Tocayo Ridge

Tocayo Ridge covers 73.1 acres and holds 150 addresses on 150 parcels, one for one, at a median parcel of 0.308 acres. Eight streets serve it and all eight are single Spanish words with no Calle or Via prefix: Inclinado with 43 addresses, then Altura, Estampida, Sombreado, Cadena, Afloramiento, Ensenada and Aldeano. It is the 15th largest of the fifty San Clemente communities mapped here by area.

Residential Low Density land accounts for 52.5 acres inside the boundary and private open space for 10.4. The whole boundary lies inside the Forster Ranch Specific Plan area and it belongs to the Forster Ranch master association. All 73.1 acres sit in the state's High fire hazard severity class. Capistrano Unified's own school locator returned San Clemente High, Bernice Ayer Middle and Truman Benedict Elementary at all five interior points tested.

Tocayo Ridge sits at the far northwest corner of Forster Ranch, a few hundred yards short of the San Juan Capistrano line, and it was built with the same four floor plans as Tocayo Hills, from 1,230 to 1,432 square feet. What is different is the land under them. The lots here are larger, big front and back yards are standard, and the houses stand well apart from each other. You cannot really see the ocean from Tocayo Ridge. What you get instead is hills, canyon and open space, and the street names say as much in plain Spanish, Altura for height and Afloramiento for a rock outcrop, alongside Inclinado, Sombreado and Estampida.

None of this was part of the town Ole Hanson founded. When Hanson opened San Clemente on 6 December 1925, his purchase ran about 2,000 acres between El Camino Real and the ocean, and lots there started at $300. The inland ranches stayed ranches for another half century. Planning for Forster Ranch began in 1974, the city placed a Development District over its four inland ranch properties when it adopted a new general plan and a hillside development ordinance in 1982, and the plan that followed passed through a succession of owners, from Estrella Properties to Centex Development Company, which signed its development agreement with the city in 1992, and then to Laing, which redrew the remaining undeveloped land in 1998.