Mountain View EPC recommends City Council accept 2025 housing element annual progress report

The Mountain View Environmental Planning Commission on Feb. 18 reviewed the city’s 2025 Housing Element Annual Progress Report and voted unanimously to recommend that City Council accept the report and forward it to the California Department of Housing and Community Development and the Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation before April 1, 2026.

Assistant Planner Madeline Fall and Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson presented the APR, which staff said shows the city’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) for the current six-year cycle as 11,135 units — a substantial increase from the prior cycle’s 2,926 units. Staff reported the city’s total units to date for the sixth cycle as 1,867.

“The table here shows the city of Mountain View’s RHNA of 11,135 total units,” Madeline Fall said during the presentation.

The presentation described how the APR tracks project milestones from application and entitlement through building permit issuance and certificates of occupancy, and summarized implementation work completed in 2025. Staff listed completed programs including zoning and general plan updates to allow residential development in targeted areas, ongoing outreach to tenants and property owners on tenant rights, adoption of a homeless response strategy and expenditure plan, amendments to the mobile home rent stabilization ordinance to lower allowable annual increases, and adoption of a new master fee schedule tied to a development services fund fee study.

Commissioners focused questions on technical monitoring and implementation: Vice Chair Donahue asked about a provisional buffer for moderate-income units and the timeline for identifying additional sites if inventory drops below the 5% provisional threshold. Anderson explained that, where there is buffer among lower-income units, staff can convert some lower-income unit counts to address moderate-income shortfalls; if a jurisdiction’s inventory does fall below RHNA after approvals, state law gives the jurisdiction six months to rezone properties to refill the inventory.

Commissioner Subramanian asked about the meaning of the “completed” column in Attachment 1, Table 2; Principal Planner Diana Pancholi confirmed completed units are those that received certificates of occupancy. Commissioners also asked about behind‑schedule items in other tables; Anderson said staff is making forward progress and that some council-prioritized work (such as the R3 zoning district update) may help the city meet housing production goals.

After deliberation Commissioner Cranston moved, and Vice Chair Donahue seconded, a motion that the EPC recommend City Council accept the 2025 Housing Element Annual Progress Report. The motion passed 5-0.