1 From: David Shreni >
Sent: Sunday, March 9, 2025 11:40 PM
To: City Council
Cc: Trustees
Subject: Upcoming Agenda Item: BMR housing South of El Camino CAUTION: EXTERNAL EMAIL - Ensure you trust this email before clicking on any links or attachments.
Dear City Council. It's been awhile! The children of Mountain View continue to relish and reap from the benefits of your cooperation around a land JUA with the District. Thank you! (Spring AYSO Soccer)
2 3
I happened to see an agenda item that caught my eye...and provoked a response: Housing in my area of Mountain View.
The sad, sad cloud hanging over the council is that this very body—some of the same members included—forced the School District into a position where it is unable to develop a large piece of underutilized land south of El Camino for below-market housing for 55 years.
This land is known as the District's property "Cooper Park".
Was it out of love for the land or spite? We will never know! I know I don't fully appreciate the background story, so I will not make any assumptions.
This was the City's, and Waverly Park's, best shot at beautiful development: single-family homes ringed by 82 units of high-paying, community-enriching District teachers. 4 5
If the City were truly interested in BMR housing South of El Camino, it would work with the District to lift the development restriction and allow them to rent out their land to build BMR housing along with daycare and TK facilities—of course, ringed by single-family homes so that the good citizens of Waverly Park wouldn’t have to see that sort of "blight." The school-age community south of El Camino simply isn’t going to grow over the next fifty years. No amount of development—even if the Nob Hill and Safeway 'villages' are built up—will fully offset a declining birthrate and the entrenched grip of aging homeowners locked in to their single-family homes by Prop 13. So, the reality is that District probably won't need its Cooper Park land with two schools close by. But they do have an unfunded mandate for TK; and nearly all parents of Mountain View (and Los Altos) are strained to pay for daycare. Action Plus in Cooper Park charged my daughter $39,000 a year! To my amusement, they charge parents in Mountain View 10% more than any of their other 10 sites in the South Bay.
The ball is really in your court. You can run study session after study session, but the Cooper Park residents have made it very clear that they don’t want development, and have successfully lobbied their patrons on the council to enable development restrictions.
If you're serious about cooperation, you'll consider making a deal with the District. Why not? It costs you nothing (except the wrath of Cooper Park citizens!). Or will you extract a concession? (Hands off any extra Shoreline Funds forever!
) Or maybe save it for the next Housing Element cycle
?
This new School Board has their hands full right now, but in 6+ months, I have no doubt their headwinds will have died down and they'll probably have a better sense of where they need to go.
In the meantime—I wish you luck trying to convince a group of congregations who, according to the staff report, have expressed next to no interest in your goals or plans.
Cheers,
David Shreni
References:
Staff Memo on the MVWSD/City Development agreement
https://mountainview.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=5850052&GUID=31F23690-B82D- 4BA5-A43F-BE6E92FAC4AC&G=37932D0B-039B-4529-B6D8-73445A1D4799&Options=&Search= Yes: 7 -
Councilmember Abe-Koga, Councilmember Kamei, Councilmember Lieber, Councilmember Matichak, Councilmember Showalter, Vice Mayor Hicks, Mayor Ramirez 1 From: K Z
Sent: Sunday, March 9, 2025 5:38 PM
To: City Council
Cc: Pancholi, Diana; Anderson, Eric B.; Blizinski, Amber; Murdock, Christian; McCarthy, Kimbra; League of Women Voters of LAMV (LWV-LAMV)
Subject: March 13, 2025, Study Session, Item 3.1 (Housing Element Programs 1.4 & 2.6) Attachments: 250313-MVCC-HE Programs 1.4 and 2.6.pdf
CAUTION: EXTERNAL EMAIL - Ensure you trust this email before clicking on any links or attachments.
Dear Mayor Kamei and City Council Members;
Attached is a letter from the League of Women Voters regarding item
3.1 on the March 13, 2025, Study Session agenda (Housing Element Programs 1.4 & 2.6).
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Katie Zoglin
President
Los Altos-Mountain View Area League of Women Voters
March 9, 2025
Re: March 13, 2025, Study Session 3.1 (Housing Element Programs 1.4 & 2.6) Dear Mayor Kamei and Members of the City Council:
The League of Women Voters (LWV) supports actions that increase the stock of housing and particularly affordable housing.
Given the lack of responses from the outreach to date, the League suggests that the City explore other ways of meeting its commitments. In addition, the lack of interest in development opens the question of whether the five commercial sites should be removed from the inventory.
Approach 2 (existing density “plus” approach, as summarized on Table 3 at page 20 of the staff report), or a version of it that relies on inclusionary housing production on church, commercial, and residential sites may represent the most realistic avenue to encourage the development of housing, given the economic challenges of developing 100% affordable housing.
The League is concerned that the City does not appear to be meeting its deadlines and development targets, as noted in the staff report. We suggest that earlier communication of potential timeline misses may help the City to stay on its schedule.
Please send any questions about this letter to Kevin Ma, Co-Chair of the Housing Committee, at [email protected].
Sincerely,
/s/
Katie Zoglin
President
Los Altos-Mountain View Area LWV
C: Diana Pancholi
Eric Anderson
Amber Blizinski
Christian Murdock
Kimbra McCarthy