HELP! North, South, East, West - Where is best? (Pittsburgh: houses, neighborhood)
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Franklin Park is part an area known as Wexford that I mentioned once before. It's next to Cranberry, a town in very similar regard, but Cranberry is in Butler Country and Wexford is in Allegheny. This entire area is one of the fastest growing areas in population and business not only in Pittsburgh but in the United States!! A great many people commute to Pittsburgh from these areas and the commute isn't too bad.
Taxes are a bit high and will continue to climb as the area grows by leaps and bounds. A definite place to check out, though. Many beautiful homes probably right in your price range and good schools. The area is above North Hills. Other towns that make up the Cranberry/Wexford area include McCandless, Pine Township, and Marshall Township. I would definitely look into their tax rates. Mars is another city that is clustered up there and would also be something to look into for sure.
If this is confusing, let me clear it up. That GREATER area is made up of Cranberry, Mars, and Wexford. Cranberry and Mars are both in Butler County. Wexford is in Allegheny county and it itself is made up of several districts: Franklin Park, McCandless, Pine Township, and Marshall Township. Together, clustered right on each other's borders and the borders of two counties, is one of the fastest growing places in the US. I would advise first to find the tax rates between Allegheny and Butler Counties as you will have a decision to make. If you decide on Butler County because it's cheaper, I would then find out the tax rates of the local townships of Mars and Cranberry. Essentially, any of those places will yield nearly the same quality of life - they are smashed up against each other.
I will add one more thing if you care about school districts. All three of those places have different school districts. Wexford goes to North Allegheny, Cranberry goes to Seneca Valley, and Mars goes to Mars Area. They are all good school districts (North Allegheny is one of the best in PA), so if I had to rank them in terms of quality they would go like this: North Allegheny > Seneca Valley > Mars Area
Fun Fact - North Allegheny is where Christina Aguilera went
West View is a lot like Belleview (a bit better though) and they are neighbors!! Fairly "stagnant and depressed" towns according to my boyfriend. The only big difference is West View kids go to North Hills (good) and Belleview kids go to North Gate (bad). He claims West View is a notch up from Belleview, but both are only meh
Shaler is not a bad town by any means and is fairly cute and tidy, but the school district is very lackluster and some of the surrounding towns are very sketchy.
Ross and North Hills are essentially interchangeable words. It's a good area, mostly middle - upper class and obviously part of North Hills school district (high quality). However, a lot of people from North Hills/Ross are migrating further North to guess where??
A little more info. Wexford is a big mix of old and new. Some beautiful old stone houses and Victorian homes in Wexford along with brand spanking new stuff. Cranberry is almost exclusively new and Mars isn't far behind. That might help in your decision.
I'm sorry you're right. Wexford is in Allegheny while Craberry is in Butler. And yepper, Cranberry's taxes are being raised, just heard it yesterday I think.
They said the city can't keep up with infrastructure with the growing population!
SNAP!!!!
I never did understand this pretext for raising taxes: If your population is growing so much, SO IS YOUR TAX BASE. So what are you using all that extra revenue for if not to improve/expand the infrastructure? And even if the growth in tax base can't keep up with the cost of needed infrastructure improvements, why the hell should already-established residents have to subsidize the arrival of new ones???
I think that commuting is easier from the North Hills, particularly if you live near one of the I-279 exits in Ross, West View, or Franklin Park. You can buy a very nice house in Ross for $200,000 or less, though it may have only 3BR and 1.5 baths. Most of Ross is very middle class -- not upper-middle class, and the housing stock is 30+ years old. There may be a few little new developments here and there, but most of the area is already built up. Ross Park Mall on McKnight Rd has all of the usual stores, plus apparently Nordstrom is coming (according to the family who still lives there).
If you want a bigger, newer house, you will have to go farther north into the North Allegheny School District, but it will be more than $200K.
I'm sorry you're right. Wexford is in Allegheny while Craberry is in Butler. And yepper, Cranberry's taxes are being raised, just heard it yesterday I think.
They said the city can't keep up with infrastructure with the growing population!
SNAP!!!!
After we started our janitorial company (owner operated -- which means WE do the work) I hadn't been able to travel back to Cranberry. Last October, I got to go back -- It rained -- HARD -- thundered and lighteninged and SNOWED!!! it was so cool....
But I was shocked and dismayed to see how Cranberry had grown. They need to tighten up on this, and make some destination shopping out there or they're going to be in big trouble when some other place becomes the place to go...
Nah, you can find a lovely home in Wexford, Cranberry, or Mars for $200,000. It might not be glorious, but you can easily find one, and a fairly nice one. Condo's are a great option, too. Truthfully, I think the easiest commute is for those who use Route 28 to get in and out of the city. Unfortunately, recently there has been a bout of bad luck with a few landslides all happening around the same time.
It is a MESS right now, but traffic is never terribly slow.
I never did understand this pretext for raising taxes: If your population is growing so much, SO IS YOUR TAX BASE. So what are you using all that extra revenue for if not to improve/expand the infrastructure? And even if the growth in tax base can't keep up with the cost of needed infrastructure improvements, why the hell should already-established residents have to subsidize the arrival of new ones???
I might have a reasonable explanation of this -- at least in this case. We moved to Cranberry when I was 5, in 1964. The main artery roads were Rte 19, Freedom Rd, Rte 228 , Rochester Rd and Franklin Rd. Only Rte 19 had 4 lanes. When Cranberry was small those were fine.
But now there is a lot of traffic on both Rochester and Freedom, and a lot of it is coming from the Beaver Valley. At least ONE of those roads should be four lane access way. The problem this that on BOTH of those roads there are old homes on them, and generally families don't want to live on a four lane road. Not to mention lose the land around their house to build it, and mess and noise of building a four lane road. And quite a few of those houses on Rochester are over 100 years old, and if I'm correct one of them is a original settler house, which would make it nearly 200 years old. And historical to the area.
Anyhow -- they need to widen the roads instead of calming traffic down with lights... that works well enough in the daytime, but when businesses start leaving out at 5, the roads are gridlocked.
And to do that they would have to eminent domain lots of land along the areas they wanted to build, which means they would have to pay off the owners of that land, and then pay to have the road built, and since both those roads have such traffic, they would almost certainly want to work night and day which means higher wages paid out. They also wouldn't be able to close the road to no access, which would be the quickest way to lay a new road, they'd have to do it in pieces to allow access at all times, which is a longer build time which means more wages and higher chance of cost over runs. (By the way -- I live near the Bay Bridge which is doing all this now... )
I can see taxes going up to pay for all this....
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