Safety Harbor (Tampa, Clearwater, Palm Harbor: relocate, work, houses)

[MichaelNYC]

Hi and Thanks for stopping and taking a look 'ere

Any feedback on Safety Harbor for a couple to live...
We currently live in NYC and want to relocate here in 1 years time and start a family...

We are down here now scouting, Clearwater, Dunedin and Plam Harbor...
Just found Safety Harbor....

Any comments/feedback on living there Please ?

Thanks

Michael

[cariad]

My daughter lives in Safety Harbor and is very happy there. It was at the top of our list, but we found our house in Palm Harbor First.
Great for biking-including the east west trail, walking, good restaurants, Phillippe Park. They have many festivals and 3rd Friday downtown.
Easy access to the airports,and the beaches.

[Keeper]

I love Safety Harbor, small town but not far from Tampa or Clearwater shopping. I know at one time (many many years ago) Priscilla Presley use to have a house there.

I worked at a bank there a couple of times as a floater and found the people to be really friendly. You have the pier there for evening walks and lots of little shops.

Good Luck.. let us know what you find..

[Annie of Oldsmar]

Safety Harbor is a quaint little town full of surprises. Drive down Bayshore Bay to Phillipe Park and you will see the nicest houses in that area. The town itself is full of little shops, nice to walk around downtown. It has all the amenities you would need nearby, along Mcmullen Booth. If you drive down Bayshore to one end you find the road to the causeway, which takes you to Tampa, to the other end you get to road 580 which is Oldsmar and if you make a left takes you to Dunedin. It is a nice and safe area.

[TampaKaren]

A good friend of mine lived in Safety Harbor for 10 years and said she didn't want to live anywhere else. Her house was near Phillippe Park that others have mentioned in their posts. My daughter and her husband take their two children (ages 3 and 10) to Phillippe Park to play regularly.

Of course, I have to mention the Safety Harbor Spa. It's a perfect place to de-stress.

[MichaelNYC]

Thanks for the feedback to Safety Harbor...

We drove around it today and the Park.. and it was really really nice.
We viewed Palm Harbor, Dunedin, Tarpon Springs, Ozona and Crystal Lake but Safety Harbor was really the nicest one.

It gave us hope after viewing the other towns and being disappointed

We will go back and look more in depth... looks nice.

We are also going to give a look at some of Tampa's burbs

Thanks for the feedback so far, Thanks

Michael

[hanrahanfamily]

We, too, are considering moving to Safety Harbor, but I would love some insight into the schools. I have gone on the Pinellas County School District's website and seen the school ratings, etc., but I want to hear about what parents of kids in school in Safety Harbor think! Anyone who has any input, I would really appreciate it! Thanks!

[masc243]

I and my family moved to the Tampa Bay area from Alaska this past summer. Pinellas County has this thing called School Choice; which basically means no choice for newcomers. We were offered a choice of 3 elementary schools in our "neighborhood"; There are 4 neighborhoods in the entire county. School A was 12 miles away, school b 10 and School c 7. After some cage rattling we were offered a school that is about 6 miles away. The likelyhood of you arriving here and getting into Safety Harbor Elem is slim to none. Other good schools, Liela Davis, and McMullen Booth will not be available either.

This whole school choice thing will be changing for the 07/08 year but not necessarily for the better.

My advice is to educate yourself to the nth degree regarding the system. You can start out with the Pinellas School District; a google search on Clayton Wilcox; School Super will provide some insight as well.

As I understand it this all came about due to schools that were racially imbalanced and a court mandated fix for the imbalance some 20 or 30 years ago.

Children should certainly have equal opportunity regardless of the zipcode, but the districts solution to this has been through bussing students to balance the numbers. Imagine one school bus stop with 6 students; each going to a different school. Wanna talk about expensive!!!!

I really like living in S-Harbor, but really if I had to do this over again, I likely would have considerd a commute to Pasco County.

I am trying to keep this fact based as opposed to a complaint forum; I only complain when I can recommend a solution; this is too big and potentially too controversial. Very difficult to make this mess win-win for the kids; and that's really what it's all about.