Hercules

City, Contra Costa County

© McCormack's Guides

 

Zip Code: 94547

Bedroom-office town that over the past 30 years has grown from a few hundred residents to 24,480 and is still building and winning praise - and criticism - for innovation and development. www.mccormacks.com

 Overlooks upper San Francisco Bay, also known as San Pablo Bay. In the works, a ferry from Hercules to San Francisco. If successful, and the signs are auspicious, the ferry would ease the commute for many residents.

Home to a dynamite firm in the late 1800s, Hercules (named after the Hercules Powder Company) incorporated itself into a legal city in 1900 to hold down taxes, restrict development and run its business without political interference. Homes and dynamite don’t mix. In the days of nitroglycerine, explosions killed 59 employees.

Click for regional or detailed map

To justify its city charter, Hercules, however, did build about 100 row houses, occupied by Hercules employees. From them, a city council was formed that followed the company line.

In the late 1970s, Hercules Powder closed its facilities and sold everything, including thousands of grassland acres, to a firm that drew up a master plan for a new town. www.mccormacks.com

 At that time, master planning, now commonplace, was just getting traction. When suburbia blossomed about 1950, local governments, sparsely, if at all, staffed with planners, pretty much let developers decide what went where and whether sidewalks were installed or how wide roads had to be.

This sounds like an invitation to chaos. It wasn’t. To win buyers, developers had to build homes and neighborhoods that people liked. But problems were many, particularly around roads, parks and housing standards.

The universities responded by elevating suburban studies and training more planers, who were hired by city and county governments and by developers.

Among the new ideas: for large parcels, a master plan that identified the housing to be built, the population to be anticipated and the roads necessary to move these people quickly to the freeway (Interstate 80 and Highway 4 crisscross Hercules). www.mccormacks.com

 Also the locations for the schools and parks and what type housing: apartments, townhouses, single homes, and what each tract would consist of. And more

In Hercules case, the developer, not the city staff (there really wasn’t one) drew up the master plan and built the first stages of the “new” town. Among the elements: an office-tech park down on the water - local jobs for local residents, short commute.

Also single homes, townhouses and apartments priced for the middle class. And mobile homes for retirees and the low income.

The first homes were built and sold, the community grew and after a few years a real city hall came into play, run by the new residents, who hired their own staff. And changed the master plan - out went the mobile homes, replaced for the most part by single homes and towns. But “affordable” housing remains an issue. www.mccormacks.com

 In the 1970s, immigration laws were changed and this led to a much more diverse California.

Hercules, to its credit, embraced this diversity, and encouraged a get-along society where differences were celebrated. Every year the town holds a cultural festival.

The result: a modern suburb, middle to upper middle, diverse, low crime, school scores fairly high, good commute that probably will get better, progressive politics favoring slightly upmarket housing and discouraging fast growth, open to ideas. And fair amount of empty land to employ these ideas.

In 2009, the city opened a transit center: 422 parking spaces, bike and pedestrian paths, buses to destinations around the county and to the El Cerrito BART (commute rail) station. www.mccormacks.com

 In planning, a new downtown, close to the transit center - movie complex, shops and restaurants, about 600 apartments or condos.

Also in planning, a terminal to serve ferry and train passengers. Amtrak and Caltrain (to Oakland and Silicon Valley) pass through Hercules.

And new neighborhoods designed around plazas. As city planning evolved, the planners figured out that Italy and its plazas did a great job of building community spirit. In its new waterfront neighborhoods, Hercules is already going Tuscan, mixing shops, offices, housing and parks in ways that break away from cookie cutter suburbia. Among touches: three-story homes, small porches, rear garages, small front yards. Duplexes here and there.

If you are shopping for housing in Hercules, drive east of Interstate 80 for traditional suburbia, drive west of the freeway for the new look. www.mccormacks.com

 The town also has several pocket neighborhoods that blend old and new housing or mix styles. One of them is located on low hills just east of San Pablo Avenue, about a half mile north of Pinole.

When the powder company closed, Hercules saved some old company cottages and bungalows near the water and had them renovated and rewired. These homes have porches and features that recall the modest homes of 100 years ago.

As more housing was built in this neighborhood, Hercules nudged developers to retain the craftsman-bungalow motif but give it a modern spin. Drive Santa Fe Avenue for look.

A good deal of Hercules is built over hills that overlook San Pablo Bay, which – too bad – is not very scenic but water will always have its charms. Central Contra Costa faces Mt. Diablo. West Contra Costa faces Mt. Tamalpais, in Marin, across the Bay. www.mccormacks.com

 The state in 2009 tallied 8,319 housing units: 5,523 single homes, 1,631 single-family attached, 1,165 multiples.

Education by the West Contra Costa Unified School District. Three elementary schools in Hercules: Hanna Ranch, 450 students, Lupine Hills, 400, Ohlone, 470. For decades, the town pleaded for its own high school and middle school and about 2000, they arrived, built side by side: Hercules High, 1,200 students, Hercules Middle, 760.

