Poway??? gay friendly??? (San Diego, Long Beach, Mountain Ranch: condos, townhouse, neighborhoods)

[mcj79]

My wife may have a job opportunity in the San Diego and Poway area. Other then a few trips to SD, race tracks, the zoo and a few other touristy visits we don’t really know the area. We current live in the Long Beach area so we understand the California housing prices in our area at least.
We know that SD is a fairly open place but are not sure about the Poway area. We are interested in finding lesbian & family friendly neighborhoods, with restaurants and things to walk to near by, that would not leave her with a long/stressful commute. How is the public transportation down there? Can you go from Poway to SD on the weekend for a night on the town or day at the Beach with out being in traffic all night?
We would love to find a single family detached home with 2/3 bed, 2 bath, w/ good living space & room for our pool table, and a yard for our dogs and some out door living space (preferably over 1500sqft). We would like to find place ideally in $400,000’s (of course lower would be great, but under $500,000 for sure, putting a little work in is okay.) We would consider a townhouse/row house type of thing, but we both hate the idea of condo fees and we have 2 large dogs (that often need to go out in the middle of the night!) Most importantly we do want to be in a nice, safe and hopefully friendly & fun area.
We understand we might not be right next to everything with out wish list within our price range. We have been looking at housing on line but have now idea of what the neighborhoods are really like. So please what are some nice lesbian friendly areas, in the Poway/ SD area or reasonable commute that won’t make us house poor

[NYSD1995]

I would not consider Poway to be gay-friendly. It is possibly the most conservative city in North San Diego County.

[mini_cute]

My wife may have a job opportunity in the San Diego and Poway area. Other then a few trips to SD, race tracks, the zoo and a few other touristy visits we don’t really know the area.

- I agree, it is hard to know the real San Diego by visiting those places.

We current live in the Long Beach area so we understand the California housing prices in our area at least.

- Yup, I think you'll get more for your money in San Diego than in Long Beach.

We know that SD is a fairly open place but are not sure about the Poway area.

- Poway definitly leans more towards conservative, probably one of the more conservative places in San Diego county. Look into places nearby though that may be a little bit more open: Ranch Bernardo, 4S Ranch, Carmel Mountain Ranch, Rancho Penasquitos, Scripps Ranch (some think SR is conservative too, but I think it is in the middle), Mira Mesa (probably the most open out of all of those)

We are interested in finding lesbian & family friendly neighborhoods, with restaurants and things to walk to near by, that would not leave her with a long/stressful commute.

- I am not sure that lesbian and family friendly go together here (usually if they are family friendly, they are conservative), there's Hillcrest which is definitly lesbian friendly since it is a LGBT community and it's 22 miles away from Poway.

How is the public transportation down there? Can you go from Poway to SD on the weekend for a night on the town or day at the Beach with out being in traffic all night?

- Yeah, absolutely. That is one of the benefits of living in San Diego. It takes us just 30 minutes to get to downtown and go out to clubs, bars, dining, shows, museums, etc. without being stuck in traffic at any point. We have so much free time from not having to sit in traffic. Also 30 minutes surface streets to La Jolla Shores beach. (I live in Scripps Ranch.)

We would love to find a single family detached home with 2/3 bed, 2 bath, w/ good living space & room for our pool table, and a yard for our dogs and some out door living space (preferably over 1500sqft). We would like to find place ideally in $400,000’s (of course lower would be great, but under $500,000 for sure, putting a little work in is okay.) We would consider a townhouse/row house type of thing, but we both hate the idea of condo fees and we have 2 large dogs (that often need to go out in the middle of the night!) Most importantly we do want to be in a nice, safe and hopefully friendly & fun area.

- Some people think it is hard to find that for less than $500 K but I think they are out there. Please look in the neighborhoods I mentioned above. Mira Mesa is probably the most affordable and is still centrally located out of all of them. 4S Ranch has some lower prices, but it is farther from the downtown areas. Also try the University Town Center area. True it has lots of condos, but it is very open, has excellent schools (La Jolla) and is liberal due to the university presence. It is not very close to Poway, but may be a good compromise between all aspects of what you are looking for.


