A Saratoga resident and her attorney are continuing a lawsuit that ties up an estimated $6.3 billion in voter-approved funds for Santa Clara County transportation projects.
One such project facing construction delays is the redesign of Foothill Expressway in Los Altos.
The city of Los Altos met its target date for completing the Covington Road bicycle/pedestrian improvement project, wrapping up major construction last week.
“As is the case for most projects, we anticipate there will be some punch-list items which will be taken care of in early August,” said Susanna Chan, the city’s director of public works.
Hoping to capitalize on the vibrancy of Mountain View’s downtown core, developers have shown increasing interest in building out the area’s restaurant and retail sites to include office space.
“It almost feels like an avalanche of proposals for office space,” said Robert Cox, who has served for five years on Mountain View’s Environmental Planning Commission, which advises the city council on whether to approve development proposals.
New housing developments have been rising in Mountain View at a rapid rate, but the city still faces an essential Silicon Valley conundrum: With going rates starting at nearly $3,000 a month for a new studio apartment unit and climbing from there, the “market rate” for new housing remains far above what is affordable – by any definition – for middle-class earners.
Additions to the local housing market typically take one of two forms: either high-end projects able to command “luxury” prices or subsidized affordable housing projects earmarked for specific tenants. New housing includes little – arguably, nothing – accessible to average middle-income earners.
Local students who bike to Cupertino Middle School and Homestead High School via Grant Road are forced to make what many consider a dangerous choice near Crist Drive: merge into traffic or cross the road illegally and bike against traffic on a bike path on the opposite side of the road.
As the Los Altos Planning and Transportation Commission reviewed California’s new Density Bonus Law last week, members agreed that additional housing is needed because of what Commissioner Ronit Bodner referred to as the “crisis” of affordable housing.
“The reason these density bonus regulations have gone into effect,” Bodner said, “is because we as a community are failing to provide enough affordable housing. So the state is taking it out of our hands and imposing this regulation on us to force these communities to do more than the status quo.”
