At some point down the road, the almond harvest is in full swing.
It could be late August or sometime in September.
Truck traffic mixed with vehicles being driven to and from distribution centers are sharing the road with those heading to a 50-acre regional park.
At the park, there may be a swimming meet and soccer matches taking place where the city may build an aquatics center with adjoining sports fields.
You are on the extension of Roth Road heading from Highway 99 to Union Road,
A red stop light — similar to those at some crosswalks and in front of fire stations — at the end of an arm attached to a pole starts flashing over the roadway.
It seems as if it is in the middle of nowhere, but it isn’t.
It is in the middle of Manteca.
More precisely, it is in the middle of a Delicato Vineyards almond orchard or perhaps some other permanent crops such as grapes.
As you sit behind the limit line, an almond tree shaker followed by a tractor crosses the road.
You are viewing what is arguably the first out-of-the box solution on a micro-level to protect the viability of agriculture in San Joaquin County while also accommodating economic growth and housing.
It wasn’t the result of researchers at the University of California at Davis.
Nor developers.
Nor bureaucrats.
Nor lawyers.
Just four people.
They were two East Union High graduates, a Sierra High graduate and a graduate of Alameda High in the East Bay city of the same name.
All four were local businessmen, including two whose enterprise is global in nature.
They were:
*Chris Indelicato, chief executive officer for Delicato Family Wines.
*Jay Indelicato, chief operating officer for Delicato Family Wines.
*Manteca Mayor Gary Singh, liquor store owner and real estate agent.
*Vice Mayor Mike Morowit, liquor store owner.
They met at a neutral location away from city hall and away from the winery.
They brought with them:
*Their knowledge of Manteca concerns and issues.
*A desire to protect and grow jobs.
*The need to untangle Manteca’s version of the Rubik’s Cube — truck routes.
*A goal to devise a win-win situation that addressed quality of life amenities such as another community park, reasonable housing needs, and to avoid what could be an unproductive referendum that could create deep and long lasting political fractures in Manteca.
Armed with Google Maps, they hammered out a solution that — if it holds — will likely go down as a pivotal moment in the development of Manteca as well as efforts to protect the viability of agriculture.
What they agreed to — and was subsequently embraced by a unanimous vote of the Manteca City Council Tuesday during a closed door special session — was the following:
*There will be no residential developments north of Lovelace Road.
*Housing development will not occur east of Union Road at a point beyond where the northern edge of the Del Webb at Woodbridge community.
*Delicato will provide up to 12 acres at no cost for an extension of Roth Road through their property so it can reach Frontage Road on the west side of Highway 99.
*The Roth Road extension through Delicato property will have a continuous sound wall on the northside — save for access gates for farm equipment — to provide a sound and visual barrier of winery operations.
*Existing plans for housing submitted to the city for consideration will be held in abeyance in terms of processing until general plan changes agreed upon regarding zoning changes are officially implemented.
*As such, that means the amount of housing Manteca will allow in the area will be reduced including the elimination of apartments.
*Land to the west and south of the winery will be placed in an agricultural zone. Land between Union Road and Airport Way farther to the west of the winery was already zoned for industrial use in the general plan update as well as land to the east of the winery on the other side of Highway 99.
*The winery operation per se will be in an agricultural industrial zone.
*The area once envisioned by developers for housing on the east side of Union Road north of Del Webb will instead have a 50-acre community park site plus industrial zoning.
*The park site that borders Union Road is designed with a corridor that connects with a future extension of the Tidewater Bikeway. That means both of the city’s community parks — Woodward is the other — will be accessed directly by city’s separated bike trail system.
*The park’s design with the connection to the Tidewater could allow it to be ultimately doubled in size of industrial land to the east of it doesn’t develop.
*Delicato will pay $50,000 toward the initial design of the community park.
*The cost of Roth Road improvements will be determined and developers will establish funding for it before residential and industrial park growth occurs.
Delicato, in the agreement, will drop the referendum on the general plan that they gathered the necessary signatures to qualify for the March 5, 2024 ballot providing all of the milestones outlined in the settlement agreement are met 88 days before the election. That is the last day at item can be submitted to the county elections office for placement on the ballot.
Roth Road extension deal sets
tone for north Manteca growth
& reducing truck traffic elsewhere
The zoning changes are critical to what Delicato believes it needs to protect the future viability of its winery they have parlayed into the world’s fifth largest partially on the strength of a recent investments in excess of $100 million.
But the Roth Road deal is a linchpin for a city plan to eliminate the need for Airport Way ever to become a truck route in order to push aggressively for industrial job development in north Manteca.
Being able to get trucks to the area will allow Manteca to capitalize on an advantage that Tracy doesn’t have — being virtually next door to the Union Pacific intermodal facility plus having Stockton Metro Airport and the Sante Fe Railroad intermodal at the end of Austin Road close by.
Roth Road — if it were extended in a straight line from where it T-intersects with Union Road today — would run just to the north of Delicato’s massive bottling and warehouse building,.
The proposed route curves it south to the point it T-intersects with the Frontage Road by Highway 99 a mile to the north of Lathrop Road and a mile to the south of French Camp Road. That is key since that is the minimal distance Caltrans will allow being interchanges if Manteca decides to build one eventually at that location.
T-intersecting with Frontage Road would connect it with an established STAA route — a requirement for the longest truck trailers to be allowed to use a road.
As such, trucks could use Roth Road from the Airport Way corridor to reach either Interstate 5 to the west or Highway 99 to the east via the Frontage Road and the Lathrop Road interchange.
The interchange at Lathrop Road already meets STAA standards.
The city currently only plans to T-intersect Roth Road with Frontage Road.
The plan is allowed for the possibility one day to bridge Highway 99 so Roth Road can continue to the east.
In doing so, it would cut through the southern part of an area identified for future industrial park use as well as housing further to the south and further to the east toward Prescott Road.
The city also eventually could add ramps to make the Roth Road overcrossing into an interchange if the need comes up and development occurs to fund it.
With that in mind, both sides of where Roth would initially T-intersect with Frontage Road with be zoned commercial.
That would allow for a truck stop and highway commercial such as hotels and restaurants.
The Roth Road solution coupled with efforts by the city to get intermodal access for trucks to Lathrop Road eventually would dovetail a strategy to eliminate truck traffic as much as possible from the Airport Way corridor as well as reduce it passing through Lathrop.
Such an extension would allow truck traffic to reach freeways via McKinley Avenue and the new 120 Bypass interchange now under construction.
Besides opening up north Manteca to industrial park development, it would do the same for the McKinley Aveue area in Lathrop north of West Yosemite Avenue.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
