Travel for a quarter of a mile in any of the four directions you can from the Airport Way and Yosemite Avenue intersection and you’ll see a hodge-podge of former rural residential properties and aging buildings with only a few sections of sidewalks, curbs, and gutters.
Those who cobbled together the draft City of Manteca general plan update see a lot more.
They see the making of a high transit use corridor. That’s due to the area’s proximity to the Kaiser Permanente facility, the family entertainment zone, and proximity to the Lathrop/Manteca ACE station closer.
It is why the area is delineated as one of four strategic policy areas for the city to pay a more intense level of attention to over the next 20 years. By doing so the city is putting itself on notice to provide for creativity and desired growth by “providing flexibility to address change, refinement of the anticipated uses, and integration with future development projects.”
In plain English that means the city will go out of its way to encourage development that leads to what municipal leaders desire to see.
The four strategic policy areas are part of the Recirculated Draft EIR and Draft General Plan that is available for review on the website https://manteca.generalplan.org/ .
There will be a public workshop on the recirculated general plan EIR on Wednesday, Dec. 7, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Manteca Transit Center, 220 Moffat Blvd.
The comment period will run through Jan. 6. Send comments to Lea Simvoulakis at LSimvoulakis@manteca.gov or via mail attention to Lea Simvoulakis, Development Services Department, 1001 W. Center Street, Manteca, CA 95337.
The Airport Way/Yosemite Avenue designation as a strategic policy area includes:
*making sure Kaiser not only stays in Manteca but can also expand.
*developing commercial on all four corners of the intersection with it stretching eastward almost to Kaiser.
*commercial directly across from Kaiser along Yosemite Avenue.
*south of Yosemite on the west side of Airport Way developing business and professional uses in front of land that would be zoned mixed commercial that would accommodate apartments and/or condos as well as would front along the future extension of Milo Candini Drive.
*commercial on the northeast corner of Airport Way and Wawona Street with high density residential immediately to the north and then medium residential — typical tract homes — between that and commercial on the southeast corner of Airport and Yosemite.
*high density residential up to the golf course on the east side of Airport Way.
*industrial use north of Yosemite Avenue and west of Airport Way except for the existing commercial on the northwest corner.
*industrial zoning on the south side of Airport Way adjacent to the city’s wastewater treatment plant.
*mixed commercial use east of Kaiser as well as both sides of the future extension of Center Street until it meets up with the high density area.
Multiple story development would be encouraged in the mixed use areas. There would be a 25 percent density bonus for development in such mixed use areas that provide commercial or office uses.
The general plan draft identifies three other policy areas. They are:
*The acreage on the southwest corner of Louise Avenue and Airport Way the city wants to see developed as residential with neighborhood serving commercial and park uses that includes buffers to avoid conflicts with adjoining industrial land and the railroad.
*The area known as the Austin Road Business Park in southeast Manteca and east of the future southern extension of Atherton Drive. The 1,080 acres is envisioned to support — based on conceptual plans approved more than eight years ago by the city — housing for up to 10,200 people and the potential to create up to 13,000 jobs.
*The Lovelace Materials Recovery Facility and Transfer Station on Roth Road. The city wants to see the facility buffered from adjoining residential uses.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantcabulletin.com
