Mountain View council approves 7‑story, 80‑unit Tirella Avenue development under builder’s remedy amid neighborhood protests

The Mountain View City Council voted 6–1 to conditionally approve a seven‑story, 80‑unit residential condominium project at 294–296 Tirella Avenue, finding the proposal qualified for the state’s Housing Accountability Act builder’s remedy and exempt from further CEQA review as an infill project. The vote followed more than two hours of staff presentations, applicant remarks, and public testimony in which neighbors urged delay, argued the project was out of scale for the neighborhood and raised traffic, parking and safety concerns.

City attorney Selena Chen and principal planner Diana Pancholi told the council the project met the statutory qualifications for the builder’s remedy because the applicant submitted a qualifying preliminary application during the period when Mountain View’s housing element was not yet certified. Chen noted the applicant chose to be governed by the 2024 statutory framework in effect when its preliminary application was filed. Pancholi outlined the proposal: a seven‑story building with about three levels of parking, approximately 20,000 square feet of landscaped open area, a roughly 11,000‑square‑foot rooftop deck, and a requirement that 20% of units (16 units) be deed‑restricted for households at 80% of area median income (AMI). Pancholi said the project meets some but not all local zoning and development standards, and that under the builder’s remedy the city may not disapprove the project solely for such inconsistencies.

Forrest Landberger, speaking for the applicant, emphasized the project would add 80 units while removing a single existing house, and said the developer had adjusted design and parking assumptions to respond to feedback. He said the project includes transportation demand management measures intended to reduce car ownership and that the required deeper affordability (20% at 80% AMI) added cost pressure that made certain city standards infeasible. The applicant also requested modifications to several conditions of approval (timing/permit expiration, building code/REACH code items and affordability terms), and said financial feasibility required longer vesting and construction windows than the city’s standard timelines.

Neighbors and dozens of speakers during public comment urged the council to delay action or seek a court determination about the builder’s remedy. Speakers described Tirella Avenue and surrounding blocks as largely one‑ and two‑story neighborhoods and warned the 7‑story building would cause shade impacts, increased traffic at the Middlefield/Tirella intersection, insufficient parking, and noise from rooftop amenities. Multiple neighbors said they had not been invited to previously advertised community meetings. Several asked the council to pursue legal clarity before approving the project.

Council discussion ranged from skepticism about the project’s scale to recognition of state constraints. Councilmember Ramirez, who moved approval of staff’s recommendation, and Vice Mayor Ramos, who seconded, framed the vote as a difficult choice constrained by state law. Councilmember McAllister cast the lone dissenting vote, saying he opposed the project as proposed. Other council members said they were troubled by some design and outreach choices but concluded that under the present statutory and vesting rules the city’s legal exposure made denial risky.

The council included in its conditional approval the staff‑recommended modifications to a set of conditions of approval (including recommended language changes to building code/REACH items, and timing modifications to some permit conditions) and required the applicant to provide 30‑year affordability commitments for the deed‑restricted units. Staff also noted the project is not subject to the city’s tenant relocation ordinance because the site contains a single existing unit.

The approval directs follow‑up tasks for staff and the applicant: finalize the project resolution with the two desk‑item amendments staff presented at the hearing, document the 30‑year affordability commitments, and include the additional modified conditions in the record. The council also instructed staff to continue coordinating on on‑site circulation, tree mitigation and required frontage repairs, and to enforce the project’s MTA (multimodal transportation analysis) recommendations.

Votes at a glance: the motion to conditionally approve the development review permit, tentative map and heritage tree removal permit passed 6–1 (Councilmember McAllister opposed).