A new separated bicycle path possibly connecting Airport Way to Union Road is part of an approved 24-unit apartment complex.

The Manteca Planning Commission last week approved the three-story complex on the southeast corner of Waterfall Way and Airport Way.

Waterfall Way is the southern access street to the 99-home Yosemite Green neighborhood that is now under being developed on the western border of the city’s golf course.

The bicycle path will be Class I — just like the Tidewater and similar paths along Atherton Drive, Wellington Avenue, and Spreckels Avenue.

Class I is the designation given bicycle paths that are not a part of a street per se.

The path will follow a South San Joaquin Irrigation District easement that has an exposed drain still in place along much of its length.

An adjoining 114-unit duplex project that will abut the Waterfall Apartments on the east — as well as the south — is also required to construct part of the meandering bicycle path.

That duplex developer will actually be required to replace the open drain with buried pipe.

The drain feeds storm water into the French Camp outlet that runs along the east side on the Union Pacific Railroad tracks to the west of Airport Way and eventually dumps storm water into the San Joaquin River.

The drain runs along the southern boundary of the golf course at a point just short of the Stonegate Apartments on Center Street where it is connected with buried pipe.

The city may have a future option to swing the bike path onto existing municipal property along the golf course.

It could also connect it to a future extension of Fishback Road that currently T-intersects at Airport Way.

Plans for an apartment complex on the northeast corner of Fishback and Airport requires space being left for a future roundabout.

As such, if the bike path eventually connected to the extension of Fishback, the city will have created a safe path away from Airport Way and  Yosemite Avenue for those in the new and future neighborhoods to the west and south of the golf course for pedestrians and bicyclists to reach Sierra High and the shopping area centered around the Manteca Marketplace anchored by Save Mart.

Other SSJID ditches that once crisscrossed Manteca have been buried.

Easements for them run through residential yards and such.

The bike path option Manteca is pursuing isn’t only less problematic if the buried pipe ever has to be accessed, but it adds an open space amenity to neighborhoods.

The bike path could also continue westward as development occurs to the west of Airport Way where there the drain is still open.

And if the city is still pursuing a bike path along the French Camp Outlet that a previously adopted bike plan envisioned, the segment being built next to the apartments could tie into that.

The French Camp Outlet segment was envisioned as the western side of a bicycle path loop through much of Manteca with the Tidewater being the eastern side, Atherton Drive the southern side, and the north side would be north of Lathrop Road.

The Waterfall Apartments will include solar panels atop the carports, parking spaces for 42 cars, one EV charging station, and two spaced plumbed for future EV chargers.
The apartment complex will consist of one, three-story building.

It will have 12 one-bedroom units and 12 two-bedroom units with 42 parking spaces.

The only on-site amenity will be a private patio picnic area.

A home built in 1960 will need to be torn down to accommodate the apartment building.

The apartment complex is across Airport Way from the southern portion of the 760-home Villa-Ticino neighborhood.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com