Google Unpopular With Mountain View City Council

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Yesterday, we told you about Apple’s continued growth in the city of Cupertino, California. Cupertino loves Apple, and the mayor and city government there pretty much give Apple whatever the company wants (in return for tax dollars of course – Apple is the largest taxpayer in Cupertino). Just up the highway though, Google isn’t too popular with their hometown. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the city of Mountain View, California is becoming unhappy with Google’s continued growth within the city limits.

According to the Journal, Google will be tearing down and building new high-density corporate space on some land in Mountain View its leasing from the US federal government. They’ll be building bridges over a creek that’s on that land. A path along the creek is currently used by hikers and other outdoor enthusiasts, and some folks on the Mountain View city council are concerned about Google’s bridges going up over the creek. While the path on the creek will remain open to the public even after Google expands beyond it and builds their bridges, the path may be obstructed or close during construction.

Google is planning to build 1.2 million square feet of office space starting in 2013. Like Apple in Cupertino, Google is the largest single taxpayer in the city of Mountain View. Google’s plan for expansion was criticized by Mountain View city council member Laura Macias. Macias said that “we may not develop as much as Google wants,” and she criticized their plans for development saying that it will change “the entire complexion” of the area.

Obviously, Mountain View needs to be careful here. It sounds like Google wants to stay in the city, but they could start expanding outside the city of the local government gives them too much grief.