The first new neighborhood built east of Highway 99 in more than a decade is expected to generate 241 students that most likely will end up filling classroom seats at New Haven School and East Union High.
The development will also bring to Manteca its first roundabout on a major street. It will be midway between Cottage Avenue and the Highway 99 overcrossing where Felice Way T-intersects Louise Avenue as the northern entrance to an existing 99-home neighborhood.
The developers of the 492-home Shadowbrook Estates received permission Tuesday from the Manteca City Council to start public improvements before the final map is filed. That will likely allow homes to be built starting in early 2018.
Manteca Unified officials indicated both schools have capacity but that is not a guarantee students from the new neighborhood will attend those campuses. That’s because some grade levels may be impacted forcing them to be bused elsewhere. Also if other new development in the attendance areas is completed beforehand and students from those projects fill the seats first, students from Shadowbrook could be sent to other campuses.
Shadowbrook will be the largest new neighborhood ever to be built east of Highway 99.
The developer will invest $1 million in a roundabout at Felice Way and Louise Avenue to avoid the need for traffic signals and to keep Louise Avenue traffic flow at an optimum level. The roundabout avoids having signals just a short distance from ones already in place at Louise and Cottage avenues. It will be similar to the one on Eleventh Street between Tracy and Intestate 205 where a four-lane road and a two-lane road feed into a roundabout.
The project originally was envisioned as an age-restricted community similar to Del Webb when it was advanced by the late Antone Raymus in 2005. Trumark was allowed by Manteca leaders to jettison the age-restriction requirement, enlarge some lots, create a semi-gated community, and reduce the number of access streets from Southland Road from two to one. Among the features of the 122-acre project are:
uThe neighborhood park that anyone in Manteca can use will sit next to a clubhouse and swimming pool that features outdoor and indoor kitchens that only Shadowbrook residents can access. There will also be a small amphitheater. Non-residents will have to either walk or bicycle to reach it unless they know residents living in one of the 492 planned homes that can buzz them in one of two gated vehicle entrances using an app on their smartphones. The access sidewalks will not be gated.
uA homeowners association will maintain all street lighting, the clubhouse and the neighborhood park. They will also be part of a community facilities district to maintain the perimeter landscaping.
uThe neighborhood will include a number of executive-style homes on lots up to 20,400 square feet.
uThere will be a decorative 13-foot high masonry wall along the Highway 99 freeway corridor.
uThere will be a 6-foot high vinyl fence separating larger, rural residential parcels along Cottage Avenue that back up to the eastern edge of Shadowbrook.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com