San Mateo 3 or San Remo 1?

NEW -> Contingent Buyer Assistance Program
maybe some of the emissions from the freeways are making its way to lambert ranch/portola springs?  :o A new potential hazard besides landfill issues! oh my
 
there are numerous studies showing freeway pollution impedes young children's lung development (like reducing the capacity by 7%) and double the chance of developing autism for unborn children. You can easily Google this and some researches are actually done in Southern California.

there are also some studies showing when landfill leaks, it pollutes the ground water and can increase the risk of cancer (duh!). But the water supply in Irvine is kind shared - Portola Springs, Stonegate, Woodbury, and even Northwood Pointe would all be affected.

So you are choosing between the lesser of the two evils. The freeway pollution is past, present and future until every car on the road is replaced with clean energy engines. The landfill as of today is not leaking yet frankly it is for ease of mind.

Since you have 4 little ones, you may not want to damage their respiratory systems by living too close to the free way.  You don't have to worry about autism unless you plan to have more kids.
For families with older children, since the lungs are more developed, living close to the free way is OK for the convenience, better climate and schools.

Regarding the wind blows the 405 exhaust away from the community - not only it can be a very biased claim, but it also does not address the real nature of freeway exhaust - it does the most damage during the wee hours in the early morning, before suns comes up and air is dense (hence no wind). LA is bowl shaped so it actually makes this worse - all the polluted air gets trapped and intensifies the effects.


jamboreedude said:
qwerty said:
dnation said:
I like LA location better and I don't mind living by a freeway. Also having peace of mind that I'm not living near "potential" hazardous gases.  So what the bowerman landfill is "high tech and well regulated"...in the end its still a landfill, devalues property values and it's the 9th largest landfill in the US.

So you would not consider car emissions from the proximity to the freeway to be "potentially" hazardous gases?

An owner at cortona told us that the exhaust gases from the 405 freeway are being blown away from laguna altura community by the ocean breezes from the pacific.
 
The Motor Court Company said:
there are numerous studies showing freeway pollution impedes young children's lung development (like reducing the capacity by 7%) and double the chance of developing autism for unborn children. You can easily Google this and some researches are actually done in Southern California.

there are also some studies showing when landfill leaks, it pollutes the ground water and can increase the risk of cancer (duh!). But the water supply in Irvine is kind shared - Portola Springs, Stonegate, Woodbury, and even Northwood Pointe would all be affected.

So you are choosing between the lesser of the two evils. The freeway pollution is past, present and future until every car on the road is replaced with clean energy engines. The landfill as of today is not leaking yet frankly it is for ease of mind.

Since you have 4 little ones, you may not want to damage their respiratory systems by living too close to the free way.
For families with older children, since the lungs are more developed and no worry about autism, living close to the free way is OK for the convenience, better climate and schools.

Regarding the wind blows the 405 exhaust away from the community - not only it can be a very biased claim, but it also does not address the real nature of freeway exhaust - it does the most damage during the wee hours in the early morning, before suns comes up and air is dense (hence no wind). LA is bowl shaped so it actually makes this worse - all the polluted air gets trapped and intensifies the effects.

Unfortunately, living in Southern California requires you to make choices...at least you can buy air filters and bottled water.
 
What kind of people are buying at Laguna Altura? Families with children? Retirees? Singles?

Also, how convenient is the location of LA compared to Stonegate?
 
Filtered water is a good way to protect the health of family members - I'd do this regardless of landfill or former military base, as the water supply is shared.

Air filter can be expensive - I did an extensive study and to truly remove the fine particles from freeway pollution, you need to have at least HEPA graded  filter for the WHOLE house.

Then I realize it is best to simply stay at least 1.5 miles away from freeway - I do not want my daughter to lose 7% of her lung capacity and have a shorter life span.

At least the landfill is not leaking yet - when the kids grow up then we can perhaps move into Laguna Altura :)
 
i bought san remo...

i bought because for my price point, i couldnt find anything in quail hill that had a floorplan i liked (the QH linden and laurel lots were like the closest thing but their floorplans are kind of old school)... if they had a san remo plan 3 in quail hill id have bought it in a heart beat...

im 31, taiwanese america, self employed, hang out with my gf most of the time... but from what i see, i think most ppl buying in LA are a bit older than me and usually have kids... im definitely one of the younger buyers

it kinda sucks Laguna is 92618 area code... QH is 92603...

i took into account the air polution, but again, coming from los angeles, anything beats that hahaha (i live next to the 405/10 freeway right now... 405/133 is peanuts to me)... but living next to freeway does have its concerns... u should see the windows to my condo right now, theres a layer of black gray soot if u dont clean it every once in awhile... dust is a major problem too...

