California Forever hits pause after feasibility report

A firm backed by Silicon Valley billionaires has hit pause on plans to build a utopian city in Solano County.

California Forever, a Fairfield-based firm led by Jan Sramek, put its plans on hold after a county report said the project that was to go before voters in November “may not be financially feasible,” the San Jose Mercury News and the New York Times reported.

The East Solano Plan to build a city of up to 400,000 people on farmland 60 miles northeast of San Francisco will take at least two years to study the project’s impact on the environment, the company said in a statement. 

County supervisors were set to consider the report, then vote on whether to approve California Forever’s controversial plan to rezone 17,500 acres of farmland for development, or let voters decide in November.

Instead, California Forever will withdraw the ballot measure approved last month for the November election. It will then seek approval to amend the county’s general plan and zoning in the traditional way, the firm said in a website update.

The pause follows a strenuous effort to convince local voters that the unnamed city would bring homes, jobs and “billions of dollars in economic activity” between Travis Air Force Base and the city of Rio Vista.

But the report released late last week by Solano County appeared to stop the project in its tracks.

The new city was likely to cost billions in county funds and create substantial financial deficits, while slashing agricultural production and potentially threatening local water supplies, the county report said.

The project, according to the report, “may not be financially feasible.”

The agreement means that an initiative will not appear on the November ballot as planned. California Forever said it would instead spend the rest of this year and next preparing an environmental impact report and trying to craft a development agreement with the county.

The project would still have to go before voters to win final approval.

The controversial venture is supported by such Silicon Valley moguls as Marc Andreessen, Michael Moritz, Reid Hoffman, Patrick and John Collison and Laurene Powell Jobs.

Sramek outraged locals by using Folsom-based Flannery Associates to secretly buy more than 50,000 acres of farmland for $800 million, then suing farmers who refused to sell.

The proposed city faces strong opposition by elected officials and environmental groups concerned about the loss of habitat, who say Sramek’s plan is a speculative money grab that’s sparse on details.

Sramek, a former Goldman Sachs trader, said the sustainable city on the edge of the Bay Area would be a safe, affordable place for middle-class families in walkable neighborhoods near jobs.

The master-planned development would include tens of thousands of homes, businesses, a youth sports complex, parks, bike lanes, open space and a large solar farm on pastures now dotted with cows.

To sell its plan, California Forever added local sweeteners, including a giant youth sports complex; $500,000 in grants to local organizations; a pledge to create at least 15,000 jobs; $500 million to assist with down payments for housing, scholarships and other benefits for residents; and $200 million to revitalize nearby downtowns.

— Dana Bartholomew

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