Downtown Lafayette

Downtown grew up at a crossroads. Redwood wagons coming from Moraga met the Oakland-to-Martinez road, today's Mt. Diablo Boulevard, and that junction became the center of the new town. The road was busy with produce, milk, grain, and cattle headed to market, so hotels for teamsters and farmers, a store, and a blacksmith followed. Elam Brown, who had moved here from his first homestead in Happy Valley, laid out the town and gave a small triangle of land at the intersection, today's Plaza Park. Wheat grew well here, and Brown built a grist mill on Lafayette Creek.

By 1852 the settlement had 76 residents. In 1857, storekeeper Benjamin Shreve applied for a post office under the name Centerville, which was already taken, and his wife Adaline suggested La Fayette, after La Fayette County, Wisconsin, where she grew up. The Pioneer Store building, from the 1850s, is the oldest building left in Lafayette.

Downtown has Lafayette's widest range of housing: townhomes and condos near BART and Mt. Diablo Boulevard, and single-family homes on the surrounding streets, from former summer cottages that were expanded over the years to homes built in the late 1930s and after the war.

What should you look for in a Downtown Lafayette home? In an older house, checking the foundation and the drainage around the home is always worthwhile, and a former summer cottage may have been added onto more than once, so ask which work had permits and read the inspection reports closely. There's no ordinance requiring a sewer lateral certificate in Lafayette, however a sewer lateral inspection is recommended. For a townhome or condo, read the association's documents and budget before you commit.

Plaza Park, the Lafayette Library and Learning Center, and the Town Hall Theatre are all downtown, along with restaurants and shops on Mt. Diablo Boulevard. The Lafayette Reservoir, with its loop trail and boating, is at the west end of the boulevard, and the Lafayette-Moraga Regional Trail runs south toward Moraga.

Summer in Lafayette centers on its member-owned swim clubs, several a short drive from downtown, and on youth leagues like the Lafayette Moraga Youth Association (since 1954), Lafayette Little League, and Lamorinda Soccer. Swim club membership is optional and has its own fee.

Lafayette has no extra city transfer tax, only Contra Costa County's. There's no ordinance requiring a sewer lateral certificate in Lafayette, however a sewer lateral inspection is recommended. If a home is in a High or Very High fire hazard severity zone on the state's map, the sale also includes a routine defensible space inspection, which looks at how plants and brush are kept around the house. My Lafayette home selling page explains the steps.

Homeowners move on for all kinds of reasons including (but not limited to): upsizing to a second or third home, divorce, relocating for work, or the passing of a family member.

Tanja Odzak is a Top East Bay Realtor with eXp Realty, helping buyers and sellers in Lafayette and across the East Bay. Downtown Lafayette is the city's center along Mt. Diablo Boulevard, with shops and restaurants, the library, the Lafayette BART station, and the streets of homes around them. It is where most of Lafayette's townhomes and condos are, alongside some of the city's older houses.