but after visiting laguna altura for about 3 months every 2 weeks or so... i was actually ghetto and yellow trash and went to touch the models and current residences homes, like windows, etc to test for accumulation of freeway soot... wasnt that bad at all... (actually there was less soot then the woodbury east santa cruz homes i was comparing with at that time, woodbury east i think is next to 133 further inland)

didnt even really bother with stonegate or woodbury, i saw Laguna as a conservative buy since there will be no  "land within 5 miles of coast" + "next to reserve" in irvine anymore after laguna altura and the plot south of laguna altura is built, so i saw value in that... lambert ranch is next to reserve i think too, but its way inland, and i dont want inland... the entire california coast is like a wok and traps smog so to me a mile closer to the coast is a mile more valuable and a mile more breezy (more air flow activity)... as with stonegate or woodbury, i just see too much future competition (orchid hills, cypress, stonegate west, woodbury south, great park)...
 
Thanks for the info. I don't think it's ghetto to keep visiting, I mean we are dropping over a half a mil on a home so we want to be smart. As far as people talking about being close to a freeway... Does anyone not realize how close quail hill is to the freeway? And I notice everyone saying what a good location it is, blah blah. But some of those homes are less than 500 ft from he freeway.

Regardless I still think LA will hold some value. Thanks for the tip on the reserve too, that means not many more homes can be packed in the area like what will happen around stone gate.
 
The Motor Court Company said:
Filtered water is a good way to protect the health of family members - I'd do this regardless of landfill or former military base, as the water supply is shared.

Air filter can be expensive - I did an extensive study and to truly remove the fine particles from freeway pollution, you need to have at least HEPA graded  filter for the WHOLE house.

Then I realize it is best to simply stay at least 1.5 miles away from freeway - I do not want my daughter to lose 7% of her lung capacity and have a shorter life span.

At least the landfill is not leaking yet - when the kids grow up then we can perhaps move into Laguna Altura :)

drinking irvine water out of the tap isnt a good idea... irvine gets its water from colorado supply, which has higher then gov regulated standards of arsenic by like x5 or something i forgot...

water filter at fridge is a definite yes!... ive seen homes where ppl had those office water cooler style things haha, i think thats a bit over kill... but yeah, water filter is important hahaha
 
FYI, my kitchen island had pre-plumbing for the fridge, so it was easy to get the RO system hooked up to the fridge's water supply.
 
But.... do you think local roads busy like those in Irvine ( Culver, Jeffrey, Sand Canyon) have less pollution than freeway???

Your assumption is only freeway has pollution.  Just look at how many cars those main roads in Irvine have.



The Motor Court Company said:
there are numerous studies showing freeway pollution impedes young children's lung development (like reducing the capacity by 7%) and double the chance of developing autism for unborn children. You can easily Google this and some researches are actually done in Southern California.

there are also some studies showing when landfill leaks, it pollutes the ground water and can increase the risk of cancer (duh!). But the water supply in Irvine is kind shared - Portola Springs, Stonegate, Woodbury, and even Northwood Pointe would all be affected.

So you are choosing between the lesser of the two evils. The freeway pollution is past, present and future until every car on the road is replaced with clean energy engines. The landfill as of today is not leaking yet frankly it is for ease of mind.

Since you have 4 little ones, you may not want to damage their respiratory systems by living too close to the free way.  You don't have to worry about autism unless you plan to have more kids.
For families with older children, since the lungs are more developed, living close to the free way is OK for the convenience, better climate and schools.

Regarding the wind blows the 405 exhaust away from the community - not only it can be a very biased claim, but it also does not address the real nature of freeway exhaust - it does the most damage during the wee hours in the early morning, before suns comes up and air is dense (hence no wind). LA is bowl shaped so it actually makes this worse - all the polluted air gets trapped and intensifies the effects.


jamboreedude said:
qwerty said:
dnation said:
I like LA location better and I don't mind living by a freeway. Also having peace of mind that I'm not living near "potential" hazardous gases.  So what the bowerman landfill is "high tech and well regulated"...in the end its still a landfill, devalues property values and it's the 9th largest landfill in the US.

So you would not consider car emissions from the proximity to the freeway to be "potentially" hazardous gases?

