Playa Del Rey? (Los Angeles, Inglewood, Burbank: condo, houses, neighborhood)

[Jonah K]

Originally Posted by dusesean1986

I wasn't sure if you meant this was the only option. St. Bernards is a private Catholic School, you don't have to attend there, no districting lines claiming your a part of the school, it's only by pure choice if a student attends there. If you can afford to live in Playa Del Rey, you can clearly afford to send your son or daughter to another private school. Sorry, didn't mean to pinpoint your quote, only used as a reference.

BTW, I don't think most people are making clear judgments about Playa D.R.
Personally, I don't believe most posters have spent much time there, based on the broad and generalized opinions expressed in past threads of P.D.R. Folks are complaining P.D.R. has unbearable traffic, when they express West L.A. is the greatest choice they've ever seen. Doesn't West L.A. have some pretty horendous traffic in certain parts? The airplane noise, how would we know how much airplaine noise, have we spent a Super Bowl Sunday in P.D.R. and noticed the horrendous screeching noise. The rude people found in P.D.R., have we sipped coffee in P.D.R., and not been given proper service, in our short annual visits to the city. I'm not only saying this for P.D.R., but please information must be accurate and clear, because one poster can scare an individual seeking information on a desired location, and it can be a false label of a certain place.

I lived in Playa del Rey for three years near St. Bernard. Unfortunately, the school attracted a certain "ghetto element" to the community. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, LAX purchased and tore down most of the houses in the southern portion of Playa del Rey for a proposed expansion. The community never really recovered from that, despite the construction of numerous condos during the late 1980s and 1990s on land that LAX deemed "surplus" and sold off to developers. The original poster wanted to live in a "beach town", not a somewhat declining part of Los Angeles near the ocean, so the cities of Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Redondo Beach are probably better choices.

[macapuno]

we lived in playa del rey for a while and LOVED it. the first thing that attracted me to the place was the fact that a lot of people walk their dogs/jog at night....made me feel like it was a safe place. pdr is generally a place to live/hang out...but not to go shopping. the closest malls are in culver city, manhattan beach, west la.

pros:
- dog friendly...most people seem to own at least one! the great surprise for us was that people actually pick up after their dogs when they walk them
- anywhere in this town is close to the beach
- great location (close to all the beach cities...including venice/santa monica)
- close to the airport (convenient; about the noise, the airport paid pdr residents/building owners to update the windows...ours has double paned windows...couldn't hear the planes even when we first moved in!)
- friendly neighbors (even though my boyfriend and i are not white, we felt very comfortable and did not feel any racial tension with anyone living here)
- several restaurants with great food and good customer service in their "downtown." i put it in quotes because pdr's downtown is about 2 seconds big. still, they do have a few fun bars. it's very close to lmu; so, you may notice a good number of people from that university there.

cons:
- expensive (renting here isn't so bad...but the condos/homes are very expensive)
- close to the airport (not for the noise, but...who knows how much pollution the area has with that much air traffic.
- not very diverse
- expensive gas station

overall, i wouldn't rule out pdr if i were you. my recommendations would be pdr, manhattan, hermosa, redondo, santa monica.

i wouldn't recommend living in venice...it's a bit grungy.

marina del rey is definitely not a beach town. you'd fit right in if you were retiring with a boat.

[PureHapa]

PDR is teeny-tiny, and it's part of the city of Los Angeles. The south bay beach cities are very nice, and for a young person, Hermosa and Manhattan Beach have a lot to offer. It gets more sedate as you go south towards South Redondo Beach, but it's still nice there too. The Gallery apartments in Hermosa Beach are close to the beach and full of young, professional single people.

[Keithns]

Originally Posted by Strummer83

Ah..well, thank you for the insight! I was looking at places in Redondo and Manhattan Beach that fit my rent range. I guess I should mostly stick with places I've been and enjoyed myself. Just one more question though: is Marina Del Rey any better? It was a bit more pricier, but seemed nice from what I've read. If not, I'll stick to the other beach towns south of there.

You might try Redondo Beach along the avenues, A through i, preferably on the Esplanade. Its south of Redondo Pier. Really really close to the beach, steady breeze from the Pacific. I've been down here for 28 years and I can't think of a reason to move.

[Angel Bear]

I've stayed there with my friend who lives there. It was great to be close to the airport and the other beach towns in West L.A. I thought I read something recently that there is protected wetlands or wildlife areas so the building is not as rapid there as in other areas. I mean, it's still congested lol.

[fastfilm]

AngelBear and others, the new Playa Vista mega-development between Marina del Rey and Playa del Rey has an interesting pedigree: a lot of it was carved out of the old Howard Hughes properties, which was the only reason they were left undeveloped for long (a rarity in L.A., particularly with coastal property.) Howard Hughes wasn't exactly hurting for bucks, and too nutty to develop it himself in his later years.

Environmental activists lobbied to save the Ballona Wetlands part of the acreage, and received some area set aside, but not enough to be feasible as part of the Pacific flyway for migrating birds.

[shannon94]

Originally Posted by newportbeachsmostwanted

Marina Del Rey is not a beach town. It has a small enclosed beach called "Mothers" which is polluted 300 days a years and closed for 265. Mainly the city is congested with traffic and the people are not as friendly as in Manhattan or Hermosa.

However Venice is right next door. Fun place when your young!!!

[cgmaetc]

Originally Posted by Jonah K

Playa del Rey is not particularly safe compared to other nearby beach cities. Many students at local the Catholic High School (St. Bernard) come from South L.A., Gardena, Compton, Hawthorne, Inglewood, Lennox, and Lawndale and occasionally the ills of those communities follow them.

Is this the SAME Playa Del Rey where the 1br/1bath condos start at $700K? Where my friend just bought a $1.8 mill home? Where bachelor apartments rent for $1500/mo?

St. Bernard has it's problems, yes, but those kids hop on the bus on in their cars and go home. And it's only one street really. and it's not even that bad. Just because you see a bunch of black and brown kids doesn't automatically mean there's trouble.

If you can find something in that area in your price range, go for it. The prose (light traffic, near beach, freeway access, great restaurants, cool shipping) far outweigh the cons (isolated incidents at local high school). And honestly, you get used to the sound of the planes.

[cgmaetc]

Originally Posted by fastfilm

AngelBear and others, the new Playa Vista mega-development between Marina del Rey and Playa del Rey has an interesting pedigree: a lot of it was carved out of the old Howard Hughes properties, which was the only reason they were left undeveloped for long (a rarity in L.A., particularly with coastal property.) Howard Hughes wasn't exactly hurting for bucks, and too nutty to develop it himself in his later years.

Environmental activists lobbied to save the Ballona Wetlands part of the acreage, and received some area set aside, but not enough to be feasible as part of the Pacific flyway for migrating birds.

Just FYI, the Hughes estate still owns most of the land in Playa Vista still. From LMU to La Ballona, from Inglewood ave to Jefferson to Manchester to Lincoln. And all those new developments? They are just 'renting' the land from Hughes.

Hopefully, they won't let Dreamworks build their animation studio over there... the traffic would be horrendous.

[Strummer83]

Thanks for all the responses! I actually am now looking more in the valley because there were a lot more listings online in my price range. I'd love to be closer to the beach, but I can deal with the heat until that happens. I found a place that looks okay located in Burbank, off of Riverside right between Cahuenga Blvd and N Pass Ave..if anyone knows where that is. It looks like a good neighborhood crime wise, with a lot within walking distance. Does anyone have any information on that section of Burbank?