cost s of moving into downtown —in particular, paying for parking (either through policy fees or redevelopment)—are prohibitive.
• Mountain View needs to reconsider and redefine the City’s identity and it s competitive advantage. As a part of a dynamic region, interviewees no longer know what sets Mountain View apart from its neighbors. Keeping up with adjacent cities in aesthetics and comparable offerings does not distinguish Mountain View within Silicon Valley.
• Investment in Mountain View requires redevelopment, which is burdened by a lengthy permitting and entitlement process. Lengthy processes kill deal flow and redirect investors Draft Economic Vitality Strategy
September 26, 2023
to opportunities in other cities. Policy reform for more efficient land use and development processes will encourage private investment in business districts and neighborhoods.
• Community development and efficiencies should be central to the City’s economic strategy and planning . Housing, serv ices, infrastructure, an d activating downtown and neighborhood spaces are universal concerns among interviewees. A complete list of key input themes is provided starting on Page 14 of the draft Economic Vitality Strategy (Attachment 1 to this Study Session memorandum).
LANDSCAPE ASSESSMENT
Working concurrently during the interview phase, CAI began a data analysis of Mountain View’s relevant economic indicators associated with “Vibrancy” and “Vitality.” The data analysis, called the “Landscape Assessment,” was informed by the s trategic themes identified by stakeholders during the interview process (see Attachment 2).
High-level summary findings from the Landscape Assessment include:
• From 2010 to 2021, Mountain View added eight times more jobs than ho using units, contributing significantly to regional housing challenges.
Figure 1: Mountain View Housing—Population and Jobs Growth 2010, 2021
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• Unlike other Silicon Valley cities, Mountain View has been increasing its share of regional population growth, bucking trends and perceptions of broader out-migration.
• Technology and professional services companies anchor Mountain View’s economy.
Figure 2: Mountain View Industry Share 2010, 2021
• Tech layoffs and low return-to-office trends after the pandemic will have an impact on the region’s work force (migration and housing need) and demand for office space.
• Comparative advantages to leverage for growth in AI, autonomous vehicles, sensors and tracking, medical devices, life sciences, biotech, health care, climate and green industries, and R&D.
• Retail sales in Mountain View generally match regional trends, but the daytime population presents unrealized upside opportunity. Some niches are underserved, but there is no gross “leakage” Citywide. As shown in Table 1, if Mountain View retailers were able to capture per capita retail spending from residents and a majority of workers equal to the Trade Area per capita spending level, then the City would capture an additional $160 million in retail spending.
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Table 1: Supportable Retail Growth, Mountain View, 2021
DISCUSSION
Based on input from stakeholders , relevant data indicators , and Best Practices from other communities, CAI crafted a vision statement using an approach centered on equity as well as objectives and a ctionable steps. To refine and enhance these objectives and strategies, three public community meetings were conducted in March and June 2023 . Additionally, meetings were held with key stakeholders, including the Downtown Committee, Mountain View Chamber of Commerce, and Mountain View Coalition for Sustainability Planning.
The current draft Economic Vitality Strategy (Attachment 1) reflects the synthesis of the Landscape Assessment and feedback received and includes a framework that will guide the work of the City and the Economic Vitality team over the next 10 years.
The following discussion outlines key sections of the draft Strategy for which staff is seeking Council feedback prior to developing the final Economic Vitality Strategy.
Draft Vision
Mountain View is a vibrant community and home to world -changing and locally rooted companies in the heart of Silicon Valley . Residents and visitors flourish in our neighborhoods, where they enjoy convenient shopping and dining at businesses by and for diverse communities.
Our business and industrial centers attract skilled and talented workers from across the region who join iconic brands and start new ventures . The regional workforce and families choose to
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live in Mountain View for its sustainable and w alkable neighborhoods with easy access to amenities, goods, and services, with downtown Mountain View as the centerpiece among them.
Quality of life is foundational to Mountain View residents, even as our economy works in global markets to make the world a better place.
Equity Statement
Mountain View’s Economic Vitality vision includes a commitment to address causes of social and economic inequity for residents and workers in Mountain View. Opportunity and advancement for all requires broad civic and community participation, livable neighborhoods without barriers to economic opportunity, and a robust economy that ensures wealth creation opportunities for all residents and workers.
