Gentlemen agreements just don’t mean much anymore.

For years, there was an understanding based on development agreement wording that new neighborhood developers in Manteca would make sure park improvements plus the mechanism to make sure they would be maintained without creating a burden on the city’s general fund would be in place while the developer still controlled the majority of the lots.

Those same agreements had language that the city thought made it clear that the developer and not the city had to make the park improvements instead of the developer just financing them.

But then one out-of-the-area developer not once but twice ignored the understanding and read the agreement in a different manner causing problems for the city in the form of irate homebuyers.

The latest snafu is in Union Ranch where the city collected money from landscape, maintenance district assessment fees for a full year to maintain the park without a park being in place. The city is now going to refund that money minus a 25 percent reserve and not impose another assessment until July 1, 2013 when park improvements are expected to finally be in place and ready to use. Ironically, the developers will get the lion’s share of the refunds since they paid the most into the LMD as they own the majority of the lots.

To make sure the city don’t get a third black eye, the Manteca City Council tonight will consider  adopting a policy that basically requires the landscape maintenance district to be in place prior to the issuance of the first building permit. That means the developer has to set up the LMD and then cast all of their votes - one per lot - to approve the assessment mechanism. The LMD would then be in place before homes enter escrow.

At the same time they may require the park be constructed and ready to use before the issuance of a permit for the first production home that is not a model home.

That’s the recommendation of staff. Two other options the council could consider is requiring the park to be completed before the issuance of any housing permit including the model homes. Another is to allow the builder to receive 10 percent of the building permits before the park must be completed.

And in cases where the park is in a future phase of a development, it still must be built first and a road to access it put in place from the portion where homes are initially being built.

The council meets at 7 p.m. at the Civic Center, 1001 W. Center St.