Overview
About Alta
Alta is a 35-acre pocket inside Talega, holding 63 homes on 78 parcels in the city's address record. The median parcel here measures 0.25 acres, among the more generous in Talega, and the whole community is served by four streets: Via Alcamo, Calle Tamara, Via Carina and Via Diego. Sixteen of the 35 acres carry the city's Residential Low Density designation and 13 are kept as private open space.
Alta belongs to the Talega master association, one of five master associations the city maps across San Clemente, and building here falls under the Talega Specific Plan. A little over a quarter mile of the Talega Trail runs inside the boundary. Capistrano Unified's locator returned Vista del Mar Elementary, Vista del Mar Middle and San Clemente High at every interior point tested. Six of the 35 acres sit in the state's Very High fire hazard severity zone and the remaining 29 in the High zone.
View available homes in AltaHistory
How Alta was built
Alta is the top of the Talega master plan in both senses of the word. Standard Pacific built it with some of the largest houses in Talega, six two story floor plans in Spanish and Tuscan styling running from roughly 4,700 to 5,400 square feet, with five to seven bedrooms and two and three car garages. The name is simply the word for high, and the four streets inside it read like a page torn out of an atlas of the old country: Calle Tamara, Via Carina, Via Diego and Via Alcamo, that last one a town of about 45,000 people in the northwest corner of Sicily, between Palermo and Trapani.
The high name fits the ground. The Talega property climbs from about 210 feet above sea level at its southwestern corner to about 910 feet in the hills at its north end, and the plan the city adopted for it covers 3,510 acres, one of seven specific plan areas San Clemente has on its books. All of this is new land by local standards. Construction on Talega started in 1999, seventy four years after Ole Hanson laid out the original town on the two thousand acres between El Camino Real and the ocean.
By the Numbers
Alta by the numbers
Lifestyle
The Alta lifestyle
San Clemente keeps ten beaches of its own along the shore, from North Beach past the pier to Riviera, and the city's Marine Safety division staffs them. The pier itself carries restrooms, metered parking, fire rings and the Amtrak and Metrolink platform at its foot.
The city publishes five trail networks that run from the sand up into the canyons and along the ridgelines. Bikes are welcome on all of them, electric bikes are not allowed on the Beach Trail, dogs are welcome on a leash, and horses are permitted on the Forster Ridgeline, Prima Deshecha and Cristianitos trails. City parks are open from 6 am to 10 pm without a reservation unless a group needs a permit.
Schools
Schools serving Alta
Capistrano Unified assigns Alta to San Clemente High, Vista del Mar Middle and Vista del Mar Elementary. The district's own school locator returned the same assignment at every point tested inside the boundary, and enrollment comes from the federal count for 2024-25.
9-12 · 2,740 students
6-8 · 499 students
K-5 · 692 students
FAQs
Common questions about Alta
How big is Alta?
The boundary the city publishes covers 35 acres, with 63 addresses on 78 parcels. It is the 40th largest of the fifty San Clemente communities mapped here by area, and the 46th by number of homes.
Which schools serve Alta?
Capistrano Unified's school locator returned Vista del Mar Elementary, Vista del Mar Middle and San Clemente High at all five points tested inside the boundary. Confirm the assignment for a specific address with the district before you rely on it.
How many streets are there in Alta?
Four: Via Alcamo, Calle Tamara, Via Carina and Via Diego. Via Alcamo carries almost half the addresses in the community.
How large are the lots?
The city's parcel layer gives a median of 0.25 acres across the 78 parcels inside the boundary, with 63 addresses among them. Sixteen acres of the community carry the Residential Low Density designation in the city's general plan.
When was Alta recorded?
Tract 16630 was recorded in 2005 at Miscellaneous Maps book 870, pages 28 to 37. That is the date the subdivision was filed with the county, not the year any house was built.