Social and economic equity is embodied in specific actions outlined i n this Strategy. Actions focused on equity are noted throughout the draft Strategy with the following icon— .
Working Draft Goals
Goal 1. ESTABLISH DOWNTOWN MOUNTAIN VIEW AS A VIBRANT CENTER OF COMMERCE AND COMMUNITY GATHERING.
Goal 2. GROW MOUNTAIN VIEW’S PROVEN, ADVANCED INDUSTRIES
THROUGH SUPPORT FOR ESTABLISHED EMPLOYERS, BUSINESS
ATTRACTION, INNOVATION, AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP.
Goal 3. HELP SMALL, LOCAL, AND INDEPENDENTLY OWNED BUSINESSES FLOURISH IN MOUNTAIN VIEW.
Goal 4. MODERNIZE MOUNTAIN VIEW’S DEVELOPMENT POLICIES TO PROVIDE
CLARITY AND CERTAINTY FOR NEW USES THAT ALIGN WITH THE EVS VISION AND GOALS.
Question 1—Does Council agree with the Vision and Equity approach associated with the Economic Vitality Strategy or have other feedback?
Goals, Strategies, and Actions for Mountain View
Table 2 below highlights four goals arising out of the stakeholder engagement along with associated strategies that align with the advancement of each goal. Sample actions are listed for each strategy. Each strategy has multiple actions, and to see the full list of actions, please review Attachment 1, Draft Economic Vitality Strategy.
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Table 2: Goals, Strategies, and Sample Actions
Goal 1. ESTABLISH DOWNTOWN MOUNTAIN VIEW AS A VIBRANT CENTER OF
COMMERCE AND COMMUNITY GATHERING
Strategy No.
Strategy Actions (examples)
Strategy 1.1 Differentiate downtown’s
character, mixed uses, and
visual appeal to shoppers,
visitors, and quality retailers.
• Prioritize public-realm improvements in
downtown Mountain View, including
street furniture, lighting, landscaping, tree
canopy, and signage and consider an
Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District,
or EIFD, to finance them.
• Consider adding a live entertainment
ordinance that supports busking and other
outdoor live entertainment, complying
with some established decibel levels.
Strategy 1.2 Accelerate transition of
downtown toward increased
walkability and convenient,
multi-modal access to daily
goods and services.
• Reassess and evaluate City insurance
requirements for basic contracting, arts
installations, and patio areas to support
and encourage small business utilization.
• Support businesses that provide
sustainable and walkable goods and
services (such as providing neighborhood-
serving uses that promote pedestrian
activity and are close to residential uses).
Strategy 1.3 Confront vacancy in
downtown and encourage
flexible, measured, and
diverse growth.
• Explore the viability of a vacant property
ordinance or vacancy registry, tax, or other
means to aggressively pursue absentee
landlords with long-term vacancies in
ground-floor, street-facing properties in
downtown.
• Match vacant storefronts downtown with
growing local home-based or shared-space
businesses to transition them to brick-and-
mortar workplaces.
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Goal 1. ESTABLISH DOWNTOWN MOUNTAIN VIEW AS A VIBRANT CENTER OF
COMMERCE AND COMMUNITY GATHERING
Strategy No.
Strategy Actions (examples)
Strategy 1.4 Support division or
modification of existing retail
spaces to maximize
adaptability to market shifts.
• Develop a business tool kit to include
resources for businesses to permit and
finance improvements, modifications, and
subdivisions.
• Contract with a consultant to identify and
target specific retail segments and their
space needs.
Goal 2.
GROW MOUNTAIN VIEW’S PROVEN, ADVANCED INDUSTRIES THROUGH
SUPPORT FOR ESTABLISHED EMPLOYERS, BUSINESS ATTRACTION,
INNOVATION, AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Strategy No.
Strategy Actions (examples)
Strategy 2.1 Provide targeted, highly
effective business retention
and expansion assistance.
• Expand collaboration opportunities with
the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce
and Downtown Business Association, such
as partnering with the Chamber to
collaborate on retention visits and
business engagement.
• Clarify the City’s procurement processes
and market contracting and purchasing
opportunities with the City to local
businesses.
