Manteca is in its 35th year of restricting growth.

Given how Manteca has added almost 50,000 residents since the growth cap went into effect in 1988, the idea the enabling Ordinance No. 800 “restricts’ growth might strike some as wishful thinking.

After all, under rules dictating how many housing units can be issued building permits in Manteca this year based on sewer allocations 1,001 additional homes could be allowed.

Based  on the city’s average yield of 3.28 new residents  for each new housing unit built, that would translate into an additional 3,238 residents.

And if 1,001 permits are in deed issued for new housing units in 2022, next year up to 1,046 permits for new homes — whether they are single family houses, duplex units, apartments or trailer spaces — could be issued.

In Manteca, the number of residential sewer allocations that can be issued in any given year is 3.9 percent. The number is obtained by taking the overall count of housing units within the city limits on Dec. 31 each year — single family homes, apartment units, mobile homes, duplexes, triplexes, condos, and townhouses — and multiplying the total by 3.9 percent.

The basic framework of the growth management ordinance adopted in 1988 means the real cap in terms of the number of homes that can be built in a given year keeps growing.

In 2008 elected leaders amended the ordinance to exempt age-restricted housing such as Del Webb at Woodbridge, affordable housing as defined by the city’s housing element, and secondary housing known as granny flats on existing residential lots that already have a home on them.

Any allocations awarded to developers that are unused can be rolled over by developers for one year. Development agreements — that came into vogue 25 years ago — provide multiple year allotments in exchange for what has been described as “enhanced development.”

The fact Manteca in 2020 tied Tracy based on state Department of Finance data as the third fastest growing cities in California demonstrates how the 3.9 percent growth cap is liberal under market conditions in the 2020s.

Both cities grew by 2.9 percent. Manteca, with the lower population, added 2,519 residents while Tracy grew by 2,740 people.

That might strike people as growing too fast today but back in the late 1970s, it was just a  third of the growth Manteca was incurring.

The 1970s had ended with four strong growth years topped with a 12 percent gain in residents in 1980 that took the city’s population from 20,187 to 25,641 or an increase of roughly 25 percent in 48 months.

The growth rate slowed a bit but then it hit a record 12.1 percent in 1985 followed by a 9.2 percent jump in 1986 that took Manteca’s population up from 29,027 to 35,437 in two years. Manteca today —some 37 years later — has almost 89,000 residents.

Almost all other city growth management plans set a firm number.

Tracy, as an example, has a growth management board in place that awards an average of 600 residential growth allocations (housing units) although another 150 can be issued in a given year if they meet affordability guidelines.

How Manteca’s growth

management got started

While Manteca set the trend when it comes to controlled growth in the Northern San Joaquin Valley, its 35-year old cap rule is now arguably the most liberal.

The push for a growth cap started when a group known as the Concerned Citizens for Planned Growth rolled out a plan to put a 2 percent growth cap on the ballot and started collecting signatures. It was countered by developers who wanted a 4.5 percent growth cap instead.

That prompted then Mayor Jack Snyder to roll out an initiative plan that basically mirrored the 3.9 percent growth cap on residential housing. Developers backed down and ultimately the more stringent 2 percent growth cap didn’t qualify for the ballot.

The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back was the city’s inability to keep up with growth. Fees on growth were inadequate or non-existent for a wide variety of amenities such as parks and fire services.

Manteca was bouncing back

from near bankruptcy

The city was still recovering from a near-bankruptcy episode in 1980 when the budget reserve was a razor-thin $1,800. Manteca’s financial trials were heavy on civic leaders’ minds during the building boom of 1984 to 1987. They didn’t want a repeat of the 1980s experience which forced the city to leave the just completed Louise Avenue fire station unopened because they couldn’t afford to staff it while city police were using old CHP cars with excess of 90,000 miles on them when the city took delivery of them as primary patrol units.

Many residents shared the concern that Manteca was growing faster than basic services could keep up with. The sentiment was Manteca was growing too fast as neighborhoods such as Mayors Park in the triangle formed by the railroad tracks, Louise Avenue and Union Road seemed to develop overnight.

The ordinance went into effect just as the economy started receding. It would take 12 years before the cap would be pushed in a particular year. 

Tying into sewer allocations was viewed by legal experts and civic leaders at the time as the easiest way to implement a growth management plan.

Ordinance No. 800 was put into effect on Aug. 16, 1988 as the guideline for how the first phase of the municipal wastewater treatment plant expansion would be utilized to divide sewer capacity. It was subsequently extended in future years to govern how the second phase of the treatment plant would have its capacity parceled out. 

A percentage was set aside for every category in terms of how much capacity of the plant would be allocated to a particular use. Those percentages set aside 60 percent of the overall capacity to housing with no distinction being between apartments, single family homes, duplexes or mobile homes. The other categories — schools, industrial, retail and office divided the rest of the capacity.

Based on the intent and the actual wording of Ordinance No. 800, city leaders view the growth management plan as a success.

That, however, isn’t a universal view. There are those who believe the city has been growing too fast.

Originally the growth cap gave projects two windows to secure sewer allocations — one in March and the other in October.

The advent of development agreements tied into “bonus bucks” — fees paid to secure sewer allocation fees — were advanced by the development community in 1998 to avoid the potential for lawsuits among builders when 13 projects were moving forward at once. The bonus bucks generated more than $30 million for the city to spend without restriction. They used $11.9 million to avoid city cutbacks for a number of years when expenditures exceed revenues.

The balance of the bonus bucks have helped pay for amenities such as soccer field lights at Woodward Park, traffic signals on the Tidewater Bikeway, more than half of the construction of the Union Road fire station and other amenities including aerial fireworks on the Fourth of July.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, e-mail dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com