Mike Atherton is a home builder.

But when he worked with Manteca partners more than three decades ago to purchase 160 acres of almonds and farmland along what was a two-lane country road dubbed Woodward Avenue with less than 60 homes along its five-mile stretch, he saw something else — a 50-acre park.

It was something Manteca couldn’t afford.

The city lacked the money to buy community park acreage.

They lacked funds to develop it.

And they lacked the funds to maintain it.

Manteca— at the time — had a history of city leadership sidetracked by infighting after the watershed recall of the mayor and two council members in 1983.

Every expenditure of consequence and every recommended fee increase — regardless of how well justified — triggered battles.

As a result, city slipped close to the financial abyss.

At one point the mid-1980s, the city’s general fund had a razor thin $1,000 reserve.

The city couldn’t open the completed fire station on Lousie Avenue because they lacked funding even for what were then two-man engine companies.

“New” police cars put into service were the only ones Manteca could afford — used CHP  vehicles the state sold to struggling municipalities after their odometers logged 90,000 miles.

It was against that background that the Atherton-led group of Manteca investors put in motion the dollar deal that made Woodward Park possible.

They were not driven by an overwhelming sense of philanthropy, but reality.

They had no deep pockets.

It would be years before they’d submit plans for even building homes in the area.

And it wasn’t until 1999 that they actually built Manteca’s first tract  home south of the 120 Bypass across the street from what is now Woodward Park.

What they ended up doing made it possible for Woodward Park today to serve as Manteca’s crown jewel of its 50-plus park system covering more than  400 acres

They did so by doing things that developers aren’t required to do.

*They sold the land for the legal minimum of $1 required for the exchange of property. It was land, back in the late 1980s, that would have been worth close to $2 million had it been developed with houses.

*They declined to exempt the homes they developed around the park from city-imposed growth fees for park development as is the standard procedure for dedicating land for community parks. Developers typically take the appraised value of the land as a credit against the park fees.

*When they started building homes, they stood up at a City Council meeting and refused to pay the park fee of just under $400, arguing it was too low. Instead, they convinced the city to charge them – and other developers — $1,333 per home. (The community park devolvement  fee is now up to $4,000).

*They then proceeded to put in place all curb, gutters and sidewalk along the perimeter of the 50-acre park — something that wasn’t their responsibility — as well as the park side of the streets when they built homes.

*When Woodward Avenue was widened to four lanes at the time they developed Bianchi Ranch to the north the Atherton-led group put in the entire width on their dime instead of just a half street or asking for a future major street growth fee credit.

*Over the years when the city couldn’t even allocate the manpower to keep weeds in check on the undeveloped site, Atheron had his work crews on a routine basis mow down the weeds on his dime.

*And then when the city went to develop the park, they were able to tap into “bonus bucks” that Atherton and a consortium of local builders agreed to pay on top of other fees to help the city cover the cost of amenities they had fallen behind on to pay to install lighting  the soccer fields.

Today, Woodward Park is packed most weekends with local youth league and tournament soccer play.

It helps that Manteca is centrally located to the Bay Area and Sacramento. But the real plus is how well the soil drains after rain as well as the concentration of playing fields.

It is also where a wide away of community celebrations take place from cultural festivities, a Christmas festival and honoring the fallen to food truck/movie nights and more.

“We made it happen,” Atherton said.

It clearly wasn’t altruistic.

Atheron made that clear more than  once especially when  he was pushing to end what up until the mid-1990s had been Manteca’s go to design for sound walls surrounding new neighborhoods — six foot masonry walls abutting six to 10 feet of sidewalk, trees planted in cutouts in the concrete at the edge of curb and gutter with asphalt to the other side of the street where the design was repeated.

His mantra was simple. Development needed curb appeal.

It was key for the lifestyle of homeowners and the looks of the community.

But if so-called “Manteca tunnels” like the sound walls the city allowed an out-of-town developer to put in place along Atherton Drive east of Airport Way continued to be built, it would devalue the appeal of neighborhoods yet to come.

And as the development of South Manteca has unfolded, it is clear what Atherton meant.

First impressions.

The improvements made closest to the freeway are what home buyers had to pass as the years unfolded as Atherton and other local builders continued to build homes to the south.

The city, to date, hasn’t made a move to add additional community park acreage.

That is despite a 2016 study the city commissioned that showed Manteca  had a 21.26 acre deficit of community park space based on the 2015 population of 75,000.

Since then, Manteca has added 15,000 people as well as neighborhood parks.

But those are neighborhood parks designed to meet the neighborhood recreation needs of households living in the homes that developers build.

They do not address community park needs.

Based on today’s adopted city standards, the 110 acres that Atherton  originally developed with homes would have required a neighborhood park dedication at no cost to the city of just over 7 acres and not 50 acres as was the case with Woodward.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabuleltin.com