Strategy 2.2 Support employers’ needs
for a diverse workforce and
make Mountain View and its
business community
champions for equity and
shared prosperity.
• Collaborate with leading workforce and
business agencies, specifically NOVAworks,
SBDC, and SCORE, and educational
institutions, like Foothill College and
DeAnza College, to link both businesses
and workers in target sectors to
programmatic support, including local
training opportunities and career pathway
assistance.
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Goal 2.
GROW MOUNTAIN VIEW’S PROVEN, ADVANCED INDUSTRIES THROUGH
SUPPORT FOR ESTABLISHED EMPLOYERS, BUSINESS ATTRACTION,
INNOVATION, AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Strategy No.
Strategy Actions (examples)
• Tailor economic development policies and
programs to the diverse cultural identities
of Mountain View’s small business base,
and translate materials and outreach into a
variety of languages.
Strategy 2.3 Identify and cultivate new
niches within advanced
industries and grow and
diversify other established
sectors.
• Perform periodic quantitative analyses of
Mountain View employment across
clusters to identify and target support for
emerging and growing industries.
• Establish business attraction targets for
Artificial Intelligence (AI), autonomous
vehicles, sensors and tracking, medical
devices, life sciences, biotech, health care,
climate/green industries, and R&D.
Strategy 2.4 Market Mountain View to
businesses in specific target
sectors and niches.
• Promote the local creative economy to
attract more creatives to the City.
• Act as a liaison between entrepreneurs
and companies in appropriate health-
related fields, including the Fogarty
Institute.
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Goal 3. HELP SMALL, LOCAL, AND INDEPENDENTLY OWNED BUSINESSES FLOURISH IN
MOUNTAIN VIEW
Strategy No.
Strategy Actions (examples)
Strategy 3.1 Develop and communicate
policies and programs
designed to assist small and
mid-sized businesses.
• Enhance education and outreach to
existing micro, small, mid-sized, and ethnic
businesses on the array of small business
support resources, including business
planning, market research, financing,
incentives, workforce, and other
assistance.
• Develop and track performance metrics
around small business permitting process
efficiency, time, cost, and outcomes.
Strategy 3.2 Support local businesses that
foster an authentic Mountain
View commercial-cultural
identity in the City’s
neighborhoods and
downtown.
• Work with larger employers who have
vacant spaces that could be put into
productive public use via like pop-up
kitchens, maker spaces, and coworking
spaces.
• Identify potential community partners to
provide free or affordable space for
temporary or long-term local micro-
business incubation.
Strategy 3.3 Support and sustain a new
generation of successful
founders and entrepreneurs.
• Institute regular listening sessions or
interviews in the entrepreneurial
community to keep abreast of the local
entrepreneurial ecosystem and its needs
and trends.
• Partner with NOVAworks, SBDC, SCORE,
Foothill College, and DeAnza College for
entrepreneurship training in Mountain
View.
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Goal 3. HELP SMALL, LOCAL, AND INDEPENDENTLY OWNED BUSINESSES FLOURISH IN
MOUNTAIN VIEW
Strategy No.
Strategy Actions (examples)
Strategy 3.4 Recruit small businesses that
offer products and
experiences missing in
Mountain View.
• Engage with niche experiential retailers to
understand their specific needs regarding
factors such as access, signage and
marketing, and local costs of doing
business.
• Identify and market opportunities for
specific lines of business via frequently
refreshed retail-leakage analysis to
prospective tenants and niche businesses.
Strategy 3.5 Support growing Latino
entrepreneurial and small
business enterprises in food
and beverage and other
industries.
• Collaborate with local partners to solicit
interest in funding and building a
commercial kitchen designed to serve
Latino and other food businesses in
Mountain View.
• Explore partnerships with other food
services businesses to explore subleases,
co-ops, and other space rental options.
Strategy 3.6 Initiate a reinvigorated
identity and branding
campaign positioning and
promoting Mountain View at
the intersection of Silicon
Valley and community and
economic vitality.
• Distill the messaging and design language
of the City’s reimagined brand and
determine where and to whom to
communicate it regionally and nationally.
• Leverage new and upgraded infrastructure,
public realm design, and development as
opportunities to reinforce the revamped
brand of Mountain View.
