McKinley Avenue expressway is far from dead.
And why should you care anyway unless you are a farmer or live on small rural acreage south of Manteca?
There are a couple of reasons. Do you want Manteca south of the Highway 120 Bypass not to morph into east Modesto where a sense of scale that’s judged in mile after mile of tract homes? Do you want less expensive government and more public amenities? Do you want your grandchildren to live a community that has minimum blight, one that’s not designed around cars but people, co-exists with agriculture, and have the ability to choose housing types not dictated by the self-fulfilling prophecy of banks that prefer underwriting developments that adhere to their standard of stand-alone single family homes?
Those issues can’t be addressed by Manteca simply using the same-old textbook planning that has been in place since the 1950s that has successfully transformed paradises such as the Santa Clara Valley into basins of spread-out congestion.
A decision on the McKinley Avenue alignment has been postponed by the city until the state-mandated update of the general plan - Manteca’s blueprint for growth - takes place in 2013.
While it may be true the road is 20 to 30 years out, the development patterns an adopted alignment puts into motion aren’t.
While there are no developers poking around in the immediate vicinity of the proposed alignment at the moment, if they see daylight in Manteca’s growth blueprint they’re going to pursue the opportunity. If Manteca adopts a traffic circulation plan that isn’t conducive to growth or doesn’t have zoning needed for urbanization it changes the game. You can rest assured no developer is going to try to buy land if they can’t build subdivisions.
Manteca has an impressive development in South Manteca dubbed Austin Road Business Park on the horizon that isn’t the same-old, same-old. That is because developers acting in concert have been able to go beyond looking at the future one subdivision at a time.
Between Austin Road Business Park and other projects Manteca and various logical areas that are large fill-ins, Manteca can easily add 40,000 residents.
So why not cap ultimate population growth and take full advantage of Manteca’s location and transportation resources and pursue office, business park, and even regional retail opportunities? As any city planner worth their salt can tell you, housing is a losing proposition in terms of being able to pay for services when it comes to running a city. The cities that are really successful and can ward off budget woes and have a higher quality of life are places like Pleasanton and Irvine that have de-emphasized housing tract development
This, by the way, will not make Manteca limited in growth options or be selfish. If you look at the bigger picture of the South County, there is a 900-pound gorilla that everyone seems to forget - River Islands at Lathrop. Cambay Group is the real deal. Just ask people that thought they were going to kill the 10,000-home Dougherty Valley project in the East Bay.
River Islands has the deep pockets needed to make the 10,800-home project work. That adds another 40,000 residents who could easily commute to jobs along the 120 corridor whether they are back office operations or in business parks. And if Manteca positions itself correctly, bigger players in retail down the road will be drawn to the central Manteca location in the middle of over a million consumers.
Why not do something different with growth and take full advantage of our geography, wise decisions in past years on infrastructure and our neighbors to work in concert to avoid creating a massive blob where Manteca becomes a place to sleep and not a place to live.
There is more riding on the McKinley Avenue expressway decision than what meets the eye.
And why should you care anyway unless you are a farmer or live on small rural acreage south of Manteca?
There are a couple of reasons. Do you want Manteca south of the Highway 120 Bypass not to morph into east Modesto where a sense of scale that’s judged in mile after mile of tract homes? Do you want less expensive government and more public amenities? Do you want your grandchildren to live a community that has minimum blight, one that’s not designed around cars but people, co-exists with agriculture, and have the ability to choose housing types not dictated by the self-fulfilling prophecy of banks that prefer underwriting developments that adhere to their standard of stand-alone single family homes?
Those issues can’t be addressed by Manteca simply using the same-old textbook planning that has been in place since the 1950s that has successfully transformed paradises such as the Santa Clara Valley into basins of spread-out congestion.
A decision on the McKinley Avenue alignment has been postponed by the city until the state-mandated update of the general plan - Manteca’s blueprint for growth - takes place in 2013.
While it may be true the road is 20 to 30 years out, the development patterns an adopted alignment puts into motion aren’t.
While there are no developers poking around in the immediate vicinity of the proposed alignment at the moment, if they see daylight in Manteca’s growth blueprint they’re going to pursue the opportunity. If Manteca adopts a traffic circulation plan that isn’t conducive to growth or doesn’t have zoning needed for urbanization it changes the game. You can rest assured no developer is going to try to buy land if they can’t build subdivisions.
Manteca has an impressive development in South Manteca dubbed Austin Road Business Park on the horizon that isn’t the same-old, same-old. That is because developers acting in concert have been able to go beyond looking at the future one subdivision at a time.
Between Austin Road Business Park and other projects Manteca and various logical areas that are large fill-ins, Manteca can easily add 40,000 residents.
So why not cap ultimate population growth and take full advantage of Manteca’s location and transportation resources and pursue office, business park, and even regional retail opportunities? As any city planner worth their salt can tell you, housing is a losing proposition in terms of being able to pay for services when it comes to running a city. The cities that are really successful and can ward off budget woes and have a higher quality of life are places like Pleasanton and Irvine that have de-emphasized housing tract development
This, by the way, will not make Manteca limited in growth options or be selfish. If you look at the bigger picture of the South County, there is a 900-pound gorilla that everyone seems to forget - River Islands at Lathrop. Cambay Group is the real deal. Just ask people that thought they were going to kill the 10,000-home Dougherty Valley project in the East Bay.
River Islands has the deep pockets needed to make the 10,800-home project work. That adds another 40,000 residents who could easily commute to jobs along the 120 corridor whether they are back office operations or in business parks. And if Manteca positions itself correctly, bigger players in retail down the road will be drawn to the central Manteca location in the middle of over a million consumers.
Why not do something different with growth and take full advantage of our geography, wise decisions in past years on infrastructure and our neighbors to work in concert to avoid creating a massive blob where Manteca becomes a place to sleep and not a place to live.
There is more riding on the McKinley Avenue expressway decision than what meets the eye.
