Planning commission backs staff zoning approach to meet housing-element site targets, urges steps to protect neighborhood-serving businesses

Mountain View — The Environmental Planning Commission on Jan. 15 recommended that the City Council adopt staff-recommended zoning and general-plan changes to make the housing element site inventory consistent with zoning and allow for new housing at several targeted opportunity sites.

Senior planner Krisha Penollar told commissioners that the item implements “housing element program 1.1G, which is to ensure the zoning and general plan are consistent with the housing element site inventory and other housing opportunity sites.” The staff presentation listed seven sites and staff’s recommended land-use approaches and explained the city must meet a housing element deadline at the end of 2025.

Staff recommended treating Leon Drive with a general mixed-use village center designation to achieve a target of about 43 dwelling units per acre (proposed 1.35 FAR); Miramonte (1702 Miramonte), Cuesta (77 Cuesta Drive) and sections of Calderon Avenue as neighborhood mixed-use allowing about 30 dwelling units per acre (proposed 1.05 FAR); amending the Grant Road precise plan to reference an R‑3 multifamily zone to permit up to 30 units per acre while retaining policy language that recognizes the existing convalescent hospital as an allowed use; and taking a focused, site‑specific precise‑plan approach for the Mountain View Transit Station — proposing to allow up to 75 dwelling units per acre while deferring detailed standards pending coordination with Caltrain.

Public commenters pressed several site-specific points. Max Bozel suggested the city study quiet-zone feasibility to reduce train-noise impacts on potential residential development at the transit corridor, noting other nearby cities have studied quiet zones. Bozel said…