Daly City, Crocker - how is the weather and is the neighbourhood safe? (San Francisco: renting)

[Tereci]

Hi,

Me and my friends are considering renting a house for a year in Daly City on the Pointe Pacific Drive which is part of Crocker if I am not mistaken.

weather
We really like the house and the weather was great(=sunny) when my friends went to take a look but from what I read about Daly City generally the weather is usually rather cold and foggy which is something I don't enjoy much - I mean I don't mind a bit of a fog time to time but if it should be much worse than e.g.North Beach part of SF and many days in a row it would be depressing for me. Is the weather there on the hill different(more sunny) than in the rest of the DC?

safety
Apart from weather I hoped to learn more about safety in that neighbourhood from people who lived there.. Is it safe for a woman alone to walk home from the bart station in the evening/night (10pm/11pm)? Again only comparison I have is North Beach in SF since that is the only place I lived in for some time on the peninsula. North Beach was ok.

Overall any other notes on that neighbourhood? The reason I would prefer it to North Beach is that its simply much much cheaper and closer to country - I like going on walks and spending lazy weekends in a garden.

Hope someone will know Thanks,
T.

[California Vagabond]

(After looking up Pointe Pacific Drive on Google Maps): you'll be just west of the northern end of San Bruno Mountain State Park there. I'm pretty sure this will put you in the way of the notorious winds of the Alemany Gap, which are described in Harold Gilliam's classic 'Weather of the San Francisco Bay Region.' I'm too lazy to type up the related paragraph I just found on page 44 of this book from books.google.com, but if you plug "Alemany Gap" into Google, you should be able to read the excerpt yourself.

Frequently windy. I'm almost ready to add that it will be significantly more foggy than what you're used to in North Beach, but I don't know North Beach weather well enough to say that for certain.

As for crime: the newsletter for the nearby Ingleside police department in San Francisco does have occasional reports of solo pedestrians mugged at night. These seem to be crimes of opportunity: a nogoodnik passes a solo walker on a dark, isolated street, and guesses that she or he can get away with a fast stick-up.

I'm not sure what walking route you'd plan to take from BART. I have trouble picturing a stick-up on busy John Daly Boulevard, but I suppose you could be spotted by the wrong person late one night on one of the side streets leading up to Pointe Pacific Drive. (And boy, that looks like a long, long walk from BART to me!)

I suggest checking with Daly City P.D. for more information.

[andyadhi01]

Originally Posted by Tereci

Hi,

Me and my friends are considering renting a house for a year in Daly City on the Pointe Pacific Drive which is part of Crocker if I am not mistaken.

weather
We really like the house and the weather was great(=sunny) when my friends went to take a look but from what I read about Daly City generally the weather is usually rather cold and foggy which is something I don't enjoy much - I mean I don't mind a bit of a fog time to time but if it should be much worse than e.g.North Beach part of SF and many days in a row it would be depressing for me. Is the weather there on the hill different(more sunny) than in the rest of the DC?

safety
Apart from weather I hoped to learn more about safety in that neighbourhood from people who lived there.. Is it safe for a woman alone to walk home from the bart station in the evening/night (10pm/11pm)? Again only comparison I have is North Beach in SF since that is the only place I lived in for some time on the peninsula. North Beach was ok.

Overall any other notes on that neighbourhood? The reason I would prefer it to North Beach is that its simply much much cheaper and closer to country - I like going on walks and spending lazy weekends in a garden.

Hope someone will know Thanks,
T.

It is one of the cheapest and least desirable part of bay area and has the worst possible weather and moderate level of crime. It's also very hilly, isolated and completely car dependent.

[funtimessf]

Pointe Pacific is a very nice gated community with some amazing views and parks directly adjacent. Far from the cheapest or least desirable part of the Bay Area. Because it is gated and in the hills, crime should not be an issue. It will most likely be chilly there, though, for better or worse (I know folks who like the colder weather).

[California Vagabond]

I haven't been inside this development, but have passed it on Crocker Avenue. Google Street View doesn't track the streets inside, but will let you take a look at the outskirts from the corner of Crocker and Pacific Pointe, and from Florence and Mountain View.

I invite anyone curious about the neighborhood to do so. It certainly doesn't look cheap and undesirable to me, Andy! The views must be spectacular. However, it is hilly, and would be a tough place to live without a car.

[dragontales]

Andy, are you getting this place mixed up with the Sunnydale projects?

[Tereci]

Hi all,

Thank you for the responses! I took a look at a video with the Alemany Gap fog at work (fog over the alemany gap | Bluoz) and it really doesn't look very inviting. I wasn't able to google the book for free so I don't know where exactly are the limits of the Alemany Gap, any chance, that the Pacific Pointe is actually above it or enough on the side?

Regarding the safety... I was more concerned about safety in that neighbourhood outside of the gated community. We plan on walking to BART, probably not every day but often (I know its 30minutes) and I wonder how dangerous would be for a woman alone to go there/from there. So far it seems like using a common sense should be hopefully enough..

[California Vagabond]

I'm so grateful to you for posting that wonderful bluoz.com link that I just copied a few sentences from page 44 of Harold Gilliam's excellent and much recommended Weather of the San Francisco Bay Region. Here you go:

By far the largest pass through the city, however, is the Alemany Gap immediately north of San Bruno Mountain. The wind and fog often flow from the Lake Merced area along the route of Alemany Boulevard, reaching San Francisco Bay near Hunters Point. One branch of the Alemany Gap extends through Visitacion Valley, channeling the streamlines toward the bay shore and around Bayview Hill to the old baseball stadium at Candlestick Point, where it collides with another streamline from the main Alemany Gap by way of Hunters Point, creating the world's windiest ball park.

I wouldn't count on being out of it on Pointe Pacific Drive. I suggest asking locals.

I feel obligated to repeat my concerns about the solo walk home from BART at 10:00 or 11:00 at night. You only need one opportunistic crook to spot you walking alone up Crocker Avenue that late. Maybe it will never happen. I hope it doesn't.

In North Beach, you can count on having other pedestrians around. I'd be surprised if you can on Crocker Avenue. (OTOH: perhaps the route from BART east on John Daly, south on Hillside, and east on Thiers into the complex would keep you in the proximity of more people).

It can't hurt to ring up Daly City P.D., and see what they say.

[BayAreaHillbilly]

It's overspill from the Southern Hills and outer Excelsior. I can think of worse places especially if trying to save on costs. There are actually some expensive properties in there by DC standards.

[dragontales]

I advise you to not do the solo walk at night time.