City and Community, Santa Clara County
© McCormack's Guides
Morgan
Hill, population 39,218, is a south county city that mixes country and suburbia
and in recent years has improved its amenities. www.mccormacks.com
In 2002,
the town opened a community-cultural center, in 2004, an aquatics center with
two pools and slides, and in 2006, a recreation center with an indoor pool, a
gym and activity rooms. In mid 2007, Morgan Hill is scheduled to open a large
library to replace a small.
Next big
job: playing fields to be built next to fields now used for soccer.
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If San
Jose epitomized the building spirit of 60 years ago, Morgan Hill captures the
different mood of modern Santa Clara County. San Jose said, “let ‘er rip,” and
cheered as developers marched their tracts down the Santa Clara Valley.
A half
century later, in the late 1990s, when Silicon Valley was booming and in
desperate need of housing, it looked south to Morgan Hill and South San Jose.
This time the approach was OK but let’s take it slow and do the planning.
Morgan
Hills vows not to repeat the mistakes of yore and is searching for the right
blend of elements to buy and sustain the comforts of modern life. This includes
a mix of housing and local jobs. Morgan Hill has landed a number of high-tech
firms and set aside land for business-research parks. www.mccormacks.com
Nonetheless,
Morgan Hill, which has miles of farm land and open space, is growing at a good
pace. In the 1990s, the city added about 9,600 residents and 2,300 housing
units, the great majority single or single-attached homes.
Between
2000 and 2006, the town built 1,231 units and increased by 3,505 residents. Many
of the new homes were erected on the West Side and on the east, out in the
country, near Anderson Lake.
State in
2008 counted 12,821 residential units — 7,967 single detached homes,
1,892 single attached 2,050 multiples, 912 mobile homes.
San Martin, population about 5,000, is a
small hamlet south of Morgan Hill near Highway 101.
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For as
long as anyone can remember, the village has cultivated the grape and puttered
around farming. But in recent years, it has attracted up-market housing —
wine estates that sell in some instances for over $3 million. This and more
stores are dramatically changing the reputation and appearance of San Martin. www.mccormacks.com
San Martin
is unincorporated; meaning it has no fixed boundaries. Morgan Hill and Gilroy,
on the south, are legal cities with powers to annex and grow. And that's what
they have been doing. Both are nearing San Martin and nibbling away and it's
possible that in a few years San Martin will annex to one or the other.
San Martin
has a train station, freeway access, and park-and-ride lot. Small airport nears
the freeway.
San Martin
is part of the Morgan Hill Unified School District. The hamlet has two elementary
schools, one a charter scoring in the 70 and the 90th percentile,
the second, in the 40th percentile. See Schools.
Morgan
Hill takes its name not from a striking hill, called El Toro, to the west but
from Hiram Morgan Hill who married into a pioneer family. Stately oaks grace a
few lawns and trees planted around the city soften the housing lines. Hills to
east and west. Most of town is built on valley floor.
Served by
Morgan Hill Unified School District. About 15 years ago, Morgan Hill, at that
time still fairly rural, was scoring in the 50th and 60th percentiles. Now many
of the scores are landing in the 60th to 90th percentile, a reflection of the
changing demographics of the town, more professionals, more high-tech people
(but still many children from the farm-working families). www.mccormacks.com
Renovation
bond was passed in 1991. In 1999, another bond was passed, $73 million, to
renovate Live Oak High School and upgrade its technology and build another high
school and an elementary school. Both were opened a few years ago. Using state
money, the district is rebuilding at least one of its oldest schools.
Crime low.
One homicide in 2005, zero in 2004 and 2003, one in 2002, zero in 2001, 2000,
and 1999, one each in 1998 and 1997, zero in 1996 and 1995, the FBI reports.
The counts for the previous years are 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, and 0. See Crime.
Morgan Hill
depends on Highway 101 to move its motoring commuters. For years, this road was
a nightmare because it narrowed between South San Jose and Morgan Hill. In
2003, an extra lane in each direction widened the highway. Big difference but
the road still congests; more traffic. For an alternative: Monterey Road,
four-lanes; it parallels the freeway. Park & Ride lots in downtown.
Another
alternative: Caltrain, which runs commute trains to San Jose and to other
Silicon Valley cities, finishing in San Francisco. Expanded parking at the
train station. New bullet trains. See commute chapter.
In the
early 1990s, Morgan Hill ran into money woes and scrapped its recreation
department (public works maintained the parks). Parent groups, the school
district, the YMCA and private firms either stepped into the breech or had
their own programs in place. Soccer, football, the typical kids’ sports,
swimming, dance, ballet — all
there. Skate park opened. www.mccormacks.com
In 1998,
the city brought back its recreation program with instructions to work with the
local gyms and recreation, dance, sports groups etc. to help them publicize and
coordinate their activities. The city is also offering its own activities,
especially for the kids and teens. Contact city hall for a calendar of activities
or see web site.
Large
regional park and lake (reservoir) to east of town. Boating on lake. The county
and private groups have purchased for open space about 16,000 acres in the
hills around Gilroy and Morgan Hill.
To listen
to many people, what San Jose did in the 1950s was a horror. It allowed (gasp!)
developers to run free. So did thousands of cities across the country. America
was coming out of a world war and the Depression. Freeways were built, the car
came into full flower and the great exodus was on, from city to suburbs.
