Mountain House gives California something it hasn’t seen in a decade

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Thirty years ago, the community of Mountain House didn’t have a single resident.

This week, with a diverse population that has surged to 24,500, it has become the first new city in California in more than a decade.

The planned community, built in 1991 on former alfalfa and corn fields near Tracy, has a brand new board of city council members and a new mayor, sworn in Monday. More than 100 agenda items are reportedly awaiting their first meeting.

“It’s a great milestone,” said Anil Madidhadi, who bought a home in 2021. “We are very happy. It’s been a great community, We wanted our daughter to have a bigger house in a better community. She’s going to a new school.”

Safi Rashidi, a native of Afghanistan, joined his family for a picnic of lamb kabobs and grilled shrimp at a Wednesday barbecue at the city’s park.  He called Mountain House “a very good neighborhood. I’m very happy for this new development and I congratulate the city, with its own values now.”

The move means the community, just beyond Altamont Pass, will gain more control over city planning, economic development and policing. It is California’s 483rd city.

“A lot of people have put in a lot of work over the last 10 years,”  Mayor Dr. Andy Su, an emergency physician at Sutter Tracy Community Hospital, told CBS News.

While its name suggests a lofty aerie, it’s located in the dry, windy foothills of southwestern San Joaquin County off Interstate 580.  An afternoon celebration on Independence Day was canceled due to the heat.

During the Gold Rush, pioneer Thomas Goodall chose the site as a midway stopover for miners headed from San Francisco to the Sierra Nevada foothills. His adobe house, on the eastern edge of the Diablo Range, was called The Mountain House.

The town’s creation in 1991 foreshadowed the current debate over the proposed “new city” in Solano County by California Forever, a company backed by some of Silicon Valley’s wealthiest investors.

Built from scratch, the vision of Tracy-based developer Trimark Communities was to create a self-contained spot of carefully planned houses, roads, jobs, firehouses, police stations, town halls, schools and recreational facilities, so residents could live and play where they work.

It was designed to help ease the Bay Area housing crunch. The size of the project was reduced after Alameda County, site of half the original acreage, opposed development of its agricultural land.

Housing values stumbled during the recession of 2008, when home prices fell so suddenly that nine of every 10 houses was “underwater,” worth less than their mortgage, according to The New York Times.

But it recovered, and homes that cost $360,000 in 2003 are now selling for $700,000 to $1 million. There’s a town center and seven surrounding villages with thousands of homes each.

“We’re very excited to see all of the new growth and all of the new tax revenue that will come in as we develop more,” councilman Matthew Disko told CBS News.

Nearly half of all residents, or 48%, have a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to the 2022 census survey. The median household income is $166,821.

Half of the city’s residents identify as Asian American. English is the primary language spoken at home by 50% of residents. Another 30% speak an Asian language and 10% speak an Indo-European language.

There is little crime. And the school district is academically strong, ranking 91 out of 100, according to U.S. News and World Report. Its high school placed 210th of 1,652 California schools in “college readiness.”

Mountain House never attracted the many jobs that were initially envisioned.  Many residents are tech workers, with staggering commutes on clogged highways to the East Bay or Silicon Valley.

And it still lacks restaurants, shopping and amenities for youth, such as swimming pools or recreation centers. A vendor drives to the city to supply fresh meat every weekend.

The new city is expected to grow to 50,000 people when completed.

“This a great moment. But there’s a lot to be done,” said Madidhadi. “In the next couple years, I’d like to see more new commercial development.” :

“We’re looking forward to how the new city will develop,” he said. “What sort of city can we build from here?”

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