From what I can tell, Google plays as nice as humanly possible, there were just a lot of NIMBYs in the Mountain View city council until recently who hated the idea of getting housing in that area. But the NIMBYs lost badly last fall, and now the city actually is moving forward with housing in North Bayshore. I just wish they were moving forward with more (I think right now the plan is like ~5,000 units).
My observation would be that relationships are not Google strong suit. They don't really do customers or enterprise. Support has been lacking for a long time. They are not even that good at managing their brand considering their popularity. Maybe they will get their way eventually, but I think people are going to be disappointing in a decade or so. It's supposedly the technology capital of the world and deserves a greater outcome then what a few companies can push through a dysfunctional process.
See: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2015/04/15/heres-whe...