Council Advances R3 Zoning Update, Sets Legislative Priorities
February 10, 2026
Mountain View City Council voted 5-1 to advance a comprehensive R3 zoning overhaul with form-based standards, and adopted a 2026 legislative platform that includes single-stair reform and condo liability reform.
Mountain View’s February 10th Council meeting ran nearly to midnight, but the payoff was substantial: Council gave clear direction on the long-awaited R3 zoning update, approved a 2026 legislative platform that includes several housing production reforms we’ve been pushing for, and handled a consent calendar that included the 881 Castro street vacation for the Lot 12 affordable housing project.
R3 Zoning Update (Item 7.1)
This was the main event. The R3 zoning update has been in the works since 2019, and Council finally gave staff direction to complete it this year. The goal: replace the current R3 standards with objective, form-based standards that make multifamily housing feasible and encourage stacked flats over the townhome developments that have dominated recent R3 projects.
We submitted a detailed letter on this item back in January when it was before the EPC, and a follow-up letter on SB 79 and AB 130 implementation ahead of this meeting. Both James Kuszmaul and I spoke during public comment to reiterate our key recommendations: remove density limits in favor of form-based standards like FAR and height, reduce excessive front setbacks, replace arbitrary massing break requirements with ornamentation alternatives, allow ground-floor retail everywhere, and reduce parking minimums.
What Council Approved
Councilmember Ramirez moved a detailed 12-point motion that adopted the staff recommendations with several additions. The Council voted 5-1 (McAlister opposed, Kamei recused) on the first batch of items and 5-1 (McAlister opposed) on the remaining items. Here’s what we’re most excited about:
Ornamentation alternatives to massing breaks. Council directed staff to include ornamentation options in the massing features section, specifically allowing changes in materials, ornamentation, and window patterns as alternatives to the costly structural breaks in the current draft. This is exactly what we asked for in our letter. Massing breaks are expensive, create waterproofing risks, and don’t actually make buildings look better. Bay windows, balconies, and material changes do.
Commercial uses allowed in more subdistricts. Council adopted the EPC recommendation to allow commercial uses in R3-D and R3-B, not just the originally proposed R3-D. This was another item from our letter. If a developer can make ground-floor retail pencil, the zoning shouldn’t prohibit it.
Lot consolidation “incentive” scrapped. The original proposal would have punished small lots by capping their density to “incentivize” consolidation. Council directed staff to drop this and instead explore positive incentives like fee waivers and expedited processing. We argued strongly against the original approach, and it’s good to see Council agreed that artificially demoting small parcels isn’t an incentive.