Strategy 3.7 Implement antidisplacement
policies that provide
temporary and long-term
solutions that keep
businesses in place.
• Expand access to ownership to
marginalized small business owners and
nonprofits by offering tailored financial
products for property ownership.
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Goal 3. HELP SMALL, LOCAL, AND INDEPENDENTLY OWNED BUSINESSES FLOURISH IN
MOUNTAIN VIEW
Strategy No.
Strategy Actions (examples)
• Leverage the use of Community Benefits
Agreements in future commercial center
development in Mountain View to spur
developers to provide amenities and
spaces tailored to local community needs.
Goal 4.
MODERNIZE MOUNTAIN VIEW’S DEVELOPMENT POLICIES TO PROVIDE
CLARITY AND CE RTAINTY FOR NEW USES THAT ALIGN WITH THE EVS VISION
AND GOALS
Strategy No.
Strategy Actions (examples)
Strategy 4.1 Build adaptability into land
use and development codes
with provisions that respond
to changing demands of
commercial and industrial
users.
• Assess the development code to identify
opportunities to revise permitted uses
across employment-generating zoning
designations; specifically consider allowing
a broader range of uses in retail areas, and
restricting low-employment density uses in
core office and industrial designations.
• Develop a process to periodically engage
business leaders on challenges associated
with Mountain View’s planning and
development policies and processes.
Strategy 4.2 Identify workforce housing
and supportive service
challenges with critical
economic development
implications for prioritization
and direct action.
• Align the City’s economic development
work program with Housing Element policy
to reinforce the City’s commitment to
provide housing for Mountain View
workers.
• Work with existing and new partners to
address systems supportive of employee
retention, including child care, education,
transportation, housing needs, and other
social services.
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Goal 4.
MODERNIZE MOUNTAIN VIEW’S DEVELOPMENT POLICIES TO PROVIDE
CLARITY AND CE RTAINTY FOR NEW USES THAT ALIGN WITH THE EVS VISION
AND GOALS
Strategy No.
Strategy Actions (examples)
Strategy 4.3 Clarify and streamline
permitting processes and
nurture a business climate
that clearly differentiates
Mountain View from its
neighbors.
• Create a dedicated rapid-response team to
handle expedited permits for designated
critical development areas (e.g.,
downtown, San Antonio Center, major
industrial areas).
• Hire adequate third-party plan-checking
consultants and other providers to
supplement staff resources and expedite
permit review; and offer need-based
assistance.
Strategy 4.4 Evaluate and adapt policies,
regulations, and
enforcement to avoid
disproportionate or adverse
impacts on small businesses.
• Review requirements for Conditional Use
Permits and reduce required parking for
certain small businesses.
• Modernize business license to include
commercial landlord fees.
Strategy 4.5 Improve connections
between the City’s
commercial and industrial
areas to foster easier access
for collaboration.
• Continue to implement development
regulations that encourage or require
through-block pedestrian connectivity in
existing or potential pedestrian corridors.
• Collaborate with the TMA to assess the
efficacy of existing Community Shuttle and
MVgo service levels and routes in linking
major employment hubs with downtown
and other commercial centers.
Question 2—Does Council agree with the Goals and Strategies associated with the Economic Vitality Strategy or have other feedback?
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RECOMMENDATION
Staff is requesting Council input on the following questions:
1. Does Council agree with the Vision and Equity Statements associated with the Economic Vitality Strategy or have other feedback?
2. Does Council agree with the Goals and Strategies associated with the Economic Vitality Strategy or have other feedback?
NEXT STEPS
Following feedback at this Study Session, staff will work on further refinements to the Strategies and Actions and conduct furth er outreach , if necessary , and return with the final Economic Vitality Strategy for Council adoption.
PUBLIC NOTICING
The meeting agenda and Study Session memorandum were posted on the City’s website. Notice of this agenda item was also shared with members of the Downtown Committee, Mountain View Community for Sustainable Planning, Mountain View Chamber of Commerce, and the Reach MV program.
JL-AS/1/CAM
819-09-26-23SS
202663
Attachments: 1. Draft Economic Vitality Strategy
2. Landscape Assessment (data analysis by CAI)