Dumpster Rental in Martinez: What the Work Looks Like
Martinez is the Contra Costa County seat, incorporated in 1876, and it still has one of the older housing mixes in the county: about 1 in 5 homes went up before 1960, including Victorians from 1865 to 1910 around the downtown grid. The biggest wave came later, with nearly half of the city's homes built in the 1970s and 1980s across Virginia Hills, the Nancy Boyd Park area and the Ashwood Drive townhomes. Those houses are now 35 to 55 years old, which means original roofs, kitchens, decks and windows reaching the end of their run.
New construction is scarce. Fewer than 2 percent of Martinez homes were built after 2010, and in 2025, 28 of the 33 housing units the city permitted were ADUs or junior ADUs. So most of the debris here comes from changing what is already standing: garage conversions, backyard cottages, seismic and foundation work on older homes, and the clean-out that comes before a sale.
Martinez was a refinery town before it was a commuter town: Shell arrived in 1915, and John Muir made his home here. Out past the city grid, Alhambra Valley is estate and horse property near Briones, Virginia Hills sits on the far side of the hills from most of town, and Vine Hill and Mountain View are partly unincorporated, so a few addresses that say Martinez answer to the county rather than City Hall.