Canyon Country

Canyon Country runs 90 acres in the northern hills of Brea and holds 351 addresses on 3.28 miles of street. Eighteen of its twenty-three named streets carry the word canyon, drawn from canyons across the American West: Grand, Malibu, Kings, Laguna, Santiago, Trabuco, Bonita, Niguel, Zion, Bryce, Coyote, Sand, Stone, Silver, Echo, Oak, Shadow, Desert and Evening all appear. North Grand Canyon Road alone carries 58 homes. The parcel layer counts 378 parcels, 360 of them residential, on lots running to a median of 0.125 acres with structures to a median of 2,460 square feet and four bedrooms.

The city's tree inventory records 1,078 street trees inside these 90 acres, the densest street canopy of any community in Brea at close to twelve trees per acre. Two works from the city's art collection stand inside the boundary, Harold Pastorius's Selections and Sergio O'Cadiz's Sunburst of 1979. The fire hazard picture is mixed rather than uniform: 46.8 acres in the Very High class, 18.7 in High, 4.4 in Moderate and 1.4 outside the wildland classification, with 6.3 acres in the landslide layer. Canyon Country is in Brea Olinda Unified, with Falcon Academy of Science and Technology 0.32 miles away and Brea Olinda High 0.77 miles.

Canyon Country went up as the freeway era was in full swing. Three hundred and fifty one homes were built here between 1977 and 1984 on ninety acres, the typical one about 2,460 square feet on an eighth of an acre. Nearly half the acreage lies in the state's Very High fire hazard class, which is the price of building against the hills, and the city counts 1,078 street trees inside the boundary, most of them red gum eucalyptus.

Every street is a canyon, and the list is a tour of the state. Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion Canyon and Kings Canyon come from the national parks; Santiago, Trabuco, Laguna and Niguel are Orange County's own; Malibu, Coyote, Desert, Echo, Sand, Silver, Stone, Shadow, Oak, Evening, Glen and Bonita fill out the rest. A buyer who has driven Santiago Canyon Road and then turns onto Santiago Canyon Way is meeting the same name twice, which is the sort of joke a 1970s planning department made and nobody has undone since.