A proposal for a new office development on nearly four acres of land in Mountain View’s East Whisman Precise Plan garnered unanimous approval by the Environmental Planning Commission on Wednesday.

While the proposal came with some drawbacks, including the removal of 61 heritage trees to make room for development, commissioners were encouraged by the community benefits and publicly accessible open space that the project will add.

"One of the real exciting components to this was the development of the public open spaces throughout the project, and the connectivity, the flowing of pedestrians through the spaces to really make this a very inviting environment that really creates significant value for the whole community," landscape architect Gary Laymon said on behalf of the applicant, Sand Hill Property Company, at the March 22 meeting.

The development, located at 189 N. Bernardo Ave., will feature a new four-story, 83,000-square-foot office building, located within the site’s existing surface parking lot; a new six-story parking garage, with four stories above grade and two levels below grade; and renovations to an existing two-story, 59,000-square-foot office building.

The site is located within the East Whisman Precise Plan, and is zoned for high intensity office uses in the city’s general plan. Surrounding the proposed project are some existing office buildings and multifamily housing.

New office developments proposed within the East Whisman Precise Plan are typically beholden to the jobs-housing linkage strategy, a program the city created to try to balance office and housing growth. The jobs-housing linkage requires a certain amount of housing to be built for every 1,000 square feet of office space being developed.

But this project is exempt from that housing requirement because it’s part of a transfer of development rights (TDR) program established in January 2018, more than a year before the East Whisman Precise Plan, and the jobs-housing linkage program, was finalized.

Established between the city and the Los Altos School District, the TDR program authorized this project to add up to 28,000 square feet of floor area as a trade-off for giving $3.6 million to the school district. In other words, developers get to build a denser project, and in exchange, the district gets much needed funds to support their acquisition of a new school site, city staff said at the meeting.

In addition to the extra floor area from the TDR program, developers also requested about 48,000 square feet of extra density under the East Whisman Precise Plan’s bonus floor-area-ratio program. In exchange for that added density, the developer will give a $1.3 million community benefits contribution to the city, which staff plan to use for an undercrossing project on Bernardo Avenue, a joint venture between the cities of Mountain View and Sunnyvale.

The project will also provide community benefits in the form of a privately owned, publicly accessible (POPA) open space, a multi-use path with bicycle facilities and a north-to-south pedestrian walkway.

To make way for the new office building, as well as some of the publicly accessible site improvements, 111 trees have to be removed, including 61 heritage trees.

“The applicant has worked extensively with city staff to develop the optimal site design to achieve tree preservation where possible, while providing public access envisioned in the East Whisman Precise Plan complete streets network,” said associate city planner Brittany Whitehill at the meeting.

To make up for all the lost foliage, the developer proposes planting 220 new trees, including 46 coast live oaks and 36 valley oaks. Once those trees reach maturity, the overall tree canopy will be larger than it is right now. The applicant will also make 85% of the landscaping native plants.

“There are always tradeoffs with anything here, and I think in this case it’s mostly the trees, unfortunately,” Commissioner Chris Clark said at the meeting. “But I’m encouraged that we were able to find additional trees we were able to save, and I think some of the impacts are of our own making, with requiring the multi-use trail.”

Clark moved to support the project, which means it will next go to the city council in May for final approval. The motion passed unanimously.