Courtesy SILVAR
The Mountain View City Council voted to increase fees on new rental, office, high-tech, and industrial development, but made no change to fees on new ownership housing. In making its decision, the council discussed the serious lack of available ownership housing in Mountain View and the need to keep ownership an attractive option for developers. The City dedicates these fees to funding Mountain View’s affordable housing programs. Continue reading
Like an ocean view or a Park Avenue address, majestic old-growth trees have become invaluable commodities in luxury real estate. Inspired by their sculptural beauty,
Leafy Mature Trees add Premium Value to Real Estate
architects are designing or remodeling entire homes around them. High-end developers—once known for stripping tracts of land to the dirt and planting saplings after construction—are now calling off the bulldozers.
“You can’t go out and buy a 50- or 75-year-old oak tree,” said Jack Perkins, vice president of Elm Street Development, a residential developer in Washington, D.C. Elm Street bought an 8½-acre estate near Georgetown to build 1801 Foxhall, a community of 27 multimillion-dollar homes. Before breaking ground on the project, the developer dispatched an arborist to catalog and evaluate every mature spruce, sycamore and poplar tree.
CLICK HERE or http://bit.ly/leafyRE for the article by AMY GAMERMAN Wall Street Journal
Fleets of Corporate Buses that dot clogged highways have become the concrete symbol of the dramatic expansion in the Bay Area sending rents and homes prices skyrocketing. The gentrification of neighborhoods have dramatically changed Silicon Valley real estate and rents are up as much as 43 percent within a few blocks of company transit to stops in San Francisco, according to one measure.
Mountain View Google’s Fleet of Commute Buses
As Silicon Valley once spanned the short stretch from Palo Alto to San Jose, the boundaries have expanded marketing prime real estate as – “Walk to your private bus stop.”
“Transportation is the new status symbol” – the hulking luxury buses complete with Wi-Fi and electricity outlets “signal that you have a job and that you have one with a firm that is forward-thinking and enlightened.” “You live where you want to live, we’ll get you to work,” stated Kevin Mathy, Google’s transportation manager, describing the Internet search giant philosophy. That simple goal has become an economic force.
CLICK HERE for an excellent article by Michelle Quinn, San Jose Mercury News.