May 2016 Newsletter: Gated Heritage Hills, Somerset and Obsidian at NoSo, and A LOT More
Yes, Heritage Hills will be gated! I know, the original philosophy of the Great Park was open living, but it was decided that making it gated would be more economically beneficial (for obvious reasons). A gated Toll Brothers Great Park home with a view should be an interesting twist... There are only 148 detached condominiums the size of Welton planned and the rest are low-density single-family residences Oakmont-size or larger.
I am currently in the process of retrieving the information, and if all goes well, I should post again in the near future.
Also for Noso,
Somerset by Lennar Homes
Detached Condominiums
Obsidian by Lennar Homes
Angled Green Court Homes
The map on the main page shows where they are in NoSo. Both will probably be some of the largest homes available in NoSo, with Obsidian being across the street from the Bosque at Great Park and Somerset being across the street from the Water and Wellness Park. I honestly don't think Obsidian will ever be as good as Marlowe at Playa Vista, even though they are on the same size building pad though...
The Five Points website has also been updated at http://www.fivepoint.com/?utm_source=GPN&utm_medium=Footer%20Button&utm_campaign=GPN%20Website%20New. What was once Pavilion Park is now "Earth Park" and what was once Beacon Park is now "Air and Navigation Park". Similarly, there is a "Water and Wellness Park" south of Ellwood and a "Yard Park" smack in the middle of NoSo. The website has nice pictures of the Bosque and Wildlife Corridor as well. There are pictures of the future Sports Park in Great Park there.
There have been hints that Lennar might actually not be building at Central Park West, but I still believe they will unless I see the concrete information in front of me. Also, there are rumors that the names of the developments will be Tribeca and Rockefeller, named after the streets they reside on respectively.
For all you Playa Vista lovers, the Mason and Cleo grand opening is 3 days from now.
For Newport Banning Ranch observers, the meeting has once again been postponed to September. The staff members have provided a map that has circulated throughout all the related sites showing where building is allowed, and they are mostly on the outskirts of the property, interfering with the current plan.
For people who are more in a rush, Lighthouse is an option to consider. Adjacent to the Banning Ranch property and a future elementary school, these ACTUAL single-family residences (there are not many of that size with the SFR designation I can think of in Costa Mesa available) have rooftop decks boasting panoramic ocean views and a community park. Some homes even have a 2-car driveway, although it does not have the sunlight to go with it.
The Lantana and Trellis Court websites are now up on the California Pacific Homes website, but without pricing.
KB might be building a Palo Alto extension at the northern tip of that area, consisting of 60 residences (just sayin')...
To conclude this first post for the newsletter, I would like to share the following link: http://cssd.ucr.edu/PDF/DonJacobs031606.pdf
It shows the 2007 design for Orchard Hills. Surprisingly enough (at 220% magnification on the complete site plan), the original design was far more dense, with Neighborhood 2 consisting of almost entirely attached condominiums, some resembling Sage and Jasmine at Quail Hill (not the newer ones by KB and Irvine Pacific, respectively). There were no single-family residences.
For Neighborhood 1, there are 3 separate areas of attached condominiums, one being at the current site of Capella. That would have been Ziani, but priced at a whopping $1.25 million for about 1600 square feet. There were no Belcara homes planned until 2011, but Brookfield wisely replaced the old floorplans with new ones, and obviously that has payed off in the form of La Vita. The square footage disparity in the Groves today can be explained because Capella was originally slotted for 2300 square foot homes. Taylor Morrison, however, got greedy and added 600 square feet to all of the plans, giving them their characteristic small lots. They are still labeled as "Medium Density" because they will originally planned for smaller homes, even though Varenna is considered "Low Density" for considerably smaller homes. La Vita was Belcara plus 800 square feet, accounting for the upper end of the disparity. Interestingly, the other 2 attached communities are north of Furrow and are in the better areas away from the freeway, 1 also being adjacent to the Meadows Park. The single-family homes backed the freeway...
Where Toll Brothers is now building, La Cima by Laing Luxury Homes was originally planned. However, they filed for bankruptcy so that idea was scrapped... There was originally planned to be a series of second gates for exclusivity (like the custom homes at Crystal Cove), but they got scrapped. Even though I miss Windward at Crystal Cove, I would not want to see it replicated again at Orchard Hills...
For Neighborhoods 3 and 4, we can see what WAS planned. Ziani was planned for the area above the reservoir in Neighborhood 3, while Belcara and Citrus were on the opposite side at Neighborhood 4 (Brookfield is on a roll). The top of Neighborhood 4 consisted of ultra-exclusive residences. Neighborhood 4 was originally planned to be gated, but as of now, it is not (although it could change back once again the near future). The top of Neighborhood 3 consisted of nearly 10,000 square foot minimum lots, but clearly those will not last as 1,000 homes are planned for the neighborhood, with 374 being condominiums. Where the elementary school was planned was once ago also slotted for single-family residences. Interestingly, the Ziani location is superior to that location, but smaller homes are slotted there. One possibility may be that Neighborhood 3's center is sort of a wok, with those smaller single-family residences being actually slightly elevated above the larger homes behind them. You can see this when driving by or by using Street View on Google Maps.