Foster City is San Mateo County’s largest and oldest master-planned community. Almost 60 years have passed since T. Jack Foster purchased Brewer Island, an empty, marshy expanse used for dairy farming and salt evaporation ponds, intending to create a thoroughly modern city. The first residents moved into Foster City on March 7, 1964. Charles Zerbe, a San Francisco firefighter with a wife and two young sons, paid $23,500 for his five-bedroom house on Pilgrim Drive.

New mixed-use and pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods are in the works for two major undeveloped areas of Foster City. When completed, Pilgrim-Triton and Foster Square projects could add over a thousand new residential units and 300,000 square feet of office space, retail, and restaurants to the community.

However the new development turns out, you can bet city leaders and residents will be careful to ensure it doesn’t make a dent in the things that make Foster City unique and attractive. This is a community different from every other city on the Peninsula.

Foster City makes the most of its setting, with a network of public parks and 11 miles of the Bay Trail. Foster City boasts a skate park and a dog park, a yearly Arts and Wine Festival, a Halloween Festival, A community bike ride, and an annual Polynesian Festival, highlighting the city’s diverse population.

And while most of the nearby shopping and dining is found in San Mateo – the Hillsdale Shopping Center is 2.5 miles away – there are some local options, some as unique as Foster City itself. The waterfront deck outside Waterfront Pizza and Chevy’s in the Edgewater Place Center is packed on warm summer nights. Some diners arrive by boat.

Foster City is a natural fit for families with its spacious homes and bountiful recreation opportunities. Audubon, Brewer Island, and Foster City, its three elementary schools, are consistently ranked among the best in San Mateo County, Bowditch Middle School. According to Neighborhood Scout, Foster City is the 55th Safest City in the U.S.