Overview
About Surfside
Surfside Colony is 13 acres at the far east end of Seal Beach, gated, laid out in three lettered rows on two named streets, Pacific Avenue and Surfside Avenue, running 0.93 miles in all. The county assessor's typical parcel is 1,114 square feet, the smallest of any area the city maps, and every one of the 262 addresses inside the boundary carries a unit designator on the city's own record and ZIP code 90743, which no other part of Seal Beach uses. The city's Land Use Element records approximately 250 low density homes here and bounds the colony by Pacific Coast Highway, Anderson Street at Sunset Beach, the Pacific Ocean and the Naval Weapons Station at Anaheim Bay.
The city zones 10.2 acres RLD-9 (SURFSIDE) and publishes a zoning map for the colony as a document of its own, with a further 1.4 acres carrying military zoning where the Naval Weapons Station closes the boundary. Vehicular access is restricted to residents and their guests, and the Land Use Element records that the streets are not wide enough for simultaneous two way traffic. The sand oceanward of the first row of homes on A Row is privately owned for between 70 and 100 feet; beyond it the public beach runs 3,000 feet, a little over half a mile, with pedestrian and bicycle access at an opening of approximately 100 feet at Anderson Street. Surfside is Council District 1, and the county's school district layer places all of it in Los Alamitos Unified.
View available homes in SurfsideHistory
How Surfside was built
Surfside Colony is three rows of houses and a gate, and it has been private since the day it was drawn. The rows are simply A, B and C, running back from the water, and Row A sits directly on the sand with Catalina on the horizon. The original plan called for D and E rows on the inland side of Pacific Coast Highway and they were never built. The first buildings were small beach cottages sold as summer second homes. The city's own plan dates the subdivision into small lots to the early 1900s.
The beach in front of the colony is not natural any more. In the early 1940s the Navy bought most of the land around Anaheim Landing and built the Naval Weapons Station, cutting a channel and building a jetty at the harbor mouth. The jetty stopped the sand that had always drifted down this coast, so the Army Corps of Engineers has to dredge and refill the beach every few years with millions of cubic yards of sand. Storms in 1952 and 1953 and again in 1963 did serious damage, and the high tides of 1983 flooded houses.
By the Numbers
Surfside by the numbers
Lifestyle
The Surfside lifestyle
Vehicular access is restricted to residents and their guests, and the city records that the streets inside the gates are not sufficiently wide for simultaneous two way traffic.
Public beach access along Surfside runs 3,000 feet, which the city gives as 0.56 mile. The city records that the sand oceanward of the first row of homes on A Row is privately owned for a distance of between 70 and 100 feet. Pedestrian and bicycle access to the beach is available to the public at Anderson Street, an opening the city puts at about 100 feet wide and served by parking in Sunset Beach.
The city's evacuation plan records that Surfside has only two access points.
Schools
Schools serving Surfside
The county's published school district layer places Surfside entirely inside Los Alamitos Unified. The campuses below are that district's schools with enrollment from the federal count. Which campus a given address attends is set by the district's attendance boundaries, and the district does not publish those as a map, so confirm the assignment with the district before relying on it.
9-12 · 2,915 students
6-8 · 1,018 students
6-8 · 998 students
K-5 · 721 students
K-5 · 642 students
K-5 · 640 students
K-5 · 625 students
K-5 · 603 students
K-5 · 540 students
FAQs
Common questions about Surfside
How big is Surfside and how many homes are in it?
Measured against the boundary the City of Seal Beach draws on its own Residential Boundaries layer, Surfside covers 13.0 acres. The city's address layer records 262 addresses inside it and the parcel layer 275 parcels, with 0.93 miles of street across two named streets. The city's Land Use Element records approximately 250 low density residential homes in the colony.
What kind of homes are in Surfside?
The Land Use Element records the colony as originally built with small one story beach cottages used as summer second homes, and describes the more recent pattern as a recycling of properties to custom three story year round residences. The county assessor's typical parcel is 1,114 square feet, the smallest of any area the city maps, and the city zones 10.2 acres RLD-9 (SURFSIDE), publishing a zoning map for the colony as a document of its own.
Is Surfside gated, and is the beach private?
The Land Use Element records that vehicular access into Surfside Colony is restricted to residents and their guests, and that the streets inside the gate are not sufficiently wide for simultaneous two way traffic; the city's Evacuation Plan records two access points. The sand oceanward of the first row of homes on A Row is privately owned for a distance of between 70 and 100 feet. Beyond that the public beach along the colony runs 3,000 feet, which the city converts to 0.56 mile, with public pedestrian and bicycle access at an approximately 100 foot opening at Anderson Street served by parking in Sunset Beach.
When was Surfside built?
The area was subdivided in the early 1900s into three blocks of small lots as a private gated community. The oldest recorded map over the site, Sunset Beach, dates from 1904, with tract 400 in 1923 and tract 893 in 1928; four more maps were recorded in 1965 and further maps in 1978 and 1984.
Does Surfside have its own ZIP code and its own schools?
Every one of the 262 addresses inside the boundary carries ZIP code 90743, which no other part of Seal Beach uses. The county's school district layer places the whole of the colony in Los Alamitos Unified, which runs Los Alamitos High at 2,915 students, Oak and McAuliffe middle schools at 998 and 1,018, and six elementary campuses; the district publishes no attendance boundary map, so confirm the campus with the district.