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| The Valley Times, Thursday, May 27, 2003 |
| by Lisa Vorderbruegge |
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| STATE'S NEWEST TOWN TO OPEN DOORS |
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MOUNTAIN HOUSE — Thirteen years after the developer unveiled the first set of plans, California’s newest town prepares to welcome its inaugural residents in a few weeks.
Alfalfa fields in this rural byway outside the Bay Area’s back door have been transformed into spanking new streets lined with wobbly young trees and freshly spread bark mulch.
Dozens of homes in stages of construction jut into the skyline against a backdrop of windmills and the rolling Altamont Hills. Brightly colored playground equipment awaits the first shouts of youthful glee.
But even before a single homebuyer unpacks a box, the imminent arrival of Mountain House has triggered monumental changes in peoples’ lives.
Consider its impact on these two men: Craig Baxter and Jerry Teixeira.
Baxter is counting the days until he can move in.
Teixeira will soon leave his childhood home and witness the close of his family’s dairy business.
"I’ve been waiting a long time for this," said Baxter, a Lawrence Livermore Laboratory worker waiting to kiss goodbye to his mind-numbing Stockton commute.
After six years of driving by the town site on his way to work, he rushed to Mountain House in March when Lennar Homes declared its first homes for sale. No sign of a recession here.
The 42-year-old single dad had to compete with nearly 200 people in a lottery for a chance to buy a house.
Baxter heard his name on the third pull, and expects to use his front-door key at his 1,817-square-foot house in August. His 2 1/2-hour daily commute will drop to a half-hour.
"It feels pretty special to be one of the first people to move into a new community. Mostly, I just can’t wait to spend more time with my son."
Going, gone
Just down the road from Baxter’s half-built house sits the Teixeira dairy. Twenty-seven-year-old Jerry’s parents and his uncle bought it in 1980, and he and his older brother, Joe, grew up there.
His Portuguese-born dad, Isidoro, will retire soon and neither of his sons want to stay on the farm.
Jerry studies international business finance at San Francisco State and intends to move there, and Joe runs his own business. "Dad wasn’t happy about not going into the dairy business, but it wasn’t for us," Jerry said. "The Bay Area is where it’s at for me."
It’s probably just as well.
Fold will begin moving into Mountain House in June, and cows rarely get invited into suburban back yards unless it’s to grace the barbecue.
Heavy traffic on Mountain House Parkway in front of Teixeira’s corrals and milking barn already make farming more difficult.
More significant, the county-adopted Mountain House Master Plan designates the Teixeira property as part of a business park. So, the Teixeiras will sell. They’re negotiating with buyers, and unless their new neighbors force them out earlier, they will close the dairy in a few years.
Their workers will have to find new jobs. Berkeley Farms will have to find milk elsewhere. And the farmers and businessmen who sold feed and hay and fuel to the Teixeiras will lose a customer.
"The farmers around here say they don’t like the change, but it’s going to happen," Jerry said. "People need somewhere to live."
Birth of a new town
The idea to build a new town at Mountain House surfaced in the late 1980s among a half-dozen "new town" rural San Joaquin County proposals. House-hungry Bay Area workers had discovered the county, fueling widespread land speculation.
Trimark Communities, an affiliate of SunChase Holdings, purchased options on Mountain House land and sought development approvals starting in 1990.
The original new town straddled San Joaquin and Alameda counties, but anti-growth politics prompted Trimark to drop Alameda early in the process.
San Joaquin County in 1994 approved a 7.5-square-mile new town for 44,000 people, 22,000 jobs and city trappings such as a downtown, government offices, parks, schools, community college, marina, business park and retail shops.
The county also secured special legislation that set up Mountain House as a community service district.
Think of the district as a baby town: It will resemble a full-grown one, but the county will retain control over key matters such as zoning.
Today, the district’s manager and four start-up staff members occupy the seventh floor of a downtown Stockton office building.
Eventually, Mountain House will have on-site, full-service municipal offices, and once it hits 1,000 registered voters, the residents will elect a local council.
But more important, the creation of a district established a means to finance the construction of the new town. It permits the county to levy fees on new homes and businesses to reimburse Trimark for the cost of building the streets, water and sewer plants, a fire station and a library.
Trimark broke ground in May 2001 on $500 million worth of community facilities, and the homebuilder began erecting houses in 2002.
Of the five "new towns" folded into the county’s general plan in the early 1990s, only Mountain House has survived.
A former county planner credits Trimark’s deep pockets, extensive advance planning, a solid water supply and proximity to the Altamont Pass and the Bay Area.
"Mountain House was the only new-town proposal that had money from the beginning to do serious advance planning," said Eric Parfrey, a former San Joaquin County planner who later worked for a consultant hired to prepare the environmental study of the new town.
Town or bedroom?
Today, Parfrey and other fear promised Mountain House jobs may never materialize.
Trimark tied up most of the land designated in the general plan but it has not secured some key business park properties, including the Teixeira dairy.
"They can pretend all they want, but Mountain House will become a bedroom community that will dump traffic and pollution over the Altamont," warned neighbor and activist Carolyn Sue Crook. "Look at how old Tracy is, and they haven’t been able to get jobs. How can you expect Mountain House to do it?"
Mountain House will see jobs because Trimark is under tremendous financial pressure to produce them, predicts Paul Sensibaugh, the town’s first manager.
As the master developer, Trimark pays Sensibaugh’s salary and all costs to run the district until enough taxpaying residents and businesses move into town.
"I see this community coming along much faster than anyone anticipated, but it still takes time to build a town from the ground up," Sensibaugh said. "We don’t expect to see a major influx of jobs for five to seven years."
Inadvertently, Tracy may throw gas on Mountain House’s growth spurt. Its residents recently adopted a housing permit limit, which will reduce the number of new houses for sale in west San Joaquin County.
Going fast
From the looks of it, Lennar already can’t build houses in Mountain House fast enough. Thousands of would-be homebuyers flocked to the first preview, and Lennar sold all 25 houses in the first release in less than an hour.
Lennar had sold 100 houses by late May, each one within an hour of its release. By June, the builder will have five subdivisions open in Mountain House with homes priced from $300,000 to $500,000.
Trimark expected to sell a few hundred homes this year. Now, its staffers believe sales will top 500 and continue at a high rate next year. "The pace of interest in Mountain House has been stronger than we ever imagined," said project manager Eric Teed-Bose. "I believe it’s because we are building a town, not a big subdivision."
Some buyers, like Craig Baxter, have come from Modesto or Stockton in search of a shorter commute. Most hail from the Bay Area where a comparable new house costs $200,000 or more than at Mountain House.
"A majority are coming from Livermore, which surprised us," Lennar Homes sales director Allison Herman said. "They can drive 15 minutes over the hill and buy a larger home on a larger lot for less money."
It doesn’t surprise Baxter. He planned his move for six years. |
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