Mountain House, a community just outside the Bay Area, officially becomes a city

Mountain House, a community to the west of Tracy, officially incorporated itself as California's 483rd city this past Monday.

Previously a community services district, a special kind of district specifically for unincorporated communities that relies on county support, Mountain House is now officially a city, with its own government consisting of a mayor and a four-person city council.

This comes after a March referendum posing the question of cityhood to the residents. The community, with a population of about 30,000 residents, passed the ballot measure with an overwhelming majority of voters agreeing to the proposal.

Jodi Almassy, Mountain House's deputy city manager, said the change is about self-governance and greater community input for the overall direction of the city.

"[As] a community services district, we've been relying on county services, for instance, for all land planning and zoning services," she said. "So this would put that governance now with the city to have that direct oversight."

For Mayor Andy Su, it's a result long in the making. According to him, plans for Mountain House were originally drawn up in the 1980s, with the first houses built in the early 2000s, and there were multiple exploratory studies to see if the city was financially capable of supporting itself. He said that incorporation was always in the plans once the community grew to a sufficient size, the planning of which began in 2015.

Su, who doubles as both emergency physician and mayor, said he originally got into local governance in 2008 out of boredom, around the same time he founded a nonprofit flag football league for young children. He said that he and his wife were dissatisfied at the time with frequent Netflix CD rentals and needed something else to pass the time.

"We were doing that every night, and I was bored," Su said. "I was like, 'I don't wanna do this for the rest of my life."

Su said he originally moved to Mountain House over 17 years ago, in search of cheaper housing. He remarked that low home prices, alongside other factors such as low crime and good schools, has led people like himself to flock to Mountain House in droves, which has seen its population triple since 2010.

He said that the city is only 50% built, and that the goal is to complete the city's master plan in full, which includes 16,000 homes, a community pool, a dog park, and tennis courts, and that he is optimistic about the future of the city.

"We continue to grow our staff, we continue to build," Su said. "It's a continuous process. We've never stopped from day one."

For Almassy, however, she said she's just happy to be a part of a moment in history, describing helping the city incorporate as a "once-in-a-lifetime" career opportunity.

"To be able to be here the last six months and do the final legwork with the team here, it's pretty awesome," she said.