The complaints about the look of new neighborhoods springing up in Manteca during the 1980s and 1990s were rampant.

 Sound walls - flush against sidewalks with minimal or no landscaping -were dubbed “Manteca canyons.” Wide streets with minimal shade were slammed as being Autobahns in the making. Subdivision designs made it clear automobiles and not people were the prime consideration as home after home had a street view dominated by two- and three-car garages.

Those were just a few of the drawbacks to the city’s residential development patterns listed by 26 community members who fashioned the Vision 2020 Task Force report 14 years ago.

There was a time lag of almost six years between the recommendations being made by the task force and the time the city put in place new residential design standards.

Developers though – especially locally based builders such as Atherton Homes and Raymus Development – heard the complaints loud and clear.

Long before it became a Manteca requirement, the two development concerns increased sound walls to seven feet, added landscaping, as well as street lights picking up on the Tidewater motif, and even put in a fake lake crossed by a street bridge at the entrance to one neighborhood near Woodward Park.

In two neighborhoods south of the 120 Bypass, roundabouts were used to slow down traffic. In the Tesoro neighborhood they are employed to slow traffic down by a park and future school site. Further to the west on Buena Vista Drive north of Woodward Avenue a roundabout an acre in size was used to avoid the street from turning into a thoroughfare in the future when it is extended north to a commercial area along the extension of Atherton Drive that is now under construction.

Public Works Director Mark Houghton has indicated more roundabouts will be employed in strategic locations as growth occurs to slow down traffic and keep it moving at the same time, make street crossings safer for pedestrians and - in some cases - eliminate the need for expensive traffic signals.

The Trails at Manteca being developed on the western end of Woodward Avenue will use a number of roundabouts plus have bus turnouts to avoid blocking traffic.

The bulk of the task force’s recommendations eventually adopted by the city as residential standards have yet to pop up. That’s because most of the subdivisions that are being built or coming on line were approved before the city adopted new standards.

The new residential standards were aimed at making Manteca more “people friendly.”

Among them is encouraging garages to be either tucked behind homes are accessed by a half circular driveway from the street to avoid “front loaded” garages that dominate the front elevations of home and give prominence to driveways, garage doors and cars.

As new projects move through the approval process, Manteca will see new neighborhoods with:

• detached garages and parking areas behind homes with access from the side to emphasize a residential facade.

• wider, shallower lots that present more of a residential face to the street.

• wrap-around porches on corner lots.

• more variation on subdivision design to avoid a “cookie-cutter” effect.

• landscaping that minimizes the visibility of sound walls.

• landscaping and parking integrated into the center of cul-de-sacs.

• non-standard street lights appropriate to residential neighborhoods.

• street trees and parkways that separate sidewalks from the street and provide for a canopy effect.