Rancho Mission Viejo: The Development

Family & friends back in Minnesota have been asking questions like, "Wait...where the hell is Rancho Mission Viejo!?!" Our new house is in an Orange County, CA development called Rancho Mission Viejo (RMV). Besides being all brand new, it receives almost a constant light breeze from the ocean that is absolutely delightful!

Read on for more and so you can see where it is...

Here is what the Wikipedia article about RMV states:

Rancho Mission Viejo (Rancho Misión Vieja) is an active 23,000 acres (9,300 ha) ranch and farm, habitat reserve, and community in the unincorporated areas of South Orange County, California. Rancho Mission Viejo originated as a series of land grants to John Forster in 1845. The remaining part of Rancho Mission Viejo consists of a nearly 17,000-acre (6,900 ha) nature reserve (The Reserve at Rancho Mission Viejo) and multiple residential communities slated to open in phases between 2010 and 2030. As of 2017, the Sendero village and the Gavilan senior housing developments have been completed. The larger Esencia village is currently under construction with a K-8 school to be opened in fall of 2018. Sendero Marketplace, a shopping center built as part of the community is also under construction.

There are an incredible array of amenities in RMV and God knows we'll be paying for them for a very long time in our Mello Roos, along with all the build-out that will occur for at least the next 10-15 years.

Here is a video called "Soaring Above Rancho Mission Viejo" to give you a feel for the area surrounding our development:

In the map below you can see the red arrow that points to our lot. We are at the top of the hill and will be about three blocks or so from the entrance to the new Los Patrones Parkway which, if we go left (north) it turns in to the 241 tollway that will zip us to John Wayne Airport or the I-5 or I-405 freeways.

You can also see that we are about 15 minutes from San Juan Capistrano and, because of another new road recently opened — Avenida La Pata — we can go directly in to San Clemente with very easy access to points south.

We're also about 20 minutes from Dana Point's Doheny State Beach and about 25 minutes from downtown Laguna Beach. This location will be very convenient for us and has beautiful, rolling hills surrounding the development that, thankfully, are far enough away to mitigate the fire risk!

Here is a Google Map to the current developments and surrounding areas: