Truck traffic and noise has been a quality of life issue for Del Webb at Woodbridge residents ever since they realized city planners had plopped what is essentially a retirement community of 1,420 homes next to an area Manteca wants to turn into a major hub of distribution.

In what was the biggest pushback on questionable growth decisions in Manteca in 30 years, residents in 2019 submitted a petition signed by 1,192 people in their neighborhood to get the City Council to stop a developer’s plan to “temporarily” dump 816 truck trips daily onto Airport Way.

Those “temporary” trips would involve trucks braking to turn onto — and accelerating to turn off of — a private street directly across the street from Del Webb at Woodbridge.

Those trucks would be going to what will be the largest commercial truck parking facility in the Northern San Joaquin Valley with the ability to park 486 semi-trucks.

The residents two years ago successfully got the planning commission to restrict operating hours of the truck parking yard to 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. because of the potential for major truck noise. Not only did the council uphold the concept of restricted hours to reduce issues with the evening use of nearby yards and the ability of residents to sleep, but they made the hours of operation more restrictive changing it to 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The developers of CenterPoint Business Park then meet with the city. They argued the restricted hours would not work for a truck parking project as no operator would be willing to lease it under such terms. The council and developers came up with a compromise to extend Intermodal Way — that connects with Roth Road — beyond where it now ends by an existing 153 truck-trailer parking yard further south to the 486-stall yard.

The road would eliminate the need to dump truck traffic onto Airport Way.

On Thursday when the issue of the road extension came back before the Manteca Planning Commission, CenterPoint was seeking a two-year extension to get the extension of Intermodal Way in place citing their inability to make inroads with Union Pacific that owns part of the property within the alignment of the private street.

CenterPoint has started work on the 486-space truck parking yard. When it is completed, they want to have the ability to temporarily dump truck traffic onto Airport Way if the Intermodal Way extension is not complete.

Commission backs CenterPoint’s

‘temporary’ solution on split vote

Commissioner Jeff Zellner, in trying to pin a timeline down for the road extension, expressed his dismay no real progress had been made. The developer’s representative said they could get the road built in four to six months but only if the railroad grants them the right to do so.

Staff noted that if the road extension isn’t in place in two years, the City Council would have the option to re-impose restricted hours of operation.

Zellner pointed out the developer had two years to get the road built adding there was no reason to believe the road will be completed if a two year extension was granted due to the roadblock created by Union Pacific’s declining to work with the developer.

As such, Zellner noted the city may be allowing potentially allowing up to 816 truck trips a day added to Airport Way on a “temporary basis” without any hardfast guarantee Intermodal Way will even be extended.

“It looks like business as usual,” Zellner said. “. . . It just seems like a disaster in the making.”

Fellow commission Ron LaFranchi  agreed with Zellner in voting against amending a development agreement regarding Intermodal Way.

The two, however, were on the losing end of a 3-2 vote.

Potential political hot

potato for City Council

The points Zellner raised means a potential political hot potato is being passed back to the council.

While the developer said it would be hard to market the now under construction truck parking yard to an operator, if it is in place and is operating and Intermodal Way is not extended within two years, there could be 486 truck drivers and independent operators angry if a future council restricts operating hours and consequently their ability to support their families.

They also have the Del Webb community that has the ability to not only effectively organize its neighborhood but has the census tracts with the highest voter turnout in the city.

The 2019 petition opposing a change that would have allowed CenterPoint to develop and market a parcel as a 486 space truck parking yard by extending a private road to intersect with Airport Way at a signalized intersection roughly midway between Lathrop Road and Daisywood Drive contained 1,192 signatures.

It reflected the largest number of signatures collected on a petition since 1990 when an aborted recall event followed a successful recall in 1983 that led to the removal of then Mayor Trena Kelly and council members Rick Wentworth and Bobby Davis over the termination of Leonard Taylor as police chief. The 1990 recall try was spurred by frustrations with the council at the time not being responsive to concerns in the community about how the city was dealing with growth.

Del Webb residents over the past 12 years have expressed concerns with development issues connected with the expansion plans of the nearby Union Pacific intermodal facility as well as CenterPoint but it was nothing on the scale of the truck yard controversy.

An existing truck yard in the CenterPoint project with 153 spaces has been operating at CenterPoint without creating issues for Del Webb residents. That’s because trucks are using the internal CenterPoint spine road (Intermodal Way) to reach Roth Road and avoid using Airport Way and Lathrop Road through Manteca.

CenterPoint failed to get an easement from Union Pacific to extend that spine road to the parcel where they want to develop the 486 space truck parking yard. Their solution to be able to market the project was to change their original intent of sending trucks to and from the yard by using the spine road connecting with Roth Road. Their solution not only was going to add 816 more truck trips on Airport Way — the equivalent of three solid lanes on semi-trucks parked bumper to bumper from the 120 Bypass to Lathrop Road — but it would create three signalized intersections in quick succession. It would be reminiscent of East Yosemite Avenue between the Commerce/Northwoods Avenue and Button Avenue intersections.

The agreement the commission approved Thursday relieves CenterPoint from installing a signal on Airport Way on the assumption Intermodal Way will be extended.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com