Why we want the City to study a higher intensity alternative to in the EIR of the General Plan

MVCSP has long been saying that if Mountain View plans for more homes (even more than the current preferred alternative draft of the General Plan calls for, and that document is already setting the bar pretty high!) it will even out the imbalance of jobs and homes. Right now, many people commute into work each day from other cities. All those cars generate a lot of greenhouse gas emissions. If those employees could find an appropriately priced home close to their job, then they could live and work in the same place! To achieve that balance, Mountain View needs to plan for more homes to be built.

The other reason MVCSP wants to see a higher intensity alternative studied is that during the public workshop process everybody said "YES! We want our city to be a city of villages where people can walk and meet many of their needs in their own neighborhood!". In order to create these cute, walkable neighborhoods with shops, homes, transit, etc, where people get out of their cars, we need a certain number of residents to support these services. Economic analysis shows that we might not be able to hit that village target with the current densities.

Bottom Line
We think that the preferred alternative of the General Plan is pretty gosh darn good, but if a more intensive alternative would lower our environmental impact, we want to know about it!