We understand we might not be right next to everything with out wish list within our price range. We have been looking at housing on line but have now idea of what the neighborhoods are really like. So please what are some nice lesbian friendly areas, in the Poway/ SD area or reasonable commute that won’t make us house poor

Here is a breakdown:

Poway - very conservative, good schools, very family friendly, some think it's boring

Scripps Ranch - more centrally located, desirable, good schools, a bit conservative, very family friendly, next door to Poway, some may also find this place boring

Mira Mesa - most affordable and liberal in that area, not as family friendly, schools not as good, more commercial

UTC - liberal, dense new housing, good schools, higher price per sq ft, desirable, farther from Poway, but a fairly reasonable commute, some young families with very young children

Carmel Mtn Ranch, Rancho Penasquitoes, Rancho Bernardo - nice neighborhoods, family friendly, probably as conserative and boring as Scripps Ranch, farther away from downtown areas (I personally am not interested in these areas even though they are nice since they are farther from downtown, when I can just live in Scripps Ranch which is really nice and closer to everything)

4S Ranch - Next to Rancho Bernardo, it has cheaper home prices, but it is sooo far from everything and looks hardly developed!

Hope that helps!

Here is a city neighborhood map:

http://www.sandiego.gov/police/about/media/pdf/2007/2007citywidemap.pdf (broken link)

County map: County of San Diego (http://www.co.san-diego.ca.us/cnty/sandiego/map.html - broken link)

Note: Poway is it's own city as you already know, where most of the places I mentioned above are still part of the city of San Diego, but considered neighborhoods

Please visit my blog to see videos of places in San Diego:

www.sandiegoturtle.blogspot.com (http://www.sandiegoturtle.blogspot.com - broken link)

[esmith143]

Poway is family-friendly, but it is not walkable and it is not gay-friendly. I fail to see why you'd want family-friendly and gay-friendly at the same time - do you have an adopted kid? That's not going to be looked upon kindly by most residents of Poway, or North County in general (to put it mildly).

It's a 30 minute drive from Poway area to the downtown. There is public transportation, but it's slow. I'd say 1.5 hours one way to go the same distance.

Start looking in Hillcrest or UTC.

[AFTERSHOCK]

oh who the hell is going to know. unless u plan on kissing each other on the street or walking down the street holding hands no one is going to give a s***. move where you want.

[CrissCT]

Originally Posted by mini_cute

4S Ranch - Next to Rancho Bernardo, it has cheaper home prices, but it is sooo far from everything and looks hardly developed!

Have you really driven through 4S ranch? It is not soooo far from everything. It is closer to the coast than Poway, close to the 15 (with your choice of 3 exits - Camino del Norte, Bernardo Center or Rancho Bernardo Rd) and the 56. It is very developed. Most of the housing is complete, there is tons of shopping/retail, parks, schools and roads. I wouldn't call that hardly developed.

As far as the posters question though, it is pretty conservative like the rest of North County.

[mini_cute]

Originally Posted by CrissCT

Have you really driven through 4S ranch? It is not soooo far from everything. It is closer to the coast than Poway, close to the 15 (with your choice of 3 exits - Camino del Norte, Bernardo Center or Rancho Bernardo Rd) and the 56. It is very developed. Most of the housing is complete, there is tons of shopping/retail, parks, schools and roads. I wouldn't call that hardly developed.

As far as the posters question though, it is pretty conservative like the rest of North County.

Yup, I drove through 4S Ranch when we were considering living there. Our agent showed us around. Well, it is developed, but not really "developed". It sounds weird, but that place just doesn't look established yet-- and looks empty. And it is indeed sooo far from everything. Few people would consider 4S Ranch as centrally located. And it is not closer to the coast than Poway, which I can visibly see while looking at a map. And if you were to exit from the 56, you'd have quite a long drive north before you reach it-- so I don't consider 56 a really accessible freeway for the area. But on the other hand, it is very nice looking.

It's conservative as others have said, so I recommend looking into areas closer to downtown and the beach before looking there.

[mini_cute]

Originally Posted by AFTERSHOCK

oh who the hell is going to know. unless u plan on kissing each other on the street or walking down the street holding hands no one is going to give a s***. move where you want.

That sounds harsh. Are you in a bad mood?

[weluvdisney]

Since it is conservative are there issues with interracial marriages?

[Huckleberry3911948]

dont know bout just gay sleaze but for good overall across the board sleazy behavior can't beat dad's in poway.