Meritage Homes - a firm that proposed an 800-home age-restricted community to the northwest of Del Webb at Woodbridge just as the housing market collapsed - is getting ready to make another foray into the Manteca market.

The firm is the buyer of the 90-lot Pillsbury Estates subdivision west of the southern end of Pillsbury Road. It would extend Buena Vista Drive to the south where it currently dead ends with a cul-de-sac south of Tannehill Drive in South Manteca.

The final map and subdivision agreement for the project is before the council during Tuesday’s 7 p.m., meeting at the Civic Center, 1001 W. Center St.

The developer will be obligated to make $4.4 million worth of site improvements as well as pay growth related fees plus sewer and water connections as homes are built.

Altogether Manteca has approved projects in one form or another - including Pillsbury Estates - that could add 18,477 housing units to the city. If all of the housing units are built based on currently yields per households Manteca’s population would go from 70,000 today to more than 116,000 residents.

Meritage Homes is a publically traded builder of single family homes across the country that is based in Scottsdale, Ariz. The firm also is a builder of active adult communities in Arizona.

Meritage in early 2007 was pursuing its first age restricted community in California just as the housing market started to sour.

The firm envisioned an 800-unit community limited to those 55 and older just northwest of Del Webb along Airport Way. The project was dubbed Cardoza Ranch during the approval process. Meritage has proposed making homes smaller than those in Del Webb at Woodbridge in a bid to make it affordable to more seniors. The project never received approval as Meritage withdrew as the housing crisis worsened.