Manteca home builders are having the best year since 2007 for new housing starts.

Construction has started on 322 new homes so far in the first eight months of this year. The number could top more than 400 homes if the pace continues through December.

There were 553 new housing starts in 2007. That is the seventh highest year on record since the growth management ordinance was adopted in 1986 limiting new home starts to 3.9 percent of existing housing as calculated at year’s end. The peak year under the growth cap was 2000 when 1,075 homes were built.

The most homes built in one year was 1984 when 1,200 housing units went up prompting a push for what ended up being the first growth cap in the Central Valley.

There are plans for excess of 14,000 housing units in various stages of the approval process. One that is getting ready to go to the final map stage and allow construction to start is the proposed Tesoro Park project by Union Ranch Partners.

They are seeking the step just before a final map — a tentative map — when the Manteca Planning Commission meeting Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Civic Center, 1001 W. Center St.

The 15.6-acre project is within the Tesoro neighborhood. Originally it was going to be an elementary school site but then growth patterns changed. That led to a land swap between Union Ranch Partners and Manteca Unified School District. They exchanged land in southwest Manteca near where development is now occurring for two school sites they no longer needed — one in Union Ranch and the other in Tesoro located in southeast Manteca in the triangle formed by Atherton Drive, Van Ryan Avenue and Woodward Avenue. The 15.6 acres is adjacent to the developed Tesoro Park.