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fIN BeUsNtTo A MO
MAY 25, 2018 VOLUME 26, NO. 18
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Rental committee OKs extra 2.6 percent rent hike PRELIMINARY BUDGET TO LEVY LOWER, $139-PER-UNIT FEE ON LANDLORDS IN 2018 2.6 percent figure. City staff had warned the committee on multiountain View tenants ple occasions that going this route this year could see their could invite another lawsuit. On Tuesday night, the rental rents jump as much as 6.2 percent, based on a series of committee considered plans to decisions made Tuesday by the make this extra rent increase city’s Rental Housing Committee. more “legally defensible” by In a unanimous decision, the packaging it into the rent conrental committee established trol law’s petition process. At the city’s 2018 annual allowable Grunewald’s request, city staff rent increase, which will be 3.6 presented plans for an expedited percent. This is the standard petition that landlords could fill out quickincrease sancly to get this tioned under increase. the city’s rent ‘Hopefully by As the process control law, was presented, which is based our third year, city Associate each year on Anky inflation data we won’t have as Planner Van Deursen provided by warned that the Consumer much litigation.’ city staff was Price Index. EVAN ORTIZ, RHC CHAIR bracing for a But landlords potential “avawere also grantlanche” of new ed a special onetime increase of 2.6 percent. This petitions. Landlords seeking this rent increase was promoted as a 2.6 percent increase would still way to balance out a lapse caused need to provide documentation the rent control law’s rent rollback. of ownership and rental bookThe logic goes that during the keeping, and many petitions rollback period, rents were effec- would need to be reviewed at a tively frozen, meaning even infla- formal hearing, as stipulated in tion wasn’t taken into account, the rent control law, she said. At this point, it dawned on according to supporters. This bonus increase was approved by Grunewald that even a simplified the committee in a 4-1 vote, with process could still mean a delChairman Evan Ortiz dissenting. uge of petitions from landlords, In concept, most committee which would be both costly and members and city staffers agreed burdensome. He pulled his supthat landlords deserved some port for the plan. “Most of the purpose for this kind of bonus rent adjustment, but they parted ways on the spe- was for legal defensibility, but this cifics. City staff and attorneys seems like too much cost to bear said landlords should be given for hedging against that,” he said. Instead, the committee decided a 0.6 percent increase for a short period between October 2015 to grant the extra rent hike as a “bankable” increase. Under and February 2016. The committee majority, led by the rent control law, landlords member Matthew Grunewald, are allowed to bank extra rent argued that this period should increases for future years if they be much longer and encompass about 10 months, leading to the See RHC, page 16 By Mark Noack
M COURTESY OF CITY OF MOUNTAIN VIEW
An 11-story apartment building proposed for 400 Logue Ave. got the green light from City Council members on Tuesday.
11-story housing proposal moves forward PROJECT GETS BIG BOOST IN SIZE THROUGH DEAL WITH SCHOOL DISTRICT By Kevin Forestieri
M
ountain View City Council members agreed Tuesday night to allow a compact housing project to move forward that,
barring any major changes, could end up being one of the city’s tallest and densest housing developments yet. The project at 400 Logue Ave., which council members voted 3-2 to allow to move forward
through the city’s planning process, proposes building more than 400 homes split between an 11-story and a seven-story building on a fairly small, See HOUSING PROJECT, page 11
Decision looms over new LASD school TASK FORCE WEIGHS WHAT TO DO WITH A FUTURE SAN ANTONIO CAMPUS By Kevin Forestieri
L
os Altos School District officials are inching toward a conclusion on whether a new campus planned for the San Antonio Shopping Center area in Mountain View will be a neighborhood elementary school or the new home of Bullis Charter School. Earlier this month, the district’s 10th Site Advisory Task Force held the first of multiple
INSIDE
marathon meetings to decide what to recommend be done with 8.6 acres of land just north of the shopping center. School board members agreed last year to pursue purchasing the site — acquiring it by means of eminent domain if necessary — calling it the best shot at dealing with future enrollment growth in the northernmost part of the district. Although task force members concede they aren’t close to forming their recommendations
to the school board quite yet, some of the members say the district’s data and analysis favors moving the charter school to Mountain View as the leastdisruptive option. Among other things, relocating Bullis would not require drawing new school boundaries, would be the quickest to implement and would preserve the income diversity that Mountain View students bring to See SAN ANTONIO, page 16
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