Man on a mission
Mountain View is working aggressively to do something about the housing crunch — thanks in part to Lenny Siegel, one of the region’s most outspoken advocates for affordable housing
The way we define sustainability has to include the ability of a community to … include its future generations. … You shouldn’t have to move to the Central Valley when you have kids.
The Bay Area’s housing crisis is a regional issue that requires local solutions. Enter the city of Mountain View, which is aggressively working to do something about the housing crunch — thanks in part to Lenny Siegel, a City Council member since 2014 and one of the region’s more outspoken advocates for new and affordable housing.
The city, where a typical singlefamily home costs about $1.4 million, hopes to dramatically boost its housing supply — by more than 50 percent, and soon. As of the end of 2016, more than 18,000 new housing units had been approved or were under review by the city. Nearly 10,000 units are slated for the North Bayshore neighborhood where Google has its main campus, with the first groundbreakings expected in the next year or so.
Siegel, 68, comes from a background of student protest and environmental activism. A realist, he acknowledges that Mountain View faces a massive challenge. Job growth continues to outstrip housing growth: In 2015, the city — which has a population of close to 80,000 — had about 54,000 more jobs than housing units. Still, Siegel is encouraged. He believes progress is possible: “I think we’re doing well,” he says. “I’m hoping we’re doing well enough to encourage our neighbors to do something similar.”
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Q We hear a lot about the intractability of the housing crisis. But Mountain View seems to be pushing back. It’s certainly attracting a lot of interest from developers.
A Once Mountain View sent out a signal that we were open for housing, the market responded. When you go to conferences where people complain that housing isn’t getting built — that doesn’t apply here. Once we made a decision to build housing, everyone and his brother sent proposals.
That includes a steady stream of affordable housing projects that we’ve approved — for families, one for veterans, one that was built
for the developmentally disabled. And for the most part, they look like any other garden apartments, and people are surprised when you tell them it’s affordable housing. It helps create more of a “yes in my backyard” kind of attitude.
A lot of the concern about housing prices and high rents comes from the fact that we’re starting to lose our diversity as people are priced out. The rent control charter amendment that passed with 53 percent of the vote in November was seen as more of an anti-displacement measure than as a solution to the jobs-housing imbalance. People were thinking, “While we’re building more housing, let’s do something to prevent more people from being pushed out.”
There are a lot of examples of longtime residents who’ve been forced out by high rents, and we’re trying to prevent that.
Q We read a lot about schoolteachers and working people who can no longer afford to live in Silicon Valley. Has Mountain View become significantly less diverse as a result of the housing crisis?
A It’s hard to tell because one of the solutions people use to get around the high rents is to crowd into apartments — multiple families in one place. We hear a lot about low-income people and especially immigrant families who are crowding in, with kids sleeping on the floor. And then you still have hundreds of people living in recreational vehicles and cars on the street.
Q You recently told The New York Times, “We need to provide housing because there’s a housing shortage.” That’s a very practical approach.
A I’m changing my messaging a little bit. We’ve already made the decision to build housing, so I’m now starting to talk about building neighborhoods. We have to make sure we have schools where we need them and parks where we need them. It’s about building neighborhoods in which people want to live.
Q What will Mountain View’s new neighborhoods look like?
A In most cases, it’s going to be denser. In some areas, townhouses are being built. Other places are going to be taller. But we don’t want to just stuff people into them. We want to have a lot of open space. We’re hearing from the developers that they want to make their projects green … and instead of providing parking, they’ll provide pickup and dropoff areas — more curb space for five-minute parking and fewer spaces for long-term parking. That’s because more people are getting rides from Lyft and Uber.
The key thing is placing housing near employment centers and transit, but we won’t know how well we’re doing with it until it’s built. We have a lot of ideas for minimizing traffic.
Q How have you managed to change the minds of longtime residents about new development?
A When I was running for the council, I’d go door to door. And I’d ask conservative homeowners, who traditionally would be against more housing development, “Where will your kids live?” Or I’d say, “How far will you have to travel to see your grandchildren?” And I won’t say it persuaded a majority of people, but it persuaded a great many of them.
People would say, “Yeah, my daughter had to buy a house in Tracy.” That, I think, has reduced the impact of NIMBYism, because people are realizing that a lack of housing is injuring their families’ quality of life.
The way we define sustainability has to include the ability of a community to reproduce itself, to include its future generations. It necessarily means having more housing stock. … You shouldn’t have to move to the Central Valley when you have kids.
Q Final thoughts?
A People have been writing about this area as if nothing’s changed here in the last two years, but it has. It has changed dramatically, and not just in terms of the members of the council, but in terms of the sentiments of people in the community who now want more housing. We aren’t done, but I think we have the elements of success in place here. And we want to get that across to the public, because we want other communities in the region to do the same thing.