Ground broke 20 years ago on what at the time was the largest neighborhood ever built in Manteca — the 1,406-home Del Webb at Woodbridge community.

The timing turned out not to be stellar for Pulte Homes as the Great Recession was around the corner with its accompanying housing crash.

But it was a god-send for Manteca businesses and their employees that saw an average of 300 new households added annually from 2008 to 2011 — with more than a third in the age-restricted community — while growth came to a standstill virtually everywhere else in the Northern San Joaquin Valley.

It was a stretch that included three consecutive years when Manteca built more homes than were constructed in the entire three-county region of San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and Merced counties.

The influx of households with disposable income given many buyers did not have mortgages is credited with helping keep mom and pop cafes, services such as hair care and handymen, and retail going.

Del Webb residents continue to have an impact today.

They account for roughly 3 percent of the city’s population that has crested 97,000.

“Del Webb residents have a great impact,” noted Councilman Mike Morowit whose district Del Webb is located.

“They have a wealth of knowledge, they’re active in the community, generous, and they want what is best for Manteca,” Morowit said. “They’re not a selfish group.”

Not only do numerous members fill the ranks of Manteca non-profit boards and volunteers, but they have formed groups such as Women of Woodbridge as well as Wheels of Woodbridge within their community that do double duty as a social outlet and helping support youth and the needy.

The long list of benefactors of sizeable donations from fundraisers as well as volunteer manpower include Give Every Child a Chance, HOPE Family Shelters and the Second Harvest of the Great Valley Food Bank.

“They (Del Webb) residents have had a positive impact on non-profits including SHARP (the volunteers that assist the Manteca Police),” Morowit added.

The councilman also said Del Webb residents regularly go to the farm housing camp in French Camp to help teach migrant farmworkers English.

Morowit noted Del Webb residents are also staunch supporters of local businesses and services plus are active in following city politics and how it impacts all of Manteca and not just their neighborhood.

A Del Webb? In Manteca?

No one was perhaps as surprised as executives with Pulte Homes that Manteca was where their first Del Webb at Woodbridge community in Northern San Joaquin Valley would be built.
Pulte Homes owns the Del Webb brand.

They noted at the ground-breaking 20 years ago that they conducted surveys of potential Bay Area buyers of where they’d be interested in living in a Del Webb community. They were surprised when Manteca came up as the first choice by a wide margin.
Conducting follow up interviews they found Manteca has strong name recognition for those Bay Area residents that traveled to the Sierra and Yosemite.

It was also perceived as a place they could stay close to the Bay Area and easily access cultural events and visit families and friends as well.

Home sales started out in the mid-$300,000s to upper-$400,000s. Today, the resale market has listings between $460,000 and $755,000.

The decade it took to sell most of its homes that could only be bought by households where one resident has to be 55 years or older was without a doubt the Del Webb Decade in Manteca.

Good timing for Manteca
What was perhaps bad timing for Pulte Homes was good timing for Manteca as the first homes started going up as the housing bubble started to burst.
Because Del Webb is aimed at households nearing retirement or already retired who tend to have middle class wealth, home sales continued while they fizzled elsewhere.

The annual sales pace wasn’t exactly what Pulte initially projected but it was enough when coupled with the city’s development agreements with standard single family home builders that created a situation of sewer allocation certainty prompting banks to fund improving lots in bigger chunks for Manteca to keep building and selling homes.
During a five-year stretch that covered the plunge and the trough of the housing crisis, Manteca was building roughly 300 housing units a year. That was more than was built in all of the combined jurisdictions of San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and Merced counties during any of those five years stretching from 2006 to 2010. And during those years Del Webb consistently built roughly a third of all new homes sold in Manteca.
The infusion of Del Webb consumer dollars at the time along with two other concerns opening just as the Great Recession hit — Bass Pro Shops with its 100-mile draw for sales tax and Costco that brought sales tax leakage to Modesto and Stockton back to town as well as lured consumer dollars from Lathrop and Ripon — helped sales tax grow while it was backsliding in nearby cities.

Both Bass Shops along with Orchard Valley as well as Costco were landed by Manteca through the use of sales tax sharing deals.

Del Webb buyers helped underwrite
city’s public safety endowment
Del Webb homebuyers — as well as those purchasing in Union Ranch — paid “bonus bucks” for sewer allocations on homes they bought that went to the public safety endowment fund.

The $7 million in that fund allowed Manteca to partially staff the fourth fire station in the middle of the recession as well as restore the Manteca Police Department’s four member gang unit at a critical juncture when gang-related crime appeared to be getting out of control.
During a June 2011 council meeting when the city was wrestling with ways to keep its general fund whole, several Del Webb residents pointed out that those who lived in the age-restricted community paid more in taxes than a typical household.

That claim touched off a spirited exchange.
The Bulletin followed up the discussion by comparing new home sales. At the time Valley Blossom — a Florsheim Homes development in southwest Manteca — were selling a 1,613-square-foot model dubbed The Jasmine starting at $194,900. That compared to a 1,615-square-foot Del Webb home called the Chesterfield that was available starting at $281,000.

Keep in mind Florsheim was the most aggressive new Manteca home builder in terms of price point and keeping square footage down to make them affordable at the time while Del Webb homes tended to be loaded with what would be options in most other developments.
The owner of the Valley Blossom home in 2011 was paying $1,940 a year in straight property taxes compared to the Del Webb buyer at $2,810.

Of that, the city’s share of the property taxes was $232 from the Valley Blossom homeowner and $337 from the Del Webb homeowner. The city’s general fund for 2011 came to $346 per capita based on $29.3 million divided by 69,000 residents at the time. A typical Del Webb home had an average of just under two people per household. Using a 1.8 person per household yield, it comes to $623 for the cost of city services.

The yield rate for homes with young families was much larger coming in at around 2.6 persons in 2011 meaning that the Valley Blossom home — on average — generated an $899 a year demand for municipal services.
Those municipal services are police, fire, streets and parks. Garbage, water, and sewer are paid through users fees.
The bottom line in terms of averages in 2011 meant the typical Del Webb homeowner was covering all but $177 of their “fair share” while the Valley Blossom homeowner covered all except $667 of their “fair share.”
Both developments pay for their own park maintenance. Del Webb buyers didn’t pay a school mitigation fee as they yielded no children but then again they don’t impact schools.
Factor in sales tax on local expenditures and Del Webb homeowners do something that other homeowners don’t do in most cases which is coming close to paying for their “fair share” of general fund services


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