Emerald Lake, Town of Woodside Homes for sale, recent sales and a Property Nerd’s guide

Jefferson Avenue (from Redwood City) and Cañada Road (along the freeway) are the through routes, and several streets continue across the town line into the unincorporated hills. From Jefferson, Glencrag Way climbs north through the middle, with Woodside Way, Southdale Way, Yosemite Court, Midglen Way and West Glen Way looping off it, and West California Way, Tum Suden Way and Southview Way running along the east side at the town line. Maple Way and West Maple Way form a loop at the top, and Rocky Way, West Rocky Way and Eastview Way reach the northern tip. Palm Circle and Monticello Court come off Cañada Road, and Godetia Drive loops from Cañada Road up to Jefferson Avenue south of the specific-plan area.

The 1995 plan calls the roads narrow and winding, often half to four-fifths of the Town's standard width, with soil creep along parts of Glencrag Way, Jefferson Avenue, Woodside Way and Tum Suden Way and an old landslide under parts of Midglen, West Glen and West California ways. Slopes typically run 10 to 30 percent and reach 50 in places, and many lots look west to the hills or out to the Bay. Houses are mostly modest and set among oaks and brush; the plan singles out recent larger houses on small lots as the change it wanted to slow.

How this differs from the Emerald Lake Hills next door: the in-town area follows the Town of Woodside's zoning, the specific plan, Town design review and Town building permits, and Census maps put it in the Woodside Elementary School District. The unincorporated Emerald Lake Hills (the Census Emerald Lake Hills CDP, which a 1998 vote named Emerald Hills) is regulated by San Mateo County and is in the Redwood City School District. The two lakes, Upper and Lower Emerald Lake, are both in the unincorporated area, roughly 0.9 to 1.2 miles northeast of the middle of the in-town streets (straight-line). Both areas share 94062.