Manteca — if the city’s budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 is adopted and the money spent — will end up investing $960,000 on planning for parks and recreation facilities since 2017.
It includes a proposal to spend:
*$250,000 on updating the parks master plan and fees charged to growth to pay its fair share of the cost of new parks and recreation facilities.
*$50,000 for a sports park feasibility study and a pro forma to operate a sports complex in the event the city has to take over the Big League Dreams complex or find a new operator.
The city has spent:
*$475,000 in 2017 having RJM Design develop Manteca’s first parks and recreation facilities master plan.
*$185,000 in 2018 having LDA Partners conduct a feasibility study and devise a conceptual plan for an aquatics center, community center, along with open play fields.
it should be noted upfront the city may never need to spend the $50,000 on the sports complex pro forma.
City Manager Toni Lundgren has indicated the current operators are in the process of making upgrades and addressing municipal concerns that, if they are completed, it would make such a study unnecessary.
So that leaves the $910,000 question: What will Manteca have to show for investing $910,000 — basically growth fees paid for parks and recreation facility needs, when 2026 rolls around?
The answer is a bit complicated.
First, it needs to be made clear the new parks being developed as new neighborhoods are built to municipal requirements in place before the city adopted a master plan. And the development-connected parks will continue to be put in place if the city doesn’t do anything but update the fees charges for neighborhood parks.
There have been fees charged growth for community parks since 1990.
And while there have been various plans to make additional improvements at Woodward Park — everything with an amphitheater with a stage on the northeast corner of the drainage basin to tennis courts — no specific plan or spending plan was ever adopted.
The most problematic part has been the city’s historic failure to secure a source of local revenue needed to be paired with growth fees to actually develop recreational facilities.
State law prohibits growth from being charged fees greater than its fair share of community facilities.
As an example, the aquatics center/community center complex as envisioned in the 2018 study has an $80.4 million price tag.
Assume the price hasn’t increased in six years.
If that complex was built today with the intent to serve a population of 130,000 by 2040, growth could only be responsible for roughly $20 million.
That’s because growth would add only 38,000 residents.
There are 91,000 existing residents who the facilities would be built for that buyers of new homes can’t be charged for.
The same approach is used for facilities of community wide benefit.
It changes when the facility — such as a fire station — is proposed to serve a specific area of the city. That means only new growth in that area has to pay for the facility while the city has to come up with the rest.
It is why the city is likely pursuing a one cent sales tax increase on the Nov. 5 ballot.
Part of the $16 million to $20 million such a tax would generate annually could help address the city’s share of new facilities and amenities.
The city wants to put in place a plan and then start working toward it to finish the community park development that might be desired at Woodward Park.
The City Council — through negotiations with Delicato Vineyards in a bid to derail a general plan referendum on the Nov, 5 ballot as well as an accompanying lawsuit — has identified a 50-acre site for the next community park on Union Road at Lovelace Road.
The idea is for it to serve as a buffer between the winery and housing developments.
The city can’t really do anything with the community park site, planning or acquiring the land, until the dispute with Delicato is completely settled.
Part of the agreement calls for the winery to put $50,000 toward master planning the 50-acre site.
The city could easily apply the 2018 aquatics center/community center concept and feasibility study to that location in north Manteca given it wasn’t site specific.
For the study, LDA Partners was directed to assume it would be built immediately north of the Big League Dreams sports complex although there has never been a decision made to do so.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
