Stoneridge

Stoneridge covers 176 acres, the fourth largest boundary in this guide, and records 469 addresses on 468 parcels at a median lot of 0.145 acres. Twenty one streets run 4.44 miles inside it, among them Bradbury, Briarcliff, Castle Rock, Cobblefield, Driftstone, Oakstone, Ridgeway, Rockrose, Sandstone and Skyline. The general plan carries 132.5 acres at up to 3.5 homes an acre, the city's lowest residential density, and 43.4 acres as recreation and open space, second only to Pacific Hills among the fifty communities here.

The whole boundary lies in flood zone X. Capistrano Unified serves it, and the district's address locator returns Philip J. Reilly Elementary at 421 students, Fred Newhart Middle at 1,105 and Capistrano Valley High at 1,991 from every interior point tested.

Stoneridge was one of the last large neighborhoods built in Mission Viejo. Building began in 1997 and ran to about 2000, three decades after the first families moved into the city, and it went up on 176 acres of ridge ground that earlier developers had left alone. That makes it 469 homes at roughly a third of an acre apiece, more ground per home than all but a handful of the city's neighborhoods.

Most of the street names fall into two groups and both groups are literal. Castle Rock, Cobblefield, Driftstone, Oakstone, Rockrose, Sandstone and Ridgeway describe the ground itself, and Alpine, Bouquet, Briarcliff, Poplar, Skyline, Sunrise and Walnut describe what sits on it or what you see from it. For a hilltop development finished at the end of the century, the naming is unusually plain.