Tech billionaires want to build a new city in California. Here's how it started and how it's going

The first hints of something weird going on in Solano County began years ago when locals noted that someone was buying up lots of land throughout the region. Indeed, the first land parcels seem to have been purchased sometime around 2018. The California Forever project was originally founded in 2017. For years, however, nobody had any idea who was behind the land procurements. Eventually, last year, it became apparent that a company called Flannery Associates was behind the purchases, but little information was available about who was behind the murky company. Last year, it came out that Flannery had purchased some $800,000 worth of land parcels, which amounted to some 60,000 acres.

California Forever had its “coming out” party in August of 2023, not long after a New York Times story detailing the people behind the project. The Times story, which was published in late August, noted that a number of big tech luminaries like Marc Andreessen, Reid Hoffman, and Steve Jobs’s widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, were some of the backers of Flannery Associates, the parent company behind the project. Days after the story came out, California Forever launched its website with a blog post about the project and the future of eastern Solano County. The blog stated that the county had “many challenges, but also possesses countless opportunities,” and that the “idea of building a new community and economic opportunity” could fuel a “remarkable” development.

Almost immediately, the project inspired concerns. One of the first was the relative proximity of the acquired lands to Travis Air Force Base, which is a large base located just outside of Fairfield, California. Local government officials expressed concerns about the impact the massive project could have on the base and the surrounding area. In the days after the project’s existence was made known, the Solano County Administrator’s Office published a statement: “Communications with Flannery [Associates] have been limited despite the county’s efforts to understand their intentions for the use of the land they had been acquiring,” the note read. “If the recent reports in the media are true, along with the assertions made on California Forever’s website, the concept of creating a new urban center in Solano County raises some complex issues.” California Forever developers have since amended their plans to create a larger buffer between their planned development and the base.

In November 2023, Flannery Associates decided to sue a number of the regional landowners from whom it had previously tried to procure land parcels. Flannery accused these land owners of a “price fixing” conspiracy. A number of local farmers, meanwhile, accused the company of using underhanded tactics in its pursuit of a regional real estate hegemony. The allegations were divulged in a court filing connected to the lawsuit involving the land disputes. Read More 

In an attempt to engender goodwill locally, the company decided to hold a series of “town halls” designed to give county residents the opportunity to hear more about the project and ask questions. These town halls, which took place throughout November and December, were, more or less, a disaster. The word that repeatedly got used to describe them was “heated.” At numerous meetings, local residents got up and hurled insults at Jan Sramek, the CEO of the company, while questioning the legitimacy of the project. Read More 

In January, the California Forever project officially announced the East Solano Homes, Jobs, and Clean Energy Initiative, a proposed ballot initiative designed to legally rubber stamp the new project. If project developers can acquire 13,000 signatures in support of the ballot initiative—as is mandated by California state law—it can appear on November’s ballot. The 83-page ballot initiative proposal is uploaded to California Forever’s website, showing, for the first time, extensive details about the proposed project. These details included proposed maps of the new city, as well as extensive promises to the regional residents. CF promises to pour money into local communities, in an effort to show its goodwill towards the county. Read More 

Despite California Forever’s promises to the local community, state, federal, and local legislators have remained unimpressed and even mildly concerned about the project and what it could do to the surrounding region. Criticism has come from a number of different quarters, including Congressional Reps. Mike Thompson and John Garamendi, a Solano County Board Supervisor, California State Sen. Bill Dodd, and a host of others.

An example of some of that criticism, from Dodd, looks like this: “I’ve been skeptical since Day One, but reserved my judgment as I gathered more facts,” he said in a statement. “It is now crystal clear to me that this project is bad for Solano County...This group of mega-rich developers from Silicon Valley are trying to steamroll the surrounding community, bypassing a proper and thorough vetting that they know they can’t pass. What they’re proposing will drastically and irreversibly alter the area. It’s not right, and it’s time for all those who value thoughtful policymaking and Solano County’s future to stand up against it.”

In March, the project ramped up its outreach and canvassing efforts throughout the county, in an effort to secure the 13,000 signatures necessary to approve their ballot initiative. However, these efforts were marred by accusations from locals, who accused California Forever canvassers of trying to trick them into signing their petitions. A report details allegations from some of these disgruntled residents, who claimed that canvassers at different locations told them misleading things in an effort to get them to sign. Some of the alleged misleading statements include that they were actually signing petitions to build “better roads” or to protect federal benefits, like Medicare. California Forever disputes the allegations in a statement posted to its website. Read More 

Despite the ongoing local hostility, the California Project enjoyed a nice win relative to its legal battle with local ranchers. A California judge, Troy Nunley, recently sided with the development project, denying an effort by local landowners to get California Forever’s litigation thrown out of court. Nunley claimed that messages exchanged between property owners two years ago provided “direct evidence” of a price-fixing effort. Those messages include text messages from one landowner to another saying that they shouldn’t allow California Forever developers to engage in “bullying the last of the property owners.” The same landowner also asserted that the “remaining property owners should be in agreement on what we would want to sell our properties” so that California would be unable to “play owners against owners.” Read More 

If California Forever has any hope of coming to fruition, the project must reach its signature quota by early next month. That means a ticking clock for the ambitious project developers to get the necessary support from the community and file their requisite paperwork with the county. Yet even if that happens, it’s still a ridiculously long road towards the project’s completion that involves county residents voting for the project’s development in November, followed by the actual building of the city.