Environmental group blasts billionaire-backed plan for new city in Solano County
SUISUN, Calif. - An influential environmental group voiced its opposition to a billionaire-backed plan for a utopian city in rural Solano County.
The Sierra Club said the plan to transform more than 60,000 acres between Fairfield and Rio Vista ignores years of planning and a voter-approved initiative for orderly growth in Solano County.
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The Sierra Club on Tuesday denounced Flannery Associates' "clandestine possession" of the land in eastern Solano County for the project called "California Forever."
"By ignoring the current voter-approved uses of land that Flannery has acquired in order to jack their investments, economic return is nothing short of a hostile takeover," said Princess Washington, chair of the Sierra Club's Solano chapter.
An all-star roster of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are backing the project, including philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. Jan Sramek, a former Goldman Sachs trader, is spearheading the project, though he ducked scrutiny for years as to who was behind the secretive $800 million land-buying spree.
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Billionaires' plan for Solano County utopian city faces big hurdles
A billionaire-backed plan to transform 55,000 acres of land into a utopian oasis in Solano County faces a significant hurdle, according to county officials in a press release issued on Wednesday.
"California Forever was created to bring back the California Dream," according to a website about the project. "We want to do that by building a new community, solar farms, and a greenbelt of agriculture and habitat in eastern Solano County."
The group said the creation of the new community would bring thousands of jobs, pathways to homeownership for middle-class families, and safe neighborhoods at a time when housing in the Bay Area is increasingly unaffordable to many.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.