Mountain View EPC advises council on draft 2025—627 work plan; Stevens Creek Trail, design standards and housing rank high

City staff asked Mountain View advisory bodies for input on the City Council—9s draft two-year work plan during the Environmental Planning Commission meeting on March 19, 2025. Lindsay Hagen, assistant community development director, described a narrowed approach to the work plan and asked the commission to identify its top three priorities from a preliminary list of 16 proposed projects.

Hagen said the council and staff are emphasizing quality over quantity: past work plans included 40 to 70 projects and historically achieved roughly half of them. "We're targeting sort of 10 to 14 projects," she said, and encouraged advisory bodies to identify their three highest priorities to inform a council study session scheduled for April 22; the adopted work plan will be finalized with the fiscal-year budget in June.

The commission discussed project scope and staff capacity. Several commissioners said they wanted projects that produce tangible results rather than plans that remain unfunded. Commissioners highlighted projects that intersect planning, mobility and housing: funding and engineering for the Stevens Creek Trail extension, updates to R3 zoning standards, design standards and storefront activation programs for downtown.

Christian Murdoch, community development director, described the prioritization process as "more of an art than a science," noting that some projects listed by council are continuations of existing work while others would be new efforts requiring scoping and resources.

Commissioners asked detailed questions about several items. Commissioner Pham asked staff to estimate the cost of raising the city—9s pavement condition index to 71; staff said reaching and maintaining that level would likely cost tens of millions of dollars. On the proposed smart water-meter project, staff confirmed the initiative would include meter-to-software data so customers could view usage and detect leaks; staff said the city is preparing an RFP to study vendor options.

On the Stevens Creek Trail extension, staff said potential partners include the City of Sunnyvale and the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) for grant opportunities. Staff also cautioned that two federally funded Complete Streets projects (Moffett and Middlefield) are already in design and that changing their scope now would be high-risk because of federal grant conditions.

Commissioners recorded their top picks during the discussion and staff tallied preferences for the record. According to staff—9s tally at the meeting close, several projects received multiple endorsements: the Stevens Creek Trail extension (three commission votes), the R3 zoning standards update (three votes), a storefront activation/downtown activation program (three votes), and a new design-standards project (four votes). Commissioners also discussed charter amendments, revenue measures and a potential smart-meter program, but those drew fewer top-three votes at this meeting.

Hagen reminded commissioners that staff are performing follow-up scoping (cost, staffing, timing) and will present a summary of advisory-body input and staff analysis to City Council in April. Council will select the final work-plan projects at the April study session and adopt the plan with the budget in June; staff will report progress to the council at six-month intervals.