Mountain View renters getting an eviction reprieve as big redevelopment moves ahead

SummerHill Homes planning to build for-sale houses at apartment complex site

MOUNTAIN VIEW >> Residents of Mountain View’s Meadowood Apartments, a complex that’s slated for replacement by a new homes project being developed by SummerHill Homes, have received an eviction reprieve.

Meadowood Apartments tenants had been facing a lateOctober eviction deadline, but project developer SummerHill Homes delayed the departure date, according to Lenka

Wright, chief communications officer for the city of Mountain View.

“The developer voluntarily agreed to the implementation of a three-month grace period that would allow tenants to extend their lease until Feb. 1, 2021, to give them additional time through the COVID-19 crisis,” Wright said.

SummerHill intends to develop houses for sale on the site of the Meadowood Apartments at 1555 W. Middlefield Road in Mountain View.

“SummerHill Homes is very excited to develop another community in Mountain View,” said Chris Neighbor, president of SummerHill. “Situated in the heart of Silicon Valley, at West Middlefield Road and North Shoreline Boulevard in Mountain View, this new residential project will consist of 115 for-sale townhomes.”

Construction of the new row houses is slated to begin during the spring or summer of 2021. Sales should begin in late 2021 or early 2022, Neighbor estimated.

SummerHill Homes paid $81 million for the 5.6-acre site, Santa Clara County property records show.

The Meadowood Apartments complex contains 116 rental units.

The new residences are expected to be three-story townhomes, according to city documents.

SummerHill has already built two other for- sale residential subdivisions in Mountain View. One is Montecito, consisting of 83 townhomes that are currently 50% sold out. The other is Portico, which will consist of 16 townhomes, with sales beginning in Janu

ary 2021.

Some residents of the Meadowood Apartments had written to Mountain View city officials expressing concern about an eviction process that would start as early as late October.

“The vast majority of the units are still occupied, many of them by families with one or more children, elderly residents, or individuals with health and/ or mobility issues,” Ken Nelson, a Meadowood Apartments tenant, wrote to the city.

Some residents expressed concern about Mountain View’s overall lack of progress in doing its part to address the crisis of affordable

housing in the Bay Area.

“Mountain View residents are sick of seeing perfectly good affordable homes being torn down to provide luxury units,” Kimberley Richardson, a Mountain View resident, wrote to the city. “There needs to be a highlevel investigation of Mountain View’s housing policy.”

SummerHill, however, provided what is expected to amount to thousands of dollars in assistance to each tenant being displaced, according to the city.

“The developer agreed to enhance the benefits to meet the city’s updated tenant relocation assistance ordinance,” city spokesperson Wright said.