Best ROCHESTER neighborhoods??? (Henrietta, Brighton, Pittsford: best neighborhoods, new house, safe)

[liseli1556]

We are moving to Rochester in a few months.

Can anyone recommend the best neighborhoods near the U of R for a family w/ small children?

[I'minformed2]

do you want to be in the city of Rochester, or the suburbs? The city of Rochester has very nice neighborhoods with great houses for your money with TONS of historic charecter (Ellwanger-Barry neighborhood would be the nicest UofR area neighborhood) HOWEVER, you mentioned you have young children, and the public schools in teh city aren't very good....the schools in suburban Rochester however, are some of hte best in the country...especially in teh closest (to UofR) suburb, Brighton. If you would rather live in teh city though, you are lookng in the right spot, Southeast Rochester, as far as nice homes, safe neighborhoods and family freindly (which the exception of public schools).

[liseli1556]

Thank you so much for the info.

=)

[purplelabrador]

I would also recommend Brighton (3-4 miles from U of R) and Pittsford (a few miles further). They are nice places for children with good public schools. I would also agree that most of the city schools are not great, or they weren't a few years ago. Things can change of course.

[garmin239]

The neighborhood around highland park is very nice and close to UR. But the schools in the city are not good. If you want to live in the city, send your kids to private school. Otherwise live in the suburbs.

[AJNEOA]

I think that Brighton is the nicest and most convenient suburb to UofR. Of course, I wouldn't rule out Henrietta either. There's a lot of nice new houses and building property in Henrietta. Brighton is also beautiful, but has a different feel. Older, more historic houses and regulations on building exist there. I would also keep an eye on property/school taxes...especially in Brighton. Henrietta is a little cheaper on the tax side.

[katek]

I would say Brighton is the best, but also Henrietta is good too (maybe a little cheaper?) and Pittsford is nice but more expensive

[karen824]

We just moved to Brighton at the end of June and our kids (8th and 10th grade) started school here today. So far, we've been very happy with the town. My sister-in-law has lived here for over 20 years and has been very pleased with the schools. She says that Brighton is very focused on academics, and on extracurriculars like drama. Sports are perhaps less popular here than in some of the other suburban schools.

I will say that Pittsford has more of a real "downtown" or "village" center--very pretty, quaint stores, restaurants and paths near the canal, etc. Brighton has the 12 Corners, which I guess is supposed to be the "center of town," but it really is a collection of small shopping areas surrounded by busy cross streets. I'm not saying it's bad, it's just not really a "downtown" the way I think of one--with the post office, town hall, etc. all in fairly close proximity and within walking distance of one another. However, one thing that is really nice is that the middle school and high school are right next to one another and are both near 12 Corners. This is really convenient when your kids reach the ages for those schools.

To us, Brighton seems very inexpensive, but we moved here from Westchester County (near NYC), so pretty much everything would seem cheaper! We just got our school tax bill, which with the various STAR exemptions and rebates is just under $3,000. That's about half of what we were paying in Westchester. Our house is a 4-bedroom, 2.5 bath split level on about a quarter acre and we paid $185,000, which I think was a really good deal. Most of the houses we looked at were in the low $200s, although it's possible to find homes for less and for much more. Our house needed some fairly minor repairs and cosmetic work but nothing major.
Karen