Hillsborough was incorporated in 1910 and has spent the century since staying exactly what it set out to be. It covers about six square miles between Interstate 280 and the flat land running down to El Camino Real, and roughly eleven thousand people live there.
The rules are the thing to understand before you shop here, because they shape everything. The minimum lot size is half an acre, so that is the smallest parcel anyone can create by subdivision. The minimum house is 2,500 square feet. The maximum is set by a floor-area ratio — 25 per cent of the net lot area for the first acre, then 15 per cent of anything above it — and a house of 8,000 square feet or more goes to the City Council for the final design decision. New houses, teardowns and major remodels all pass through the Architecture and Design Review Board first, and sloped lots carry extra requirements of their own.
The consequence is a town with no apartments, no condominiums and no townhouses, and no businesses either: there is no commercial zoning at all. The only things that are not houses are the schools, the town and county buildings, a golf course, the Burlingame Country Club — which is here rather than in Burlingame — and a few small parks. Residents shop in Burlingame and San Mateo, which are both minutes away.
What the town does have is architecture. Carolands, the 65,000 square foot Beaux-Arts chateau on Remillard Drive, is on the National Register. Uplands and Skyfarm are now the Crystal Springs Uplands and Nueva schools. There is a 1940 Frank Lloyd Wright house on Reservoir Road, and the sprayed-concrete Flintstone House that everyone on 280 has seen.
Photo: Sanfranman59, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Hillsborough, in the questions people ask us.
Does Hillsborough have its own high school?
No. There is no high school inside the town. Students go to a San Mateo Union High School District school, assigned by home address — worth checking with the district for the exact street before you buy.
Can I buy a condominium or townhouse in Hillsborough?
No. There are none. The half-acre minimum lot and the 2,500 square foot minimum house leave no room for attached housing, and the town has no commercial zoning either.
Why does my Hillsborough address say Burlingame?
Because Hillsborough has no ZIP code of its own — it shares 94010 with Burlingame. The town is its own municipality with its own police force and school district; only the postal address is shared.
Can I subdivide a Hillsborough lot?
Only if every resulting lot is at least half an acre, and hillside parcels face additional standards under the town's subdivision ordinance. An existing legal lot smaller than half an acre can still be built on with one house.
Will I need design review to build or remodel?
Almost certainly. The Architecture and Design Review Board sees new houses, teardowns, major remodels and most changes of architectural style, and anything 8,000 square feet or larger goes to the City Council for the final decision.
I have held a California real estate license since 1989, and in that time the Bay Area has changed almost beyond recognition. What has not changed is how a good move happens: through someone who knows the neighbourhoods, knows the people, and can make the right introduction at the right moment. I call myself a real estate consultant as well as an agent because most of the job is advice — when to sell, what to fix, which town suits the way you live — and the connections I have made since 1989 are there to be used for my clients.
A consultant, an agent and a connector.
Marisa Roman Wachhorst
