FILE – California Forever Founder and CEO Jan Sramek leads a press conference unveiling California Forever’s plan for a new city in Solano County in Rio Vista, Calif., Jan. 17, 2024. A billionaire-backed proposal to build an eco-friendly California city from scratch is off to a bumpy start in qualifying its voter initiative for the Nov. 5 ballot.
The report released late last week by Solano County said 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 project, according to the report, “may not be financially feasible.”Bay Area builders say city impact fees hinder new housing. A recent Supreme Court ruling may give developers more power to fight them.
Instead, California Forever, led by CEO Jan Sramek, will withdraw the ballot measure — approved last month for the November election — and seek approval to amend the county’s general plan and zoning through typical county processes, California Forever said in a website update Monday morning. California Forever, which spent years buying thousands of acres of farmland near Fairfield, earlier last week issued its own study claiming the new city would create billions of dollars in economic activity and tens of thousands of jobs for the county. Marketing materials have shown utopian scenes of a Mediterranean-style community, with walkable neighborhoods and a mix of businesses from retail shops to technology-company offices.
The proposal — funded by billionaire venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Michael Moritz, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and businesswoman Laurene Powell Jobs — has been embroiled in controversy since its real estate arm, Flannery Associates, sued holdout landowners for $510 million, claiming they conspired out of “endless greed” to inflate prices.