Every property service available in Newman
Each of the twenty-two carries a Newman page, written around Orestimba Creek, the downtown flood zone and a stock that is 38 percent from the 1980s and 1990s. Five run 24 hours; the rest are scheduled.
Emergency restoration and mitigation
Debris and hauling
Construction and reconstruction
Building envelope and structure
Site and paving
Maintenance
What Newman buildings need, and when
Newman is a grid town founded in 1888 and incorporated in 1908. Simon Newman moved his store from Hills Ferry to a site on the railroad, and the town grew out from there: older neighbourhoods on a rectilinear grid with mature trees, mostly from the 1940s through the 1970s, and curvilinear subdivisions and cul-de-sacs added from the 1980s. A 1984 inventory recorded over 200 homes built before 1942.
The creek season and the rain season are the same months. Orestimba Creek flooding is most likely from October to April, and the Newman gauge's normals put 2.66 inches in January, 2.23 in February, 2.14 in December and 1.76 in March against nothing at all in July and August, when the normal high reaches 100 degrees. Ditches, drains and roofs are cleared before October; paving, painting, stucco and roofing take the dry half. A city inspection in February 2024 found about 500 units needing work.
Orestimba Creek is the reason Newman floods. Vegetation, silt and the bridges at Highway 33 and the railroad cut its capacity, so overbank flow backs up against the canal and the embankments and spreads through town as sheetflow, generally less than two feet deep. On 10 March 1995 the gauge above the Aqueduct peaked at 12,000 cubic feet a second, and most of downtown along Main Street sits in the 100-year flood zone.
The San Joaquin River is the second water on the map. On 11 January 2023 the County said 82 families in the Newman area had been ordered to leave and an assisted-living home was evacuated; on 8 March an evacuation order covered the Newman area east of River Road. The irrigation district ditches carry the town's runoff to the Newman Wasteway.
Newman areas served
Newman's twelve areas appear one at a time on every service page, because the creek, the wasteway and the grid reach different blocks.
Downtown and Main Street
About six by six blocks holding the commercial core and the oldest housing, with the city's unreinforced masonry buildings and the 1920 Carnegie Library.
Central Residential District
Bounded by Yolo, T, Inyo and P Streets, and named Area 1 of the four with the highest concentration of homes needing rehabilitation.
Rehabilitation Areas 2 to 4
Area 2 between Inyo, Upper, Corgiat and Prince; Area 3 by Kern, M, Fresno and Eucalyptus; Area 4 by Lucille, R, Yolo and Main.
Driskell Avenue apartments
Valley Manor at 719 has 48 units on City land, with many balconies noted for dry rot repair; Newman Family Apartments at 751 lists 67.
Highway 33 corridor and the Westside Marketplace
In 2006 the highway outside downtown ran past industrial and underutilized land and a strip of service commercial, with no sidewalks or street trees.
Industrial zone east of Highway 33
It runs from Kern Street south to the Merced County line, holding about 755,000 square feet of industrial space in 2006.
Sherman Ranch and Lucas Ranch
North-east subdivisions, partly inside the dam inundation zones mapped in 2006, with drainage-district tile drains that cannot be built over.
Creekbridge, Stephens Ranch and Creek Canyon
Subdivisions drained by irrigation ditches rather than city pipe: the Clery Ditch takes Creekbridge and the Miller Ditch takes the other two.
Inyo Avenue and Canal School Road
The storm drain pump station stands at the north-west corner, and in 2014 the City bought a 78-acre parcel opposite for a planned treatment wetland.
Mattos Ranch
A master plan area in the south-east with housing and retail; Phases 1 and 2 had recently been annexed when the Housing Element was written.
Northwest Newman Master Plan area and Orestimba Road
A 362-acre plan adopted in 2017 outside the city, partly in a 100-year flood zone; the fringe holds historic orchards, old barns and farmhouses.
River Road parks on the San Joaquin
Mobile home parks east of town along the river; a voluntary order covered about 125 mobile homes here in 2011, and evacuations followed in 2023.
Questions from Newman owners and managers
Twenty-six road miles from the Modesto base put Newman in a 120 to 140 minute emergency window, day or night. Road closures are the local risk: in the March 1995 flood many public streets and highways, State Highway 33 among them, were closed, which limited and in some cases prevented emergency access. Scheduled trades are booked from the request form.
The City's Building Department sits on the second floor of City Hall at 938 Fresno Street. A re-roof or an HVAC change-out is handled over the counter with no plan check and invoiced once the application is complete, while anything needing plan check usually takes a ten-day review. An issued permit expires twelve months after issue, which matters when a claim runs long.
Yes. An owner with a downtown storefront, a house in one of the rehabilitation areas and a unit on Driskell Avenue enters each address on its own request, and every one holds its own photographs, scope and schedule in the client area. A loss that moves from drying into rebuilding is kept with one contact.
Water damage restoration, fire and smoke damage, mold remediation, storm damage and board-up and biohazard cleanup: those five hold the emergency line at any hour. Debris hauling, roofing, stucco and painting, dry rot, structural work, paving, concrete, grading, construction, remodeling and the maintenance trades come through the request form and are scheduled.
In March 1995 structures in town were flooded by more than two feet of sediment-laden water, and domestic wells and septic systems outside the city were left unusable. Silt-laden floodwater is contaminated, so carpet, pad, insulation and soaked drywall come out, the silt is removed before anything is dried, and hard surfaces are cleaned and disinfected. Buildings in the flood zone also need an Elevation Certificate with Public Works before final occupancy.
Property services near Newman
