Objective

The Mountain View Chamber of Commerce seeks legislation that shares the Chamber's core values and principles as outlined below. We recognize that a healthy economy is balanced by quality of life, and believe in businesses and the community at large working together to make Mountain View the best place to live and work. We support local leadership who will address these challenges and are eager to engage the Chamber of Commerce as a key partner in developing meaningful solutions.

Growth

Silicon Valley, and Mountain View in particular, is at the center of a rapidly growing and changing region and economy. Our geography places us in the position to be significantly impacted by this growth, whether or not we encourage commercial and residential development within Mountain View’s borders. We believe that Mountain View should embrace its natural role as a hub for innovative thinking and solutions – proactively planning to grow “smart.” Rather than allow the policy decisions of our neighboring communities to drive our fate, we believe that Mountain View must capitalize on the substantial benefits to be had from strategically accommodating the current demand for growth and development in our backyard. We support:

• Moderately dense housing and commercial development in our core areas and near key transit routes;
• Increased density of commercial and office space where it currently exists, provided that traffic impacts can be mitigated through new transit capacity, as well as transportation and housing policy.

Economic & Workforce Development

Mountain View is home to a wide variety of businesses – some of which have been part of our community for many years and others that are very new, some that are among the largest companies in the world and others that represent just a handful of employees. The Chamber represents this full spectrum of businesses and supports policies that allow all of them to grow and thrive.  We support:

• Fostering an environment that attracts and retains new businesses
• Streamlining the process and fees associated with business permitting to reduce the burden on new and growing businesses;
• A combination of immediate support for the survival of small businesses from the pandemic and longer-term sustainable solutions to ensure their health and growth.
• Policies and programs that help connect businesses with qualified, local employees;
• A minimum wage that equitably balances the needs of employees and the ability of their employers to operate a sustainable business.

Affordability

We strongly value the diversity of our community and believe that proactive measures to maintain that diversity - in terms of our population and our businesses - are needed. The growth of our local economy has led to skyrocketing costs for housing and commercial space in Mountain View. While we understand that demand is the driving force in this equation, it is incumbent upon Mountain View to address our constrained supply of housing and office/retail space to help alleviate this pressure. On this issue, we support solutions including:

• Increasing the development of new housing in a variety of shapes, sizes, and levels of affordability;
• Expediting the review process for new development that would increase the local housing stock;
• Offering incentives for businesses and developers to support programs for low-income families and seniors.
• The development of affordable housing and viable transit options that allow employees of all levels and skillsets to work in Mountain View;

Transportation

The livability of our community and our ability to capture the benefits of expected growth rely upon providing real solutions to our rapidly increasing traffic problem. Among the investments we support in our local transportation network are:

• Solutions that manage demand and capacity for parking downtown;
• Bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure and policies that support those modes as compelling alternatives to driving;
• Policies and programs that support carpool/rideshare programs to and within Mountain View;
• The assessment of rapid transit options;
• Caltrain grade separation to help address the capacity of the system to support increased ridership.

Community

• Promote diverse hiring practices
• Educate companies and individuals on how best to combat systemic discrimination
• Enable strong bonds to be built between businesses and the community, with high levels of interaction, communication, and thought partnership
• Provide part-time meaningful work experience for youth, including internships and apprenticeships