Silicon Valley tech billionaires who want to build a utopian city on the rural outskirts of the San Francisco Bay Area are putting those plans on hold because of opposition from locals.
California Forever, the initiative seeking to build an innovative urban area atop farmland in Solano County, said it would delay the project for at least two years while it studied its environmental impact.
The original plan called for building a walkable urban area atop what are now sheep farms and windmills in a rural region that lies about 60 miles northeast of San Francisco.
California Forever, whose list of supporters includes billionaire LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Steve Jobs’ widow, businesswoman Laurene Powell Jobs, had planned to seek approval for the city from Solano County voters by placing a measure on the ballot of voting this November.
The measure would have lifted zoning restrictions that impede urban development in the area.
But she decided to pull the plug in the face of local opposition, which became so heated that angry residents denounced California Forever CEO Jan Sramek as a “snake oil salesman” during a tense town hall meeting.
“The delay in the vote gives everyone a chance to stop and work together, which is necessary — not a fight between friends across the county on both sides of the issue,” according to a joint statement from the county and California Forever.
Instead the venture will “submit an application for a general plan and zoning amendment and proceed with the county’s normal process, which includes preparing a full environmental impact report and negotiating and executing the Settlement Agreement. Development,” Solano County Board of Supervisors Chairman Mitch Mashburn said. in a statement.
Solano Forever, a group that formed to oppose the project, claimed victory Monday, saying “the people have spoken and California Forever has been forced to withdraw their hastily drawn, poorly designed initiative given a loss of safe in November”.
California Forever, which is the largest landowner in the county, still plans to move forward with plans to build the city, which is expected to house about 400,000 residents.
“We believe that with this process, we can build a shared vision that passes with a decisive majority and creates broad consensus for the future,” Sramek said.
“We are excited to work with the Board of Supervisors, its land use subcommittee and county staff to make this happen.”
Residents of Solano County were initially alarmed after a mysterious entity began buying up large tracts of local farmland worth an estimated $900 million.
Massive land purchases executed by anonymous entities initially raised suspicions that a hostile foreign power was behind the move, given its proximity to Travis Air Force Base.
The identity of the buyers who acquired about 52,000 acres of farmland near the base was later revealed to be Flannery Associates, a limited liability company registered in Delaware.
Flannery was approaching landowners one by one and offering fees that were far above market value for properties that weren’t even listed for sale.
Neighbors were further outraged when Flannery filed a $500 million antitrust lawsuit against a group of farmers who refused to sell their land.
The farmers were accused in the lawsuit of colluding with each other to increase the value of their properties.
Last year, The New York Times revealed the identities of those behind the venture.
Sramek, a 36-year-old former Goldman Sachs trader, has settled locals into a walkable city with short commutes, thousands of new high-paying jobs, sustainable energy, large orchards and affordable homes.
California is ground zero for the nation’s housing crisis as bureaucracy, red tape and local opposition have stifled new home construction — exacerbating a severe shortage that has sent property values ​​skyrocketing while living costs are increasingly unaffordable for many.
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