West Contra Costa district has scores bouncing all over the place and in 2009 was embroiled in disputes with employees over pay and benefits. But residents continue to support the kids by passing bonds to build and renovate schools and parcel taxes to retain programs. Another tax was passed in 2008.

One of these years, Hercules hopes to add another middle school and rebuild Ohlone elementary. www.mccormacks.com

 Scores in Hercules schools range from the 50th to 80th percentile and may in part reflect not the accomplishments of local students but of students who transfer in from other parts of the district or from outside the district.

A small portion of Hercules, on the north side, is situated within the John Swett Unified School District (Rodeo and Crockett.)

In 2006, the town celebrated the opening of a library.

Zero homicides in 2008, 2007, 2006 and 2005, one in 2004. Zero between 1998 and 2003, two in 1997. Previous years, 0, 1, 0, 1. In the 2006, the man accused of the 2004 murder dropped dead while playing handball at the county jail. He was known to have a weak heart, said the coroner. Hercules has its own police department. See Crime.

www.mccormacks.com

 Seniors center, community center, teen center, swimming pool (renovated in 2009) open year round. Seven parks, two of them on the bay. Usual sports. Trails around city and down to San Pablo Bay.

City runs summer camps and tutoring classes for kids, math and Chinese among the offerings. For activity catalog, see www.ci.hercules.ca.us

Some neighborhoods have a pool or rec center run by a homeowners association.

Public golf course, called Franklin Canyon, on east side, spread over hills and valleys. Every 10 years or so, a developer envisions homes around the golf course but residents have said no-no-no. Environmental group in 2009 was raising money to buy land around the course. www.mccormacks.com

 Regional parks within a drive of 10 minutes. About 25 minutes to San Francisco and all it offers.

For shopping, Hercules has its supermarkets, coffee shops, delis, beauty salons and a Home Depot.

For a long while, it was angling for a Wal-Mart but many residents didn’t want the store for a variety of reasons, including traffic congestion. What they wanted, some studies showed, was a Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods. For the Trader, you have to drive to Pinole, the next town over.

The Wal-Mart fight dragged over several years and possibly influenced how Hercules approaches the big projects. These days, the town does a lot of neighborhood meetings to explain the projects and invite suggestions. www.mccormacks.com

 For local jobs, drive the waterfront, along Alfred Nobel Drive. Among major employers, Bio-Rad.

From Hercules to the Bay Bridge, about 17 miles, which as commutes go is not bad, especially if you bus or car pool. Interstate 80 has set aside a “diamond” lane for buses and poolers.

Highway 4 has been widened and improved. This makes the commute to central Contra Costa easier.

The problem: bridges. The Bay Bridge, now under major reconstruction, is always going to congest traffic. It is not just the bridge itself. It’s San Francisco, which has never been comfortable with the motor vehicle and refuses as matter of public good to build many garages. www.mccormacks.com

 The other bridges: Crockett-Vallejo, one bridge north, one south. The north bridge, especially on weekends when people head for the ski slopes or mountain forests, often backs up, snarling the evening commute.

Which brings us to the ferry. Vallejo, about 10 miles to the north, runs high-speed ferries to downtown San Francisco, travel time 55 minutes. If Hercules can land a ferry, you’re looking at a San Francisco commute of 40 to 45 minutes - reliable and predictable, one of the big selling points of ferries. They don’t get caught in traffic congestion. Many commuters will welcome this choice.

Miscellaneous:

• Trains pass near some homes. Check out the noise. Two lines run through town, the Union Pacific and the Burlington Santa Fe. The first travels the shore, the second, the middle of Hercules.

• The Hercules shore would appear ideal for some sort of housing or recreation (marina, fishing pier). But access is difficult because the Union Pacific tracks run close to the water. www.mccormacks.com

 • Old towns and old suburbia: overhead utility lines. New suburbia (Hercules): buried lines. Also ornamental lights on many streets.

• Scheduled to open in 2010: a park just for dogs, divided into sections for big and small.

• Land trust in 2004 purchased 700 acres for hikers and wildlife. Environmental groups are buying parcels and development rights toward goal of trail all around the Bay. If you are into hiking, many of the hills in the north county have been placed in parks or open space. Fishing in Rodeo and Crockett.

• Affordable housing. Hercules, like many Contra Costa cities, would as soon as build opium dens as mobile home housing. But regional agencies and market forces are pushing all cities into more affordable housing. Among recent additions in Hercules: a large apartment complex for the elderly. www.mccormacks.com

 • Just off Highway 4, in front of Valley Bible Church, three tall crucifixes. Striking and possibly suggesting to some that Hercules is a particularly religious town. No doubt many residents attend a variety of churches or temples but in religious fervor Hercules is probably no more intense than other towns in the Bay Area. Most of the churches in the region are located in the older towns, foremost Pinole. The Catholic Church runs two elementary schools, in Pinole and Rodeo, that draw students from Hercules.

Chamber of commerce www.herculeschamber.com

City web site: www.ci.hercules.ca

West Contra Costa Unified School Dist. www.wccusd.k12.ca.us

March 8, 2010