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| Tracy Press, Tuesday, July 24, 2000 |
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| PACE QUICKENS FOR MOUNTAIN HOUSE |
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Trimark Communities and San Joaquin County planners expect to start building the first parts of Mountain House this year. The new town’s first homes could start going up by 2002, said Eric Teed-Bose, Trimark’s director of forward planning.
Teed-Bose and county planner Michael Hitchcock laid out first-phase infrastructure and subdivision plans and a planning timeline for the county planning commission on Thursday.
Hitchcock said county officials will have more to review this summer, including an initial study of possible environmental effects in the first neighborhood, to be released this week. "A lot of things will be happening in the next two months," he said, adding that the first planning commission hearing on the initial study is scheduled for early August. "By the time you finish that you’ll have a well-rounded view of the project."
Thursday’s presentation was strictly informational, and no action was taken. Still, commissioners expressed support for "Neighborhood F," also known as "Wicklund Crossing," the first of 12 areas to be built in the new town.
However, commission chair Sandra Carter said she had reservations about the use of the word "interim" to describe facilities such as the fire station, sports fields, and additions to Lammersville School and West High School.
Teed-Bose replied that development agreements ensure that permanent facilities will be part of the project after the first few hundred homes are built. At the same time, infrastructure such as storm drains, roads and sewer and water lines will be oversized for the first neighborhood, and subject to expansion by buildout. "We’re trying not to overburden the project in its early years," he said.
Mountain House is ultimately expected to have 16,000 houses and 44,000 residents over the 20- to 40-year buildout. The first 405-acre phase will have more than 1,500 residences, including 980 homes in low- and medium-density subdivisions, plus 64 possible second-units, such as detached in-law cottages, in those same areas. Another 480 high-density units, such as apartments and townhomes, are planned for the area as well.
The houses surround a 16-acre school, five-acre park and three-acre community center. About 31 acres along Mountain House Parkway are reserved for office development, and 36 acres will be developed as an industrial park.
Hitchcock said this area should provide more than 3,100 jobs for nearly 2,200 workers in the first phase. Over time, he said, the jobs-to-housing balance for Mountain House will be just about even, with 0.99 jobs per worker.
Teed-Bose said some Silicon Valley-type businesses are interested in the area, and he added that the project is designed so that jobs and housing will match people of all skills and incomes.
The first step for any of this will be completion of the sewer and water plants at the north end of the community, just north of Byron Road.
Teed-Bose said he hopes to have building permit approval for those soon, and building will take another year. At the same time, a fire station will be built just north of the new neighborhood. This will clear the way for houses to be built, with the school and park being built at the same time. Teed-Bose said the K–8 school will be funded by a Mello-Roos bond, and should be open sometime between when the 200th and 240th houses are built. He said Trimark is also planning to build the park, including a pool, early on, though that will be funded by development fees.
The commission also looked at some changes to the specific plan for the project. In the case of Neighborhood F, that means there will be regular residential streets with driveways surrounding the central school and park. Original plans called for no street access to homes but rather for access to be through alleyways behind the houses.
Trimark also eliminated a proposed series of townhomes at the western entrance to the neighborhood, opting instead for landscaped walkways facing the community center across the street.
Teed-Bose said the basic nature of the plan remains intact, and described how each of the seven smaller sections of Neighborhood F allows pedestrian and bicycle access to the school and park, and at least two roadway access points from the arterial streets. "They can walk to the village center, they can walk to employment and they can walk to school," he said.
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