Development is booming so much in Lathrop that it has earned the designation of one of the fastest-growing cities in the State of California.

And now the City of Lathrop is going to take the steps necessary to ensuring that something overlooked by most people doesn’t prevent that growth from continuing – sewer capacity.

Late last month the Lathrop City Council approved spending just over $1.5 million to secure the headunit necessary for the Phase 3 expansion of the City of Lathrop’s Consolidated Treatment Facility.

In short, Lathrop is taking steps to ensure that there’s enough space to process every toilet that flushes – even amidst an unprecedented building boom.

Despite a total project price tag of nearly $1.7 million – the $1.5 million for the purchase of the headunit and a contingency of 10 percent on top of that – the total cost to Lathrop’s taxpayers once all the dust settles with be absolutely nothing.

According to the staff report prepared for the item, the city is moving ahead with the initial design work while at the same time working with the development community on a project funding agreement to reimburse the city for the costs incurred. While that agreement has yet to be formally executed, the city is striving to cover the costs for both the engineering and design work as well as the equipment that was purchased as part of the council’s approval last month.

With growth in mind, Lathrop’s planners moved ahead with the construction of a consolidated treatment facility that processes Lathrop’s sewage that can be expanded upon modularly – allowing for new capacity to be added on when the need arises rather than incurring the cost of building a full-capacity plant all at once.

In choosing that approach, the city has been able to work with developers seeking to acquire building permits to fund expansion of the facility to ensure that adequate sewer capacity exists for new growth.

Because River Islands, which will eventually include more than 15,000 homes, helped front the cost to build the consolidated treatment facility, they were initially able to secure the right of refusal on new capacity when it comes online. That initial agreement is no longer in place, but the idea of having developers cover the cost of infrastructure remains.

By including the development community in the planning and construction process, Lathrop was able to ensure that adequate sewer capacity existed for growth without saddling the taxpayers with the infrastructure costs necessary to support for-profit development.

Since Lathrop already uses the respective headunit in its treatment facility – mix-and-match isn’t an option when it comes to these types of facilities – the city considers the vendor to be a “sole source” provider and thus exempted the proposal from the required bidding process.

To contact Bulletin reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com