An owner at cortona told us that the exhaust gases from the 405 freeway are being blown away from laguna altura community by the ocean breezes from the pacific.
 
inland will always have more pollution than near the coast...

b4 i decided to buy in OC i took almost a half a year looking at the climate, air quality indexes as well as wind direction trackershttp://www.aqmd.gov/smog/index.htmlhttp://www.intellicast.com/National/Wind/Current.aspx?location=USCA0638

wind will always blow inland in OC... there are 2-3 odd days out of the year where this doesnt happen... and thats when we get our purple haze days... i dont mind 405/133 next to laguna, cause the ppl that actually suffer the smog from these are the ppl in portola springs... lawl... but then again, the ppl on newport and laguna beach are laughing at me cause they are thinking the same how quail hill is getting their smog... haha oh wellz... sucks to be middle class...

i didnt come to this conclusion lightly either... there has to be a reason why laguna altura windows are cleaner after 2 weeks of no washing while there are 2 freeways (405/133) than the same windows at woodbury east santa cruz with only 1 window (133)...
 
to tell u the truth, OC is already awesome no matter where u live... 2 weeks of freeway soot on woodbury east santa cruz window is still MUCH less then 1 DAY of soot in west los angeles... haha... at this point we are just nit picking... squabble squabble, gotta keep up with the jones...
 
Very true. So we ruled out Laguna Altura very early after realizing it is so close to 405/133. We also ruled out most of Quail Hill. We also avoid homes backed to a major street or too close to it (if we can hear road noise from the major street, we will take a pass). We even ruled out homes backed to a small, inner street.

Damages to kids' respiratory system is not a risk I can take; if I can eliminate that risk and find a decent place to raise a family, why not?


velbon said:
But.... do you think local roads busy like those in Irvine ( Culver, Jeffrey, Sand Canyon) have less pollution than freeway???

Your assumption is only freeway has pollution.  Just look at how many cars those main roads in Irvine have.



The Motor Court Company said:
there are numerous studies showing freeway pollution impedes young children's lung development (like reducing the capacity by 7%) and double the chance of developing autism for unborn children. You can easily Google this and some researches are actually done in Southern California.

there are also some studies showing when landfill leaks, it pollutes the ground water and can increase the risk of cancer (duh!). But the water supply in Irvine is kind shared - Portola Springs, Stonegate, Woodbury, and even Northwood Pointe would all be affected.

So you are choosing between the lesser of the two evils. The freeway pollution is past, present and future until every car on the road is replaced with clean energy engines. The landfill as of today is not leaking yet frankly it is for ease of mind.

Since you have 4 little ones, you may not want to damage their respiratory systems by living too close to the free way.  You don't have to worry about autism unless you plan to have more kids.
For families with older children, since the lungs are more developed, living close to the free way is OK for the convenience, better climate and schools.

Regarding the wind blows the 405 exhaust away from the community - not only it can be a very biased claim, but it also does not address the real nature of freeway exhaust - it does the most damage during the wee hours in the early morning, before suns comes up and air is dense (hence no wind). LA is bowl shaped so it actually makes this worse - all the polluted air gets trapped and intensifies the effects.


jamboreedude said:
qwerty said:
dnation said:
I like LA location better and I don't mind living by a freeway. Also having peace of mind that I'm not living near "potential" hazardous gases.  So what the bowerman landfill is "high tech and well regulated"...in the end its still a landfill, devalues property values and it's the 9th largest landfill in the US.

So you would not consider car emissions from the proximity to the freeway to be "potentially" hazardous gases?

An owner at cortona told us that the exhaust gases from the 405 freeway are being blown away from laguna altura community by the ocean breezes from the pacific.
 
kinda lose lose situation :-\

u either live near the source of air pollution (near freeway), or u live near where the pollution accumulates/settles(more inland)... at least in irvine that is... with no other alternative, then the next thing would be how high ur home is elevated to "lift" urself outta the smog...

laguna altura does a fake ass job with trying to elevate the homes a bit and i see it as just cosmetic n not actually functional compared to QH's elevation, but if we wanna nit pick between stonegate and laguna, LA definitely wins... the same cant really be said for portola though since there are some lots that r better elevated than LA (at least from what i remember)... but if u wanna bring portola back into the mix, then again its the source vs where it accumulates argument all over again...

so from what ur criteria, i think i can guess where u live if u have genuine air concerns for ur family... u must live near the coast... either malibu or palos verdes in los angeles county... or in orange county, id guess elevated parts of newport or laguna beach... everything else, ur too close to the source or ur where the smog settles and it gets worse and worse the more inland u go (example being riverside)... CA air in general is one of the worst out of all the states, i shared ur same concerns but i just concluded to myself that im pretty much trying to find some solid shit in a bag of diarrhea...

just look at these air quality indexes... theyre like just borderline "breathable"... its sad i know http://www.homefacts.com/airquality/California/Orange-County/Irvine.htmlhttp://www.homefacts.com/airquality/California/Los-Angeles-County/Los-Angeles.html

haha looking at the numbers, ull see what i mean by irvine has superior air quality to los angeles... its ONE full point above los angeles at 2.2 (out of a 0-10 scale, 0 being barely breathable) HAHHAA oh the premium one has to pay for that ONE full point of better air...
 