Governments imposed few controls not only because they wanted the growth but
because they didn’t know what controls to impose.
Morgan
Hill missed this era. Until the 1980s, it was a hick hamlet in the middle of
fields and orchards.
When its
time came to develop, planners were in place, they had a much better idea of
what worked and what didn’t, the public was aware of environmental concerns,
protecting open space was accepted — a different ball game. www.mccormacks.com
If you buy
into Morgan Hill, you are very much buying into a planned, controlled-growth
community. And a community moving up the scale. The 1980s and most of the 1990s
housing coincided with a period of prosperity in the South Bay. The same holds
for the housing going up now. This said, much of the town's housing serves the
farm workers.
Morgan Hill traces the fortunes of the
county: small and modest, bungalows and cottages, in the old town.
Three-bedroom, two-car-garage homes in the next ring and on the outer ring,
two-story, four- to six-bedroom homes built in the modern style, creamy stucco
and red-tile roofs, plenty of light, California Mediterranean. In the east
hills, many of the homes were custom built along tract designs and positioned
to command views of the valley or Lake Anderson.
San Jose
has approved the construction of office and research buildings and about 25,000
homes on thousands of acres in Coyote Valley, near Morgan Hill. Morgan Hill
opposes this project and is trying to limit its size.
Morgan Hill honors the mushroom with a
festival. The town also has a few wineries. The winter holidays are welcomed
with a crafts fair, caroling and the lighting of a Christmas tree. Downtown
Morgan Hill has been spruced up with trees and brick sidewalks and crosswalks.
Chamber of
commerce (408) 779-9444.
• Tiny
airport in San Martin to the south. Check tolerance for noise; also noise from
trains. www.mccormacks.com
• Cities
compete for retail stores in part because a portion of the sales tax is returned
to the originating city for use as it sees fit. Gilroy with its giant malls has
vacuumed up most of the retail dollars in the region. Morgan Hill has a Home
Depot, a Mervyns, a TJ Maxx (small department store) and a Target —
helpful but not bountiful. Local shopping will improve somewhat in 2007 with the opening of a
mini mall. Stores will include a Gottschalks (dept. store), a Cost
Plus, a Circuit City, a Staples and a larger Target (to replace the smaller
one).
• Trader
Joes opened store in 2006. Morgan Hill also has a bakery, several large
supermarkets, a fish-meat market, restaurants and cafes, a bookstore and dozens of other stores.
• Job
center to help laborers secure day jobs.
• In 2005,
Morgan Hill won a $2.6 million grant to fix up the streets near the train
station. Among improvements: a statue of Hiram Morgan Hill and his wife and
daughter.
• Some
people with a Morgan Hill address live way out in the country where mountain
lions roam. In 2006, one cat was shot and killed after it climbed a fence to
dine on goats. If you live in the brush, take care for pets and farm animals,
the experts advise and take other precautions. When mountain lions are sighted,
it almost always makes the news but attacks on humans are rare — 15
people in the last 125 years, according to newspaper. www.mccormacks.com
• Some
decades ago, the Fry family got out of supermarkets, turned their knowledge to
high tech and built 32 large and popular electronic stores throughout
California and several other states. Big bucks!
John Fry,
the president and an unusual fellow, lives in Morgan Hill. An avid golfer,
years ago he built without permits a golf course (7,952 yards) that is better
and longer than many found on the PGA tour. Later the course was annexed into
Morgan Hill and some restrictions were applied — no tournaments.
Fry likes
math and in 1994 founded the American Institute of Math, which funds research.
He collects math books and reportedly has a first edition of Newton’s Principia
and some of Einstein’s papers.
For a long
time, the institute was run out of warehouse next to one of his stores in Palo
Alto. Now he wants permanent headquarters in the form of a castle to be built
on his property in Morgan Hill. Two stories, 60 acres, underground parking,
library, sleeping quarters, 168,000 square feet, modeled after the Alhambra in
Spain.
In 2006,
the city council, after taking comments from professors from Stanford, Berkeley
and Santa Clara University, sailed the project through. Among pluses, classes
for math teachers and students. If all goes well, the job will be finished in
2009. www.mccormacks.com
• Happy
Trails. When the county purchased Bear Ranch, 2,968 acres, and Mendoza Ranch,
711 acres, in the hills east of Morgan Hill, use was limited to 13 miles of
trails. In 2007, a grant was won —
$600,000 — to add 14
miles. Hiking, biking and horsing.
• When the
trains come through, the gates go down and the bells clang. In 2006, a man, age
20, from Gilroy was caught behind other vehicles when the gates descended at a
Morgan Hill crossing. He swung his pickup around the cars and the barrier and
was half way across when a Caltrain commuter came through. Pickup cut in half,
man seriously injured, girlfriend, who was riding with him, killed. No one hurt
on train, which was returned to service next day.
That was
the initial news story. Followup article suggested that the man had reason to
believe that the gate-alarm was malfunctioning.
Later in
the year, an 18-year-old Morgan Hill man, on foot, apparently tried to beat an
approaching train. Killed.
Caltrain,
concerned about deaths along the tracks, has stepped up safety warnings and
asked parents and schools to caution the children about playing on or near the
tracks or crossing them. www.mccormacks.com
City web site:
www.morgan-hill.ca.gov
