It goes without fail that whenever a new housing development is proposed or subsequent coverage appears of it navigating the long and deliberate approval process there are folks who will sound the alarm.
They are upset Manteca is growing.
It is a bit disconcerting given the fact Manteca is growing would qualify as the worst kept secret of the past 40 years.
To be brutally honest, most people that get riled about new housing developments only do so when almond orchards and farmlands either next to their neighborhood or close by becomes the latest proposed land to produce houses instead of crops.
No one did anything beyond sympathizing with the people in rural South Manteca living on small country parcels of an acre or so along Fig and Peach avenues when people living there viewed the City of Manteca growth blob slowly oozing toward them over the past two decades as the death knell for their lifestyles.
They have been vocal about their concerns. But while some were clearly sympathetic who lived elsewhere in Manteca, no one thought to try to join them to try and not simply talk the talk but to actually put pressure to alter growth forces through the ballot box or political means.
It’s a 21st century California take on the old adage if you don’t stand up for someone that is being wronged or victimized and remain silent, the next person they come after could be you.
There clearly isn’t an overwhelming concern about the general concept growth in Manteca.
If there was, the sieve that is Manteca Municipal Code Ordinance No. 800 better known as the 3.9 percent annual growth cap tied into sewer allocations and not housing units per se would have been changed long ago.
There is no grassroots effort in Manteca to stop growth.
The last time there was in 1988 when a community-based group known as Concerned Citizens for Planned Growth did more than just bellow a lot. They actually were doing the grunt work of organizing the entire community and hitting the pavement circulating a petition to limit growth via a ballot measure at 2 percent.
Developers countered with a 4.5 percent proposal. It sounds like even less effective than the current 3.9 percent cap. But this was back in the 1980s when there were several years where the annual growth in Manteca exceeded 10 percent.
As petitions were being signed by volunteers going door-to-door and manning tables outside of stores, the council at the time looked for a compromise.
That’s when the 3.9 percent growth cap was rolled out and adopted by the City Council.
Developers weren’t thrilled about it but those against growth being out-of-control circulating the petitions ran out of steam.
It should be noted, as strange as it might sound today, Manteca was the first Central Valley community to impose a growth cap of any sort.
The growth cap is fairly straight forward. The number of units either in place, being built, or issued permits for at the end of a calendar year are multiplied by 3.9 percent.
So if Manteca has 26,000 housing units at the end of this year — a number gleaned from data several years ago — the city couldn’t allow more than 1,014 additional housing units to be built in 2023.
Manteca in the past five years has only come within about 300 housing units of that number on an annual basis.
And that number of homes allowed annually keeps growing with each passing year as more housing units being built are added to the overall total.
And — to make it even less effective — there is a provision in Ordinance 800 that unused sewer allocations are rolled over to future years.
That means if the number of sewer allocations issued this year is only 800 for new homes, the extra 200 or so would be added to the number of homes that could be built in 2023.
Let’s say there is momentum to actually show down growth given the 3.9 percent growth cap is a paper tiger at best.
A lot has changed in the 34 years since Ordinance No. 800 was put in place.
And that even is true of Tracy’s own growth cap revolt about 15 years ago.
As of today, there are 8,019 proposed housing units in the proverbial development pipeline.
The projects are at various stages. But rest assured even with the most ambitious game plan to try and find a way to get a more restrictive growth cap in place, those 8,019 housing units will be built.
Yes, some firms behind them will go belly up. But given they will have entitlements and the fact we are powered by the Bay Area economy more than anything else, only a fool would bet the house against them not being built.
Those 8,019 housing units on their own have the ability to take Manteca’s current population from 88,000 to 122,580 residents.
Granted, Tracy was able to find legal wiggle room to allow their backlog to move forward at a slower pace while accommodating a small degree of new proposals.
But since then, the state has made it essentially impossible for cities to block housing development due to California’s perennial housing shortage.
That’s not saying the mountain can’t be scaled. But instead of being the equivalent of a hike to the top of Mt. Diablo, state law has now made reigning in growth when it comes to housing being a task on the level of conquering Mt. Everest.
It is doable but only for those well equipped with the stamina and the means to try and reach a summit that has plenty of crevices put in place by the state that could swallow and kill the effort.
All is not lost.
Urban limits — ultimate city boundaries defined by ordinance or ballot measure — are doable.
From a planning perspective, they make sense. That’s because you know the ultimate areas that you can develop making a finite infrastructure to develop.
However, it wouldn’t be a world of low density housing. State law mandates higher density housing. And, whether you want to admit it, so does the economics of housing in California.
Urban growth limits would stop Manteca from becoming a Modesto or Stockton in terms of spread.
That said, the only real change that can be pressed is to make sure all future growth is done right.
Trying to stop growth with a fragmented approach only when a new development pops up next door to you is akin to whistling in the wind.
Stopping housing growth period isn’t going to happen in the political climate change that has occurred in Sacramento.
The best case scenario is applying pressure — a lot of pressure — to make sure it is done right and benefits all of Manteca and not just new homebuyers and developers.
This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com