Overview
About Dana Point Harbor
Harbor is the community the city draws around Dana Point Harbor itself: 99 acres, 2.4 percent of the city, and the only one of the eight zoned almost entirely as a planned community. 79.8 acres carry the Dana Point Harbor Planned Community designation on the city's specific plan layer. It holds 94 addresses on 7 named streets, most of them along Golden Lantern St, over 23 parcels.
This is a working waterfront rather than a residential tract, and the city record reflects that: the county totals 61 dwelling units here and the parcel layer records no association at all. Baby Beach adjoins the boundary on the city's beach layer, Dana Island sits inside it as a 3.14-acre Orange County park, and 0.46 miles of the city's bikeway network run through. Capistrano Unified serves the addresses here and feeds Richard Henry Dana Elementary for elementary, Marco Forster Middle for middle and Dana Hills High for high.
History
How Dana Point Harbor was built
For most of its history this was not a harbor at all. It was Dana Cove, a shallow bight where the water lapped against 200 foot cliffs, and it worked as the port for Mission San Juan Capistrano during the hide trade of the 1830s and 1840s. Richard Henry Dana loaded cowhides here off the brig Pilgrim in 1835 and wrote the passage that gave the headland his name. Surfers knew the same water as Killer Dana, a wave that came out of deep water and broke close to the rocks along the beach.
Building the harbor took the cove apart. Work began in the summer of 1966 to an Army Corps of Engineers design. Crews dumped roughly a million tons of rock to make two breakwaters, big boulders trucked from a quarry at San Marcos and smaller rock barged over from Catalina, then closed the gap with a cofferdam and pumped the cove dry so they could cut the marina channels and pour the seawalls. One of the two rocky headlands, San Juan Point, was demolished and its material used as fill for parking. Three access roads were cut into the cliffs and about three million cubic yards of earth were moved. Fish and Game moved abalone and lobster out first, but the habitat itself was gone, and so was the wave. The harbor was dedicated on 31 July 1971 and its two basins hold about 2,500 slips.
By the Numbers
Dana Point Harbor by the numbers
Lifestyle
The Dana Point Harbor lifestyle
Dana Point Marina is divided into an East Basin and a West Basin holding 2,500 slips between them, plus fifty guest slips, a ten lane launch ramp, a fishing pier, a shipyard, a marine fuel dock and three yacht clubs.
The harbor keeps no set operating hours, but a curfew runs in the parking lots, beach and picnic areas between midnight and 5:00 a.m.
The revitalization is expected to cost nearly $600 million. Its first landside phase, the Commercial Core at the end of Golden Lantern, adds roughly 120,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space with a three-level parking structure.
Schools
Schools serving Dana Point Harbor
Capistrano Unified serves Dana Point Harbor. 12 interior points spread across the boundary were run through the district's own address locator. Every point returned the same three campuses.
K-5 · 461 students
6-8 · 930 students
9-12 · 1,725 students
FAQs
Common questions about Dana Point Harbor
How big is Dana Point Harbor?
Dana Point Harbor measures 99 acres on the boundary the City of Dana Point publishes, which is 2.4 percent of the 4,143 acres its eight communities cover between them. Inside it the city records 94 addresses and 23 parcels.
How is Dana Point Harbor zoned?
The city's zoning layer gives 79.7 acres to Dp Harbor Planned Community and 0.6 acres to County. 79.8 acres fall under (DPHPC) Dana Point Harbor Planned Community on the specific plan layer.
Is Dana Point Harbor a homeowners association?
No. The city's HOA layer maps 63 associations across Dana Point and none of them falls inside this boundary. Dana Point Harbor is a community area the city draws on its own community boundary layer, not an association.
Does Dana Point Harbor reach the beach?
On the city's own beach layer Baby Beach @ Dana Point Harbor adjoins the boundary, so the sand begins where the community ends.
Which schools serve Dana Point Harbor?
Capistrano Unified. Its own address locator, run at 12 interior points inside the boundary, returned R.H.Dana PreK-5 at 12 of 12 points for elementary; Marco Forster MS at 12 of 12 points for middle; Dana Hills HS at 12 of 12 points for high.