Next week the City of Lathrop will host an informational town hall meeting to discuss the proposed Lathrop Road realignment and how it will impact residents and drivers who use the thoroughfare daily.
It’ll also be a chance for the last remaining property owner to have questions answered to determine whether she’s willing to sell a portion of her parcel to grant the easement necessary for the world to be completed.
Last month the city council voted to approve the purchase of a 340 square-foot piece of Adriana Flores-Lopez’ property at 546 Lathrop Road – offering her $1,440 or just over $4 per square-foot of the easement acquired.
But Lopez-Flores doesn’t know whether she’s ready to part with a piece of her property that has been in her family for generations.
The meeting, which will be held Wednesday, Sept. 21, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Lathrop Senior Center, is open to the public and will include a question-and-answer session with the city’s engineers.
According to Glen Gebhardt, the Lathrop City Engineer, this particular project has been in the works for more than two decades. Back in the mid-1990s, the City of Lathrop performed a precise lot line study that mapped out how the Lathrop Road corridor would be laid out once the city got to the point that it to become four lanes – something that has long been spelled out in the City of Lathrop’s general plan.
Those homeowners who lived on the parcels that were affected, Gebhardt said, were notified at the time that this is something that the city would be looking into down the road and that they should anticipate being contacted in the future.
While it is possible for the city to use eminent domain to acquire property – something that they have done in the past when necessary – the direction, Gebhardt said, from the council on how best to proceed with the project is clear and straight-forward.
“They told us to look for any possible way to avoid having to go that route,” Gebhardt said of acquiring the land through force. “They’re concerned about the citizens and they want to make sure that everybody is treated fairly and we’ve taken great steps to make sure that is the case – we have a very specific process that we have to follow in order to make sure that everybody is treated fairly.
“We have to have the property appraised by somebody else and then do the work to make sure that fair market value is what is being offered.”
Gebhardt said that the amount of land from each of the three parcels that are being acquired is minimal and would make a very minimal impact on the overall aesthetics of the property.
The acquired land will be used to install curbs, gutters and sidewalks – paid for by the City of Lathrop – which he said typically improves property values once the work is completed.
Flores-Lopez said she’s concerned about the fact that she won’t be able to have people park on Lathrop Road in front of her house anymore – like her landscaper that often brings a trailer – and that home deliver of her mail won’t be an option anymore because the mail carrier won’t be able to stop along the side of the road once the work is completed.
“There are just a lot of questions that I want to have answered before I agree to sign anything,” she said. “I don’t like the idea of this being a passage for trucks going between Highway 99 and I-5 and I don’t like the fact that it’s not going to be a safe place for my kids to play anymore with the amount of traffic that will be passing through.
“It’s just a change I never expected.”

To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.