Mountain View Residents Protest Affordable Housing
Let’s face it, Mountain View, California is an upscale community. There is no bad section of town, so when the city says they want to put 50 units of low income housing onto 1 acre of land, it puts the neighborhood on alert.
While having a good demographic mix is good for a community, it is too late to do so when the addition of low income housing will depress property values around it.
So the community is facing the need to balance the need for affordable housing with the protection of property values. A tough road to travel for city planners.
Several sources, including the Santa Clara County Assessors Office, said there probably wouldn’t be much impact, if any, on the value of properties adjacent to the affordable housing units.
But a Mountain View real estate agent, who asked that his name be withheld so he won’t lose business, said he has no doubt the new housing would drive down neighborhood home values by as much as 10 percent. He said sellers would have to disclose the presence of an affordable housing unit, which could scare away buyers.
“People associate this (type of housing) with gangs and crime, whether it’s true or not,” he said. “A lot of people are going to lose a lot of money if that goes in there.” via San Jose Mercury News.
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Comment by Creative Boomer on 1 November 2008:
I think I have an answer which will make the residents happy, although it’s not currently an option. (Congress, are you listening?)
How about giving the neighborhood the right to choose – say, a veto right – over who gets in – without discriminating on the basis of race etc?
Comment by 3rd Generation on 2 November 2008:
There are plenty of BAD areas in Mountain View and we do not need any more of them. I applaud this opinion.
Castro City has become a dangerous ghetto, Rengstorff park is unsafe, I could, but won’t go on. Leave Little Saigon and endless Taco truck controversy where it belongs, the Ghetto City Model for the Bay Area, SAN JOSE. What Mountain View need more of is ICE random ID checks, especially around San Antonio/ECR areas.
Adios Amigo!
Comment by Mary Pope-Handy on 3 November 2008:
Mountain View is about 20 minutes away by car, so I’m familiar with it but it’s not my primary area of Silicon Valley for my real estate practice. That’s my disclaimer. That said, I don’t agree that there are “no bad parts of Mountain View”, and a quick look at the image shows me that the affordable housing is going in next to a fairly industrial area in which the train tracks are extremely nearby and just beyond them by a few feet is Central Expressway. This is not prime land for upscale housing, folks.
Comment by let-them-eat-cake on 8 November 2008:
The not in my neighborhood crowd doesn’t care how well built or good the properties look it the stigma that matters…
Our future president may need a little help with her mothers rent.
Comment by mvnewbie on 3 December 2008:
My family just bought a home in Mountain View. My husband and I were surprised to read articles about the overpopulation of the local public schools. (See article link below.)
Parents are driving across town just to drop off kids at elementary school because their local schools–literally blocks away–are full. Meanwhile, kids are being bussed clear across town in the opposite direction. This means significant time, money, and environmental costs.
Where will the kids in this new housing development go to school? Oh yeah–and we’re in a recession and no one knows how long it will last–where will the people who live there work? Whatever happened to building the businesses and schools first, create the jobs and the demand, and then build the housing you need.
Something is backwards. Castro is still hopping, but driving down El Camino is like a bit of a ghost town. Where did the businesses go?
Cramming in more housing and packing in more people in an already overpopulated city–no matter what their socioeconomic state might be–is the opposite of a sensible solution.
http://www.mv-voice.com/news/show_story.php?id=950
Comment by mvnewbie on 3 December 2008:
Here’s another link to an article (more recent) on the public school overpopulation problem in Mtn. View.
http://www.mv-voice.com/news/show_story.php?id=1029