Manteca needs to spend $107,680 to avoid a $265,000 referendum.

The City Council Tuesday is being asked to OK spending $107,680 for DeNovo Planning Group to complete work on a general plan amendment, zoning code amendment, and rezone for the general plan elected leaders adopted four months ago.

The new general plan was approved after a seven year process costing roughly $2 million.

The changes the city is paying to have done by the consulting firm need to be in place by mid-August based on a deal brokered by Mayor Gary Singh and Vice Mayor Mike Morowit with Chris and Jay Indelicato of  Delicato Fine Wines and unanimously approved by the council.

If it is in place by then, the winery will drop the referendum they qualified for the ballot by collecting adequate signatures of registered voters as well as withdraw a lawsuit.

Should the city fail to get the changes in place 88 days before the Nov. 5, 2024 election, the winery will go ahead with filing the final paperwork to trigger the referendum.

That would cost the city roughly $265,000 in election costs alone.

The following general points is what the city and the winery agreed to:

*There will be no residential developments north of Lovelace Road.

*Housing development will not occur east of Union Road at a point beyond where the northern edge of the Del Webb at Woodbridge community.

*Delicato will provide up to 12 acres at no cost for an extension of Roth Road through their property so it can reach Frontage Road on the west side of Highway 99.

*The Roth Road extension through Delicato property will have a continuous sound wall on the northside — save for access gates for farm equipment — to provide a sound and visual barrier of winery operations.

*Existing plans for housing submitted to the city for consideration will be held in abeyance in terms of processing until general plan changes agreed upon regarding zoning changes are officially implemented.

*As such, that means the amount of housing Manteca will allow in the area will be reduced including the elimination of apartments.

*Land to the west and south of the winery will be placed in an agricultural zone. Land between Union Road and Airport Way farther to the west of the winery was already zoned for industrial use in the general plan update as well as land to the east of the winery on the other side of Highway 99.

*The winery operation per se will be in an agricultural industrial zone.

*The area once envisioned by developers for housing on the east side of Union Road north of Del Webb will instead have a 50-acre community park site plus industrial zoning.

*The park site that borders Union Road is designed with  a corridor that connects with a future extension of the Tidewater Bikeway. That means both of the city’s community parks — Woodward is the other — will be accessed directly by city’s separated bike trail system.

*The park’s design with the connection to the Tidewater could allow it to be ultimately doubled in size of industrial land to the east if it doesn’t develop.

*Delicato will pay $50,000 toward the initial design of the community park.

*The cost of Roth Road improvements will be determined and developers will establish funding for it before residential and industrial park growth occurs.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com