Porter Ranch Real Estate

Porter Ranch Real Estate

This guide to Porter Ranch real estate covers a hillside neighborhood in the northwest corner of the San Fernando Valley, part of the City of Los Angeles (ZIP code 91326). Porter Ranch spans about 5.6 square miles at the foot of the Santa Susana Mountains and neighbors Chatsworth, Northridge and Granada Hills. Read on for how the community came to be, who built it, how to get around, and where to find parks, shopping and dining. Current prices, rents, schools and weather follow, each with its source and date.

Porter Ranch By The Numbers

A Short History Of Porter Ranch

Porter Ranch is named for Benjamin Porter, who bought part of the old Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando in the late 1800s. For decades the land was wheat fields and ranch country, and later the home of many horse ranches. His descendants sold the remaining ranch land to developers in the early 1960s, and a master plan brochure for the new community dates to 1965.

Porter Ranch is not a city of its own. It is a neighborhood of the City of Los Angeles, which it joined by annexation in the mid-1960s. Council District 12 describes it as the last part of the San Fernando Valley inside the city limits to be developed. Homes went up in stages from the 1970s on, and the community took its current shape under the Porter Ranch Land Use/Transportation Specific Plan, which the City adopted in 1990 and has amended several times since. The plan ties new building to road improvements, protects hillside views and natural terrain, and sets aside land for shopping, parks, schools and public facilities.

Parts of the 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial were shot in the neighborhood, and locals still call Porter Ridge Park “E.T. Park.”

Who Built Porter Ranch

According to Council District 12, Porter Ranch was developed by Nathan Shapell, founder of Shapell Industries, with his brother David Shapell and brother-in-law Max Webb. Shapell Homes built gated neighborhoods such as Renaissance Summit, at the community’s highest point. Shapell Properties and Liberty Building Co. were described as Porter Ranch’s co-founders when The Vineyards at Porter Ranch broke ground in 2017, and Toll Brothers completed its purchase of Shapell Industries’ homebuilding operations in February 2014.

Getting Around Porter Ranch

The Ronald Reagan Freeway (State Route 118), also called the Simi Valley-San Fernando Valley Freeway, runs east and west just south of Rinaldi Street. Main north-south streets include Corbin Avenue, Porter Ranch Drive, Tampa Avenue and Reseda Boulevard, and Sesnon Boulevard, Rinaldi Street and San Fernando Mission Boulevard run east and west. The Chatsworth and Northridge Metrolink stations are nearby, and the numbers section shows the closest rail station and its distance.

Parks And Open Space

The Santa Susana Mountains rise just to the north, and the specific plan calls for a parks and open space system with equestrian and hiking trails. Parks and open space in and around Porter Ranch include:

• Limekiln Canyon Park on Rinaldi Street, with picnic tables, a hiking trail, a bridle trail and a jogging path
• Holleigh Bernson Memorial Park on Sesnon Boulevard
• Porter Ridge Park at the north end of Reseda Boulevard

The numbers section also counts the parks, grocery stores, restaurants and coffee shops within one mile, using OpenStreetMap.

Shopping And Dining

Much of Porter Ranch’s shopping and dining is along Rinaldi Street, near the Ronald Reagan Freeway. Porter Ranch Town Center, at Rinaldi Street and Porter Ranch Drive, was developed by Shapell and first opened in the late 1990s. It is an open-air center of more than half a million square feet, and its major stores have included Walmart Supercenter, Ralphs, Best Buy and Burlington, with restaurants and services along Rinaldi Street. The Vineyards at Porter Ranch, an open-air center on Rinaldi Street west of Porter Ranch Drive, opened in 2019 with a Whole Foods Market and a mix of restaurants and shops.

Library, Schools And Local Groups

The Los Angeles Public Library’s Porter Ranch Branch is at 11371 Tampa Avenue, with a parking lot, bike rack, public computers and Wi-Fi. The Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council and the Chatsworth Porter Ranch Chamber of Commerce serve the community, and the neighborhood is part of Los Angeles City Council District 12. The numbers section lists nearby K-12 and adult schools, colleges and trade schools by distance, with links to their official pages. School attendance areas are set by the school district, so confirm them with the district for any address you are considering.

Look Up A Porter Ranch Address

Free public tools from the City and County of Los Angeles let anyone check an address’s zoning and assessment details. ZIMAS is a web-based mapping tool from City Planning that provides zoning information for properties in Los Angeles, including a parcel’s land use and zoning designations. The County Office of the Assessor also has a public portal for property assessment information.

Ask About Porter Ranch

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