Demolition of affordable housing units passes in Mountain View

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (KGO) -- A rent-controlled Mountain View apartment complex has been home to Donis Morales and his family for 16 years.

"It's kind of frustrating because my kids have been living over here their whole life," Morales said.

A big white sign now sits outside his family's home. It's a notice to demolish the 20 rent controlled apartments on Rock Street to build 15 luxury townhomes.

The developer said the new units will cost around $1.3 million a piece. The price is a drastic shift from the less than $2,000 a month the Morales' pay in rent.

Seventy-five people, including 30 children, would be displaced. The developers have offered relocation assistance.

"I don't want them to knock down the building because my school is near here and my friends we can walk together," Ashley Morales said.

Protestors took concerns like the Morales family's to city hall Tuesday night.

"To me, it's so unjust that we're living in a community where only the people of the highest income are going to be able to live," Gabi Deeds, a protester outside city hall said.

"What if you were living in a home and someone just randomly kicked you out, how would you feel," was Maya Uggirala's message to the city council.

Mountain View's mayor could hear the chants of protesters from inside the council chambers. He thinks the new development would force people out.

"It's not just that I'm sympathetic to the kids who won't go to the same schools," Mayor Lenny Siegel said. "We need the people who live in these buildings to make our community tick."

Mountain View's city council voted to approve the development four to three with the added condition that the developer agreed to not ask tenants to relocate through all of 2019.