Shopping amenities in Placerville

[MannyfromCali]

In looking at real estate both houses and buildable land, it seems that there are many areas around Pacerville that are interesting, up Camino way also. Is Placerville large such that some of these Pacerville addresses may actually be quite a distance from the main town? Does Placerville have friendly policies toward custom home building or is the whole process just an insurmountable PIA? We would want a single level ranch style home 4 bedrooms 3 bath. In areas on well water, is the water of decent quality? What is the cost per square foot roughly for building a home in the Placerville area? I would appreciate input on this from anyone including those with negative but constructive advise.

[KidBlue]

You are exactly right on the zip code for Pville. It's this way for Shingle Springs also. You can live in Cameron Park, Shingle Springs, Latrobe and have the same zip code. The zip code for Pville covers land miles from central Pville.

Building requirements are covered by the county of El Dorado rather than by the city. El Dorado County unfortunately is difficult to deal with. Plan approval is very expensive and takes forever. The inspection process is about as crazy as anywhere (one guy says one thing and the next one contradicts the one before, but the process is usually on time).

My sister built a home last year, and it cost about $140 per square foot. It's a 3,000 square foot 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom two story victorian farmhouse.

Usually the water in Pville is REALLY hard, so you would need a water softener. Kenetico in Pville sellss excellent units and you can get replacement Potassium Chloride there also. The amount of well water varies greatly. In my development (about 600 acres) wells go from 75 to 10 gallons per minute. They make large holding tanks, so usually the amount of water won't be an issue. Many areas of Pville are on El Dorado Irrigation District water that is piped in.

If the building cost is too high in El Dorado, I have friends that had good luck building in Nevada County (Grass Valley) and Placer County (Newcastle), and Amador County is much cheaper and easier than El Dorado. I actually have a friend who decided to sell her land in El Dorado and buy land in Amador (only a few miles away) to avoid the hassel and cost of building in El Dorado. One nice thing about Amador Co. is that you don't have to smog your car.

[MannyfromCali]

Thanks KidBlue. Based on you recommendation, I have begun to explore other areas also like Chicago Park and areas around there. The info on really bad traffic getting through Roseville on the I-80 to get into Sacramento (UC Davis Hospital) is discouraging though. May have to explore alternate surface street routes if I end up somewhere uphill on the I-80, I suppose.

[justducky2]

Manny, I am an ex-SoCal-er, been up here in Shingle Springs for 6 yrs now, and would never, never, go back to the SoCal lifestyle!!

It really depends on the lifestyle you want to live....my family prefers the semi-rural lifestyle of Shingle Springs, and when we need a shopping fix, it's 20 minutes to Barnes & Noble and Old Navy and all the Big Box stores in Folsom. For an even bigger shopping fix, we go to Roseville, about a 45 minute drive (being from SoCal, those drive times to me are no big deal for the quality of life I get up here) with a proper SoCal style mall, Galleria at the Rose. Today, I was in Folsom in the morning, then in Roseville in the afternoon to shop!!

Our biggest stores up here in El Dorado County are Home Depot, Wal Mart, TJ Maxx, KMart, and Target. We also have a lot of great little mom and pop shops. More big box stores are planned.

Many people in El Dorado County commute down the hill...I did it for 5 years and it was no big deal ( having commuted from Simi Valley to various places such as Woodland Hills, North Hollywood, Agoura, and Burbank). Like any place, you just have to know when the peak of rush hour is.

For school districts in the Highway 50 corridor...I was a former teacher, and hubby works for a school district up here...the better districts are Buckeye Union School District (serving Shingle Springs, Cameron Park, and El Dorado Hills), Mother Lode Union School District (serving Diamond Springs, El Dorado, and the western part of Placerville), Gold Trail School District (serving Lotus and Coloma), and Latrobe School District (serving Latrobe). Personally, I wouldn't live in Pollock Pines or Camino with kids in the school system, nor in Placerville proper.

Except in El Dorado Hills, which is very unlike the rest of El Dorado County, we have various ways to heat (I'd say most of us have propane, some have electricity-expensive, and many have woodstoves or pelletstoves) and some use well water. Well water is good, except in case of power failure (!) or prolonged drought (because the water up here is not in a horizontal aquifer, it's in vertical pockets).

If you want suburbs, then Folsom or Roseville might be for you. For us, though, it looked like back home in SoCal and we wanted something different.

Chicago Park, I think, is down in Sacto with the other "Parks." A closer commute if you end up working at a hospital down there, but keep in mind that Sacto schools can be very, very, bad (think LAUSD - I worked for LAUSD and then moved up here, got a job with Sac City Unified - very, very, very, very bad - LAUSD looked like paradise compared to what I went through with Sac City Unified administrators and bad-a## students - proceed with caution).

