Overview
About Shorecliffs
Shorecliffs sits on the ocean bluff at the south end of Corona del Mar and covers 42.3 acres holding 143 addresses on 144 parcels. It is unusually simple to describe because it has only five streets: Evening Canyon Road, Morning Canyon Road, Driftwood Road, Shorecliff Road and Seaward Road. Every acre is zoned R-1-6000 for single unit housing on a 6,000 square foot minimum lot, and the median parcel measures 0.216 acres.
The whole boundary lies inside the Coastal Zone, and 2.9 acres of the bluff face fall in FEMA flood zone VE, the wave hazard band. Corona del Mar State Beach lies 24 feet from the boundary, closer than any association in the district other than the village grid itself, and the California Coastal Trail runs 0.03 miles inside the footprint. Harbor View Elementary serves the boundary and enrolled 344 students on the 2024-25 federal count. For the city's own administration the city places it in evacuation zone 45, park service area 10, census tract 627.02.
View available homes in ShorecliffsHistory
How Shorecliffs was built
Shorecliffs was laid out on the bluff in 1946, one of the first subdivisions to climb out of the old village after the war. Building was slow and individual rather than a single builder's run: the county carries construction years here from 1947 to 1989, with 24 houses finished in the 1940s and 97 more in the 1950s, and the busiest single year is 1950. Its five streets are still Shorecliff Road, Driftwood Road, Seaward Road and the two named for the canyons that box it in on either side, Morning Canyon and Evening Canyon.
Those canyons, the bluff in front and Coast Highway behind are the reason it stayed small at about 146 home sites. Residents keep gated access down to Arch Rock Beach and Little Corona, which is the practical inheritance of having been platted before the coast was crowded.
By the Numbers
Shorecliffs by the numbers
Lifestyle
The Shorecliffs lifestyle
Schools
Schools serving Shorecliffs
The Newport-Mesa Unified locator was queried at 25 real addresses inside this boundary and returned Harbor View Elementary at every one of them. That campus teaches kindergarten through sixth grade at 900 Goldenrod Avenue and enrolled 344 students on the 2024-25 federal count. The secondary grades are taught at 2101 Eastbluff Drive, which the district names as both Corona del Mar Middle School and Corona del Mar High School and which the federal directory records as one campus of 2,106 students across grades 7 to 12.
7-12 · 2,106 students
K-6 · 344 students
FAQs
Common questions about Shorecliffs
How close is Shorecliffs to the beach?
Corona del Mar State Beach lies 24 feet from the boundary, measured from the association polygon rather than from any one address.
When was Shorecliffs subdivided?
Tract 1116 was recorded on May 2, 1946 and covers 94.8 percent of the boundary. Harold A. Barnett was the surveyor. The register draws the association as five lot polygons covering 42.3 acres. Closing the street rights of way between them gives a footprint of 49.6 acres, which is the shape drawn on the district map.
Is any of it in a flood zone?
Yes. The FEMA layer places 2.9 acres of the bluff face in zone VE, the coastal wave hazard band, with the other 39.5 acres in zone X.
Is the association gated?
No. The city records Shorecliffs as not gated, and none of its 1.13 miles of street inside the footprint appears on the private streets layer.
Does a coastal development permit apply here?
All 42.3 acres sit inside the Coastal Zone, so exterior work can require a coastal development permit alongside the city approval. The city bikeway layer runs 0.03 miles inside the footprint, on Coast Hwy E.