the best way to avoid air pollution is distance. Elevation, wind direction...etc are not as effective. LA is in a bowl shape so it actually traps the smog (the gases that hurt children's respiratory systems are the very fine particles that you won't see accumulate on the exterior window). From air pollution point of view, Stonegate and Woodbury easily beats out Laguna Altura. For having a more mild climate and better schools Laguna Altura easily beats the other two. There is really no argument here. You either choose between your children's health or everything else.

changm55 said:
kinda lose lose situation :-\

u either live near the source of air pollution (near freeway), or u live near where the pollution accumulates/settles(more inland)... at least in irvine that is... with no other alternative, then the next thing would be how high ur home is elevated to "lift" urself outta the smog...

laguna altura does a fake ass job with trying to elevate the homes a bit and i see it as just cosmetic n not actually functional compared to QH's elevation, but if we wanna nit pick between stonegate and laguna, LA definitely wins... the same cant really be said for portola though since there are some lots that r better elevated than LA (at least from what i remember)... but if u wanna bring portola back into the mix, then again its the source vs where it accumulates argument all over again...

so from what ur criteria, i think i can guess where u live if u have genuine air concerns for ur family... u must live near the coast... either malibu or palos verdes in los angeles county... or in orange county, id guess elevated parts of newport or laguna beach... everything else, ur too close to the source or ur where the smog settles and it gets worse and worse the more inland u go (example being riverside)... CA air in general is one of the worst out of all the states, i shared ur same concerns but i just concluded to myself that im pretty much trying to find some solid shit in a bag of diarrhea...

just look at these air quality indexes... theyre like just borderline "breathable"... its sad i know http://www.homefacts.com/airquality/California/Orange-County/Irvine.htmlhttp://www.homefacts.com/airquality/California/Los-Angeles-County/Los-Angeles.html

haha looking at the numbers, ull see what i mean by irvine has superior air quality to los angeles... its ONE full point above los angeles at 2.2 (out of a 0-10 scale, 0 being barely breathable) HAHHAA oh the premium one has to pay for that ONE full point of better air...
 
The Motor Court Company said:
the best way to avoid air pollution is distance. Elevation, wind direction...etc are not as effective. LA is in a bowl shape so it actually traps the smog (the gases that hurt children's respiratory systems are the very fine particles that you won't see accumulate on the exterior window). From air pollution point of view, Stonegate and Woodbury easily beats out Laguna Altura. For having a more mild climate and better schools Laguna Altura easily beats the other two. There is really no argument here. You either choose between your children's health or everything else.

School wise, I am not sure that LA is better than Stonegate.  Stonegate will have a brand new elementary and feeds into Northwood.  University is good but I believe the Northwood will be better in a 5-10 years.
 
with orange county transfering school funds to fund other gov stuffs and slowdown of private donations, i just see irvine schools deteriorating... so i dont really see this as a competing issue cause who knows if these schools will be any good when i actually have kids a few years from now haha

yeah the wok idea is pretty dumb... they should have just coughed up some extra money to elevate the entire thing

but ur view point is interesting where proximity to freeways trumphs closer to the coast... so if u had all the money in the world, you would still not buy a laguna/newport/malibu beachhome cause the 1 runs straight through them? haha i wish more ppl thought like u, cause id buy a beachhome no matter how close it is to the freeway haha
 
changm55 said:
with orange county transfering school funds to fund other gov stuffs and slowdown of private donations, i just see irvine schools deteriorating... so i dont really see this as a competing issue cause who knows if these schools will be any good when i actually have kids a few years from now haha

That's happening everywhere and in every district.  The difference is that Irvine USD can fundraise or other districts cannot.  Irvine USD is a key selling point for Irvine properties, there is no chance of it deteriorating.
 
irvine schools will probably stay good even if there was no money. what makes the test scores good is the asian parents pushing their kids to study, take after school lessons, etc. i believe all public schools have the same curriculum. 
 
thats good to hear... i only looked briefly into the schools since it wasnt my primary concern so all i saw was like national ranked #8 university high went to #33 and i was like, oh wellz... haha

i just think this freeway-phobia is a little moot considering the general air we breath from los angeles down to orange county is already like pretty damn bad already... what i am trying to understand is the logic behind why one would pick lets say a home 10 miles away from the freeway in riverside vs a malibu beach home next to the 1... one has "great highway-free air", but in general the air quality is monkeys... while the other has "very bad highway-air" but general air quality is coastal... u see what im trying to get at?

again we are nit picking in my opinion, but its fun to play devils advocate for the sake of the conversation haha
 
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