Lots of buildable land in El Dorado County. Many folks hire realtors that deal with land consulting.

There was another thread on here with lots of info on the area, which might be of help.

[MannyfromCali]

Thank you for your perspective. On the point of school kids in Pollock Pines and Camino, you are not the first to give a caution warning about that. No one, however, has expanded on why that seems to be a prevalent impression. Are the kids in that area just that rowdy, unruly, and undisciplined, perhaps mean? The posts always hint around those opinions but never outright say what the problem is. This sense I get is certainly a BIG redflag as it were and I am certainly going to heed the numerous cautions given to me but my curiosity remains, what kind of trouble are the school kids in those areas?

Thanks again for delineating the decent school districts along the Highway 50 corridor. It is good to know that as a So Ca former, you have a sense of what I am trying to balance in terms of the place to settle in up there.

[justducky2]

Originally Posted by MannyfromCali

Thank you for your perspective. On the point of school kids in Pollock Pines and Camino, you are not the first to give a caution warning about that. No one, however, has expanded on why that seems to be a prevalent impression. Are the kids in that area just that rowdy, unruly, and undisciplined, perhaps mean? The posts always hint around those opinions but never outright say what the problem is. This sense I get is certainly a BIG redflag as it were and I am certainly going to heed the numerous cautions given to me but my curiosity remains, what kind of trouble are the school kids in those areas?

Thanks again for delineating the decent school districts along the Highway 50 corridor. It is good to know that as a So Ca former, you have a sense of what I am trying to balance in terms of the place to settle in up there.

Hi Manny,
Sorry for the late reply, I apparently forgot to subscribe to this thread. Hmmm...why the dance-around? Because, as happened in another thread I replied to (which may have been the one you read), someone else had a different opinion of Pollock Pines schools and students (although I tried to be politically correct there, and the other person didn't exactly flame me, but was sad that I would say such a thing about Pollock Pines students). It's hard to just come out and say something without offending someone...that's why I try to throw in there NOT ALL STUDENTS, or IN MY OBSERVATION, or anecdotal evidence. I've worked in high-risk schools in LAUSD, and then in Sac City Unified. I've had kids that were ethnically diverse, kids who spoke no English, and low-income kids. I had many very, very, nice, well-behaved kids who were ethnically diverse, didn't speak English, or who were low-income. Here in the foothills, we have friends who are on welfare, friends who struggle, friends who are middle class, and friends who are very wealthy. So I'm NOT saying that ALL PP kids are problems....but...from personal experience, anecdotal experience from other adults who have worked with PP kids...SOME of these adults don't want to be responsible for supervising them, because SOME of the kids are problems. In PP, if you look at the 2000 census numbers, and if you actually drive Pony Express Trail from Camino into PP, there are a large number of lower-income people. Don't anyone flame me, I have friends who are low-income, and I grew up that way myself. However, for whatever reason, in my and other's personal experience, it seems like SOME kids in PP are "rowdy", "instigate", "are disrespectful" because they don't seem to have much adult supervision, or the adult supervision they have is also "disrespectful". These are the problem kids with problem parents (which yes, I know, can happen in wealthier schools, too, been there, done that). As I mentioned in another post, there are some adults who prefer not to work in Pollock Pines. Another person on that thread, however, feels that the school where her children go is nice, and she likes the school. And I'm sincerely glad that she's satisfied.

So that's the dilemma of posting your own experiences. We all have different experiences, so I don't discount the poster who likes Pollock Pines schools, and all readers of any of these posts have to remember that we all get different impressions. I don't want to be unpolitically-correct, and I think it would be wrong and illogical to say that all poor white people are PWT, and therefore ALL PP students are PWT. Because they're not, and it's illogical to generalize about any group of people that way. Although I WILL say in El Dorado County, that there can be some rednecks around.

I might mention, too, that even in the "good" school districts and schools, there are drugs (as in SoCal). However, all of our high schools have a permanent sheriff's deputy assigned for good measure (but don't think it's a bad thing, it's more of a preventive thing!). The county, in the rural areas, has meth problems (as in say, the rural high desert areas around Palmdale, Pearblossom, etc.). However, there is no tolerance by the schools for drug use/possession. They won't put up with it. And there are plenty of good kids, yes, in Pollock Pines too. I feel safe with my daughter in our schools.

So take what I say with a grain of salt, too, because I'm looking at these things through my own personal experiences. I do have to say, though, and I lived in Simi Valley for 33 years, a very safe place, I would NEVER, NEVER go back to SoCal. I LOVE living up here. We go to Pollock Pines for dinner in the snow (love the Chinese restaurant there, and the Mexican place!).