Overview
About Doheny Village
Doheny Village covers 144 acres between Doheny Park Road and the railroad, and it is the one community in the city zoned around a mix of commercial, light industrial and residential use. It carries 527 addresses on 17 named streets, the shortest street list of any community here apart from the harbor, with Doheny Park Rd at 220 and Camino Capistrano at 131. The zoning layer splits the acreage between Village Commercial / Residential at 27.1 acres, Industrial / Business at 25.4 and Village Main Street at 13.4.
The county record totals 487 dwelling units on 144 lots, so the housing here is denser than its lot count suggests, and Harbor Walk is the single homeowner association inside the boundary at 79 addresses. The city's tree inventory holds 223 planted street trees inside, most commonly Queen Palm. Doheny State Beach lies just across Pacific Coast Highway, and Capistrano Unified feeds Palisades Elementary for elementary, Shorecliffs Middle for middle and San Juan Hills High for high.
History
How Doheny Village was built
Doheny Village is the old working center of Capistrano Beach, the blocks inland of the highway around Doheny Park Road and Camino Capistrano. The land was Rancho Boca de la Playa, a 6,607 acre grant made in 1846 to Emigdio Vejar and named for the wetlands at the mouth of the beach, and the railway came through after Marcus A. Forster sold a strip of it to the San Bernardino and San Diego Railway in 1886. The station here was called San Juan by the Sea before it was renamed Serra in 1910, which is why the street grid points the way it does and why Santa Fe Avenue is one of the street names.
The village that grew up behind that beach was never the resort the advertisements promised. The county record shows buildings here from the 1920s through the 1990s, with the heaviest work in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, which is the profile of a service district rather than a subdivision: shops, yards, small houses and light industry serving the coast. It came into the city with the rest of Capistrano Beach on 1 January 1989 after sixty one years in unincorporated Orange County.
By the Numbers
Doheny Village by the numbers
Lifestyle
The Doheny Village lifestyle
Doheny State Beach covers 62 acres and was California's first state beach, created from 41 acres Edward L. Doheny gave to the State before his death in 1935.
State Parks estimates one million visitors a year and opens the beach daily from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Dogs are not allowed on the sand or in the water except for service animals.
The water offshore is inside the Dana Point State Marine Conservation Area, which prohibits taking marine life apart from the recreational take of lobster, sea urchin and finfish by hook and line.
Schools
Schools serving Doheny Village
Capistrano Unified serves Doheny Village. 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 · 332 students
6-8 · 634 students
9-12 · 2,641 students
FAQs
Common questions about Doheny Village
How big is Doheny Village?
Doheny Village measures 144 acres on the boundary the City of Dana Point publishes, which is 3.5 percent of the 4,143 acres its eight communities cover between them. Inside it the city records 527 addresses and 144 parcels.
How is Doheny Village zoned?
The city's zoning layer gives 27.1 acres to Village Commercial / Residential, 25.4 acres to Industrial / Business and 13.4 acres to Village Main Street.
What are the homes in Doheny Village like?
On the county record the median lot measures 6,140 square feet and the typical home 1,892 square feet of living space.
When was Doheny Village built?
The county carries a build year for 72 lots inside the boundary, with a median of 1958. The busiest decades are the 1950s with 18 homes, the 1960s with 15 homes and the 1940s with 12 homes.
Which schools serve Doheny Village?
Capistrano Unified. Its own address locator, run at 12 interior points inside the boundary, returned Palisades TK-5 at 12 of 12 points for elementary; Shorecliffs MS at 12 of 12 points for middle; San Juan Hills HS at 12 of 12 points for high.