Ladera Ranch, Las Flores, Rancho Mission Viejo

Communities, Orange County

© McCormack's Guides

 

Zip Code: 92694

Ladera Ranch is a large development going up in south county, about 8,100 homes, townhouses, apartments on 4,000 acres in foothills of Santa Ana Mountains, east of Mission Viejo. www.mccormacks.com

Country feeling. About 1,600 acres of the development were dedicated to open space. Mix of homes, some custom and upscale. Apartments, row homes, courtyard homes, variety of styles. Modern suburbia with old-fashioned touches.

Las Flores is a smaller master-planned community built just north of Ladera Ranch. YMCA community center. Golf course nearby. Large park. The 2000 census tallied 5,625 people living in about 2,000 units.

Rancho Mission Viejo is a community in planning, 14,000 housing units on 25,000 acres. It is to be built south of Ladera Ranch.

A little history. Las Flores, Ladera Ranch and Rancho Mission Viejo are part of a land grant. Decades ago, the owners of the grant broke it into large parcels that were turned into communities — Rancho Santa Margarita and Mission Viejo to mention two. Almost all the older “grant” communities have incorporated themselves as legal cities.

Las Flores, built in the 1990s, and Ladera, built mostly after 2000, are the latest communities. They are not legal cities in charge of their own planning and municipal operations. They are unincorporated and under the political jurisdiction of the county government. When they have political issues, they handle them through their county supervisor. www.mccormacks.com

These communities (and others) were built according to a master plan. The owner-developer submitted a plan to the county government, which reviewed it and made changes and worked closely with the developer. County governments, for a variety of reasons, shy away from municipal functions, such as parks and street cleaning and maintenance of public grounds.

To take care of these chores, the developers created homeowner associations, one for the entire development, separate ones for individual tracts as they are built and brought to market. Typically, one developer oversees the “master” plan but when the building is done, several developers participate in the job. As each builds a tract or mini neighborhood, it is assigned a homeowner association.

When a project is finished, the developer steps out of the picture and the homeowners’ association takes over maintenance of common grounds and whatever chores the association has been assigned or takes on. These might include maintaining the neighborhood park or pool or rec center and painting the homes at certain times, enforcing rules on appearances or throwing a Fourth of July party.

These associations have boards elected by their constituencies and they levy fees on their members. In effect, they are “municipal” organizations (and they have arguments) but they lack the formal powers of legal cities.

In the late 1990s, a big fight over a military air base (see Aliso Viejo.) infuriated many people in the south county and they concluded that to win, they needed more political power. So they incorporated as legal cities. www.mccormacks.com

One of these years, Las Flores, Ladera Ranch and Rancho Mission Viejo may decide to incorporate or annex to other cities. Ladera Ranch is almost surrounded by Rancho Santa Margarita.

In the meantime, they will function as homeowner association towns. For buyers in these towns, it is important to understand the covenants and restrictions of the associations; these are, in effect, the town and neighborhood laws. It is also important to understand the obligations and bills assumed by the associations or imposed by arrangement with the county.

The sheriff’s department patrols most of Las Flores and Ladera Ranch. The latter has a gated neighborhood.

No crime statistics available but new communities with upscale demographics usually have very low crime. Rarely do these communities make the newspapers for crime.

Communities with these demographics typically score high. Las Flores schools are scoring in the 80^th and 90^th percentiles, Ladera Ranch schools in the 70^th to 90^th percentiles. See Schools.

All the schools are new or fairly new and equipped for computers and high tech. For this reason and others, the new communities attract many young families. www.mccormacks.com

Sometimes these developments take decades to develop. Ladera Ranch, however, has come on very quickly and as of 2007 counts about 7,730 units. The community has an active resale market.

Education compliments of the Capistrano Unified School District, which serves about six communities.

The Ladera Ranch schools are Chapparal Elementary and Ladera Elementary (which includes a middle school), opened in 2003; Oso Grande Elementary, 2005.

The older Ladera children attend Tesoro High in Rancho Santa Margarita but with the 2007 opening of San Juan Hills High in San Juan Capistrano Ladera teens will be routed to this school. San Juan Hills High is starting with freshmen and sophomores and will add juniors and seniors in following years. For more information on attendance boundaries, contact the district. For info on fight over attendance boundaries, see San Juan Capistrano.

Las Flores children attend Las Flores Elementary and Las Flores Middle and move up to Tesoro High, opened in 2001. www.mccormacks.com

Private schools nearby.

Like many master-planned communities, Las Flores and Ladera Ranch do a good job of moving traffic to the freeways and suppressing traffic on residential streets. Both communities have parkways that lead to Interstate 5 and to Highway 241, a toll highway. This highway is supposed to be extended to San Juan Capistrano but is running into opposition from people who don’t like highways in their back yards.

Ladera Ranch employs traffic circles and narrow streets to slow traffic.

In Ladera Ranch, paths and trails connect the villages. Large sports park with baseball, softball and soccer fields. Golf course closeby.

About ten developers, each with its own designs, built Ladera Ranch. Two-bedroom townhouses to six-bedroom single homes. About 200 units are zoned for home businesses. www.mccormacks.com

In place: plaza with supermarket, drug store, Starbucks, bank, shops, Kohl's, Staples, fast-food eateries. Library.

Both communities do a lot of shopping in Mission Viejo, which has a regional mall with a Nordstrom's and a Saks. Also in MV, a hospital, a community college, movies and many restaurants.

Although close to the mountains, these communities are within a 10-15 drive to the Pacific.

Among Ladera activities: an annual garage sale that jams the streets with shoppers. For more on nearby towns, see Mission Viejo., Rancho Santa Margarita., San Juan Capistrano.