Moraga

City, Contra Costa County

© McCormack's Guides

 

Zip Codes: 94556, 94570, 94575

Secluded bedroom town. School rankings among very highest in the state. Strong support of schools. One of the lowest crimes rates in the Bay Area. Considered one of the most prestigious cities in the East Bay. Home of St. Mary's College. www.mccormacks.com

Population 16,138 and growing very slowly. Added about 450 residents in 1990s. For over 16 years, Moraga has been fighting a hillside development of about 123 homes. As projects go, this one is small but it's not small to Moraga residents. They are prickly about protecting hills and conserving open space.

The MOR in Lamorinda (Lafayette, Moraga, Orinda) and much like sister cities. Upscale, nice, fairly new homes, also many three-bedroom tract models. Many Lamorinda residents have remodeled their homes and installed modern plumbing, kitchens, bathrooms and other amenities.

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State tally in 2008 showed 5,791 residences, of which 4,028 were single homes, 968 single-family attached, 788 multiples, 7 mobile homes. The 2000 census identified 85 percent of all units as owner occupied, 15 percent rentals. Most of the apartments are located near the town's two shopping sections.

Tree-lined streets. Country feeling. Rolling hills. Deer prance across lawns, nibble at the gardens and devour roses. Utility wires were buried along Moraga Way, the main road.

Close to freeway (Highway 24) and BART stations, but far enough away to be “hidden,” one reason for low crime. Many crimes are crimes of opportunity. Thieves and thugs can’t find Moraga and the few roads into the town — Moraga Way, and St. Mary's, Canyon and Moraga roads — are easily monitored. Moraga has its own police force, staffed by sheriff's deputies. www.mccormacks.com

Zero homicides in 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002 and 2001, one in 2000, zero in 1999, one in 1998, zero in 1997, 1996, 1995, 1994, 1993 and 1992, one in 1991, none in previous six years, reports FBI. The rare homicides usually are family matters. See Crime.

While researching Moraga one year, one of our editors stopped at a delicatessen for a sandwich. Doors wide open. No one behind counter or in store. Person came back shortly. On errand. This may not be typical but it reflects the lack of crime.

One exception of note: the former president of the Moraga Chamber of Commerce and the Moraga Rotary Club plead guilty in 2006 to fraud — selling phony municipal bonds.

In 1991 voters passed a $42 parcel tax to maintain high-school programs (Acalanes District), and in 1997 passed another bond to renovate and upgrade all high schools in the district and equip them for high-tech. See Schools.

Moraga students attend Campolindo High. Another bond was passed in 1995 to renovate the elementary schools and fix up and reopen Los Perales Elementary. Occasionally, Lamorinda turns down a school bond. Proponents then retool the measure, take out a few projects, and submit it to voters again, and again. In 2002, voters, on the second try, approved a $44 million bond to improve playing fields, facilities and language labs. Voters in 2004 approved boosting parcel tax (electives, curriculum, small classes) by $196 to $325. In 2005, another tax was passed to save programs at the high schools. www.mccormacks.com

Many kids go on to the best colleges. Every year about two dozen schools in the state break the 600 mark on the math SAT. All three Lamorinda high schools are usually in this select group. Scores in Moraga and Lamorinda are not just high; they are among the tops in the state. Realtors say that the schools are the number-one selling point for the town.

Lamorinda kids ride school buses, a service few communities offer. Cost about $300 a year per student.

In 2005, the elementary district adopted a plan that spelled out in detail the standards for the students and tests for these standards and presented ways to improve instruction and make the kids smarter and the teachers happier and more productive.

Scenic trails wind through rolling hills. On summer evenings and weekends, hundreds will be found strolling, chatting, jogging. Little in the way of neighborhood parks, the main exception being 20 acres, the commons, in the center of town. Summer concerts. School grounds are used for soccer, baseball, basketball. Two sports fields. Skate park. Large regional parks, one with lake, located just outside town.

Also on edge of town, a redwood grove, remnant of the giants that used to grow there. www.mccormacks.com

Basketball games at St. Mary's College, a pretty campus, along with many cultural events.

Classic movie theater divided into about a half-dozen screens. Shops, stores, supermarkets, restaurants in two shopping areas.

In California it’s nearly impossible to use the word society without someone snickering, but Lamorinda invites some of the teens to a debutante ball.

Country club. Tennis courts. Swimming is big with kids. Campolindo High School has an aquatic center that includes a 50-meter pool, a diving pool and lap pool. Facility can be used by the public.

City hall runs a recreation program for kids and adults. Among typical offerings: yoga, tap dance, needlepoint, community chorus, opera, kindermusik, musical theater for kids, aikido. Annual festival celebrates the pear, which used to be grown in abundance. www.mccormacks.com

Hacienda Las Flores, a mansion built by oil magnate, was purchased by city for a community center. Many people take their entertainment in Berkeley, Oakland or San Francisco. Shakespeare Festival at Orinda.

Laid-back town, confident with its values. Mercedes and Lexus can be found in shopping lots but also Sentras, Accords and Saturns.

The town's supermarkets have been upgraded to include delis, butcher shops and bakeries.

Moraga’s drawback: traffic. The roads are narrow, winding and at peak hours congested.

For years Lamorinda has been talking about and tinkering with improvements but residents fear that widening the roads would invite development. In 2004 and 2005, the city, with a fund of $2.2 million, tackled Moraga Road and added a pedestrian lane, crosswalks and other features and redesigned some intersections to make it safer. www.mccormacks.com

Once through the roads, the commute picture brightens. BART stations at Lafayette and Orinda. Highway 24 to the Bay Bridge is generally stop-and-go during rush hours. Bay Bridge frequently a mess. If you can, take BART.

• St. Mary's College runs an extension program aimed at older adults who want to secure an MBA or other degrees.

• Arguments continue over Palos Colorados development, 17 years in the proposing. Plans call for 123 homes on 462 acres, much of which would be open space. Golf course was dropped.

• Rotarians put up $21,000 to re-create as a play structure Moraga's train station and equip it with a miniature train. Train and station were placed in a park.

• In 2005, the regional park district purchased 1,000 acres in the east hills overlooking Moraga. More trails to hike, more vistas to gaze from. www.mccormacks.com

• Frog serenade. One resident, in the local paper, rhapsodized about the musical delights of croaking frogs in February. “With the exception of my wife, frogs are the most charming living things in our community.”

• In 2005, a Moraga woman, age 55, walking across the street to her home, was struck by a car and killed. Police discovered a Jaguar ornament at the scene and several weeks later arrested a suspect. Examining his Jaguar, they found a piece of earring in the windshield well; it belonged to the woman killed. In 2007, the case went to trial. The defendant, a financial consultant, testified that he thought he had struck a deer. Jury convicted the man of failing to stop at an accident causing death or great bodily harm. Three years in state prison.

• Pesticides and poisons. No thanks, says Moraga. At the urging of residents, the city has abandoned or severely restricted the use of pesticides and poisons. Rodents are trapped, weeds are whacked or pulled by hand, fertilizers have gone organic. Several other cities are doing likewise. Rain washes the pesticides into the streams and bay — not good. Avoiding pesticides cost Moraga $10,000 extra a year — also not good but residents and bay are happier for the practice.

City web site: www.ci.moraga.ca.us