Merced Heights

Merced Heights is a tiny neighborhood tucked away on the southwest edge of the city. There is not that much to it, it is mostly a bunch of smallish to medium sized homes stretching out along the side of a hill. The main drag is Gartfield Street, but I don’t recall there being any stores or other draws along it. One of the big attractions here are homes that have backyards—somewhat of a rarity in many areas.

There are some real attractions to the location, however. You are far enough from the city, so that you have some peace and quiet. You are right in between both City College and San Francisco State and just minutes from the ocean and the Zoo. Merced Heights is mostly a family neighborhood as far as I can tell. The rents are relatively reasonable in the area, with the average home going for about $1200. You will also find a fair number of rooms for rent since this area is so close to colleges.

But you shouldn’t get the wrong impression—this is an upper middle class neighborhood where the average household makes around $85K.

There are also parks and Jose Ortega Elementary on the southern end of the neighborhood. I don’t know much about Ortega Elementary, except that they have a very nicely designed website—simple but easy to use, exactly what you want. From the photos there it seems like a pretty nice school.

Overall, I guess what I am saying is that this is a nice little family neighborhood.

Sometimes, all it takes to make a neighborhood is the crest of a hill. That’s certainly the case with Merced Heights, a small, compact area comprised of 22 rectangular blocks bounded by Holloway and Shields on the north and south (respectively) and by Orizaba and Junipero Serra Boulevard to the east and west. The dividing line is the ridge along Shields Street on whose moderate southern slope lies Ingleside Heights; on the steeper northern side is Merced Heights.

To the casual observer, the two areas are virtually indistinguishable from each other. But residents here point out distinct characteristics in both the population and the housing stock that make Merced Heights different from the surrounding neighborhoods, including a wide variety of architectural styles that bespeak the different periods in which it was developed. Rather than being built in one fell swoop (as was Ingleside Terrace, for instance), Merced Heights evolved over the decades, something that shows in the area’s houses.

Historically, however, the area was among the last of the great tracts of land west of Twin Peaks to “fill in”—which, in developer parlance, meant laying out the streets to conform to the grid and then putting in predesigned homes, side by side. But because there were a number of existing homes already here, the monotony of such a scheme is broken by the appearance of a late Victorian or a big farmhouse.

Today, the area fans out in mostly well-maintained rowhouses that have a distinctly working-class look. Though many structures suggest a pre-World War I genesis, much of the neighborhood was built during the housing boom after World War II, in the late 1940s and 1950s, and the houses resemble many homes in the Sunset District (garage below/living quarters above). Exceptions are common, however: On Garfield near Ramsell, there’s a small house, odd because it’s set back and down from the street. Though it’s not on the official list of such buildings, it has the appearance of a 1906 earthquake refugee cottage, similar to more than 5,000 put up in many areas of San Francisco after the quake and fire of 1906. (There’s another halfway up the architecturally rich Byxbee Street, between Garfield and Shields, and possibly two more side by side on Vernon, between Holloway and Garfield.) How many of these refugee cottages remain is an open guessing game in San Francisco, but the often quirky-looking homes in neighborhoods such as Merced Heights have frequently proved to be a good source for examples of these rarities (albeit in an altered form).

As one of the first newly developed neighborhoods in San Francisco that allowed African Americans (even liberal San Francisco had neighborhoods, such as Ingleside Terrace and Presidio Terrace, with covenants that limited ownership or occupation to Caucasians), Merced Heights ultimately became a haven for middle-class blacks by the mid-1950s—as contrasted with the traditionally African American neighborhoods like the Fillmore District, where underprivileged blacks converged. Today, they are still a significant presence among the neighborhood’s roughly 6,000 residents (30 percent), according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics, though having been exceeded by Asians (43 percent). Whites (19 percent) and people of two or more races (8 percent) comprise the other racial categories. The residents are middle class (median annual household income is $55,000) and almost 80 percent own their homes.

There is no commercial district or even a convenience store in Merced Heights. Because of the compact dimensions of the neighborhood and the fact that it borders Ingleside Terrace (which was designed specifically without a commercial strip), the residents here have to travel outside the area for groceries or even a cup of coffee—though there is a small market at Holloway and Ashton, just beyond the neighborhood’s northeast corner. Most people go to the markets and shops in adjacent Ingleside Heights or Parkmerced, or the larger Stonestown Galleria mall.

Residents also share parks and playgrounds with Ingleside Heights (the Merced Heights Playground and Brooks Parks, both just south of Shields Street). Brooks Park is a “natural area,” meaning it has few landscaped areas beyond a few trails, some raised beds for community gardeners, and a picnic table and benches. Merced Heights Playground has a couple of tennis courts, a basketball court, and a children’s play area with climbing equipment. Another of the neighborhood’s curiosities—Shields Orizaba Rocky Outcrop—has been described as “not quite a park,” and it’s fairly easy to see why: this odd promontory of serpentine and schist interrupts the normal grid, making dead-ends of both streets after which it takes its name (they continue on the other side). Local hikers and dog-walkers frequent it, enjoying its views and lax leash rules.

As for public transportation, the No. 29 bus is it, traveling along Garfield Street, east to connect with the “M” streetcar on 19th Avenue or going west all the way to the Bayview. Merced Heights is roughly a mile away from either the Balboa Park or Daly City BART stations.

Though many residents have cars, most houses also have garages, so on-street parking is generally hassle-free. Only the western third or so of the neighborhood is under 2-hour parking limits (owing to its proximity to San Francisco State University), and the city’s Department of Parking and Traffic issues “H” permits exempting residents from the time restriction.

The only public school nearby is Jose Ortega Elementary, on Sargent Street in adjacent Ingleside Heights, at the south end of Brooks Park. This K-5 was rated 6 out of 10 by GreatSchools.

Crime here is relatively light, according to data from the San Francisco Police Department. Over a recent three-month period, the most common violation was disturbing the peace, followed by a few instances of burglary and petty theft. Though vehicle thefts and car break-ins have hounded other districts in the city, they are uncommon here. And assaults are merely occasional in the area, with no homicides reported in the last three years.

Real-estate prices in Merced Heights are still struggling to recover from the recent economic downturn, remaining 22 percent below in 2010 what they were in 2009, according to Trulia. Still, the market is heavy with foreclosures, and there are bargains to be found. A two-bedroom, one-bathroom single-family home on Byxbee Street was asking $529,000, and many other such homes were listed in the low to mid-$400,000 range. Rentals are fairly rare (being snatched up by SFSU students); a three-bedroom, two-bath home lists in the $2,800 to $3,000 a month range. As it turns out, students from SFSU and City College have given this neighborhood’s rocky housing market some stability, readily renting properties that would have otherwise stood vacant during the slump.

Large broad lawns carpet the sides and centers of its streets among uniform architecture and clustered townhomes. Behind the white columns of the townhouse porticoes are dwellings with private patios, enclosed gardens, and, in some cases, a view of the lake.

The neighborhood was financed at its outset by Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. and development brought with it basketball, volleyball, and tennis courts abounding in this family oriented neighborhood.

Merced Heights has some great recreational spots, including doggie parks and dog runs, but not a lot for humans. Hard to find a good restaurant and nightlife is scarce. But, with streets leading out to the hub nearby, urban amenities are easy to find.