Temple Hills

What it’s like

Temple Hills is a hillside area east of downtown. Street data shows Temple Hills Drive, Dunning Drive, Coast View Drive and Cerritos Drive east of Glenneyre Street, and realatrends.com’s listings use the same street names. Federal elevation data puts a point at the lower end of Temple Hills Drive near 255 feet above sea level and a point at the upper end near 615 feet. That is a climb of about 360 feet over about half a mile in a straight line. A point on Dunning Drive sits near 250 feet.

realatrends.com lists Temple Hills as a Laguna Beach community of single-family homes, with lots among the properties, inside the Laguna Beach Unified School District. The city’s list of evacuation management zones includes one named Temple Hills, zone LAB18, with its own evacuation map, so the city uses the name too. OpenStreetMap files the upper end of Temple Hills Drive under Top of the World, so area names overlap at their edges. Confirm an address with a broker before you rely on the label.

Do not confuse the neighborhood with Temple Hill. Temple Hill is a peak in Top of the World, about 1.2 miles northeast of the middle of Temple Hills Drive in a straight line.

Laguna Beach High School at 625 Park Avenue sits about a quarter mile from the middle of Temple Hills Drive in a straight line. Main Beach is about 0.8 mile away in a straight line, with the Village between them. Park Avenue Estates lies about 0.8 mile to the northeast.

Getting around

By road, the lower end of Temple Hills Drive is about 1 mile from Main Beach, Dunning Drive about 1.4 miles and the upper end of Temple Hills Drive about 1.8 miles. Irvine Spectrum is about 10.6 miles from the middle of Temple Hills Drive by road and John Wayne Airport about 15.8 miles. The city’s Coastal Route trolley runs on Coast Highway. The city also runs Laguna Local, a free on-demand shared ride service between residential neighborhoods and major activity centers; ask the city whether it covers your street. The getting around guide explains both.

The hillside neighborhoods are steep, so expect steep driveways and tight turns. Test the drive from the address to downtown at the hour you will make it.

Things to know before you buy or rent

Ask about insurance early. The state Department of Insurance says insurers use their own wildfire risk models, not the CAL FIRE hazard zone maps, to decide where they write policies and what they charge. Ask for quotes in the first days of escrow. The FAIR Plan serves owners who cannot get coverage from a regular insurer, and the department tells shoppers to try the regular market first.

Height and grading trigger city review on a slope like this one. The city sends improvements taller than 15 feet and grading over 20 cubic yards outside the building footprint to design review, along with major remodels. In 2026 the city adopted an urgency ordinance to streamline design review, so ask Community Development which path your plan takes today.

The city bars short-term rentals, meaning stays of 30 days or fewer, in its R-1, R-2 and R-3 residential zones, and existing permits run with the property. See the short-term rentals guide for the rules.

The Laguna Beach County Water District serves central Laguna Beach, so confirm your address with the district. The moving checklist lists the other accounts to open.

See the homes for sale in Temple Hills on realatrends.com.