Mountain View will begin installing "No Parking" signs this month to enforce a voter-approved ban on oversized vehicles parking on the vast majority of its streets.
Measure C passed with nearly 57% of the vote in November, barring boats, large trucks and RVs from parking on streets that are fewer than 40 feet wide. The measure couldn't be enforced, however, until the city started putting up "No Parking" signs.
Mountain View officials said in a release Monday that the city's contractor will begin installing signs no later than the middle of next month, starting with the Monta Loma, Farley and Rock St. neighborhood area in the city's northwest quadrant.
The process will take "at least" six months, according to city officials. Announcing the City Council had certified the vote in December, officials estimated the cost installing the signs to be just $20,000 shy of $1 million.
Over 83% of the city's 525 public streets qualify as "narrow," according to officials, and housing advocates have argued the measure was designed to push out Mountain View's unhoused residents amid rapidly rising rents.
Mountain View officials have committed to fund as many as 100 "Safe Parking" spots for unhoused people to park the oversized vehicles in which they reside. As of last July, an estimated 265 people were living in vehicles on public roads in the city.
The typical home value in Mountain View is nearly $1.9 million, according to Zillow estimates.
The City Council voted last week, 4-3, to earmark $16 million toward an 84-unit affordable housing project at the intersection of Shoreline Blvd. and Montecito Ave. Over half of those units would be two- and three-bedroom apartments, and the building would contain 150 bedrooms in all, according to an application from Charities Housing.
The full list of "narrow" public streets in Mountain View can be found here.
