On Tuesday, the Mountain View City Council will review a set of policy choices that could help accommodate more or less housing in North Bayshore, the office park with Google’s HQ that the city is looking to evolve into a mixed use neighborhood. The study session will be an important discussion that will set direction for the final decision expected in June.

Key policy variables that emerged from the study of North Bayshore housing include the amount of parking, whether to provide more routes into North Bayshore for buses, carpools and biking/walking, and the assumption and policy options regarding how many people would live and work in the area.

Unfortunately, the staff report for city council continues to frame the decision for Council as it did for the Planning Commission, as a binary choice between a low end range (2,500 to 3,000 units) or a high end (7,000 to 9850). Last week, Planning Commissioners rejected framing the decision as binary choice, and wanted instead to consider all of the variables, looking for the options that would allow more housing and a more complete neighborhood with robust services, and to consider phasing strategies to assess progress and make refinements on the way to more housing.

Framing the decision as a binary between a minimal and maximal scenario neglects the advice of experts brought in early in the process, who recommended that a higher level of units (5,000 or more) would be needed as a minimum to create a vibrant neighborhood with robust services and transit (see this video).

The advice given earlier to Mountain View was very similar to the advice that was given by experts to the City of Menlo Park as that city weighed a decision about evolving the light industrial area near Facebook into a “live work play” neighborhood. Menlo Park’s eventual decision was to allow 5,500 new housing units, near the existing Belle Haven neighborhood. Until very recently the area had less than 1700 housing units and about 6,000 people, and doesn’t have a full-service grocery or drugstore. Redwood Shores, where housing was built in an area near the office park with Oracle’s Headquarters, has a population of about 4,900 people (below the recommended threshold). The neighborhood struggled for years to keep services, and still has poor transit service, with one SamTrans bus every 30-45 minutes.

Mountain View’s North Bayshore study – and the staff report – didn’t consider potential transportation scenarios if the amount of housing is too small to support robust services and transit. The decision that Council will make on North Bayshore housing will be transformative for Mountain View, and influential for the region. If you are interested in housing and transportation in Mountain View, this is one of the small number of important meetings to attend.

The Council meeting starts at 6:30pm at City Hall, 500 Castro Street in Mountain View. The agenda is here.

There are some ceremonial presentations before the North Bayshore item, plus the section of the meeting where people comment on items not on the agenda, so this item is likely to start about 7:30pm, come earlier if you want to make sure to not miss the important staff presentation.