This Silicon Valley Company Says It’s Bringing Back “The California Dream.” Others Think It’s a Sketchy Land Grab

Since 2018, Flannery Associates LLC, a subsidiary of a mysterious entity known as California Forever, has been engaged in a secretive and prolonged campaign to buy more than 50,000 acres of land, totaling $800 million, in Solano County, CA.

California Forever’s backers say they’re trying to build a new, walkable city of the future in a remote region northeast of San Francisco, but they’ve faced resistance from residents, politicians, and local agencies who believe the project might actually have more nefarious motives.

One of the initiative’s most prominent skeptics is Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA), who represents the area in Congress. He said the proposed town will be too close to Travis Air Force Base, which could affect the base’s ability to “operate in a moment of national emergency” and leave it vulnerable to “spy operations.” He said that he has “reason to be concerned” that China is financially backing the project, since, last year, China was connected to the purchase of land around an Air Force base in North Dakota.) Garamendi also criticized the company for a lack of transparency in its actions, saying back in August that Flannery should have “spent four years working with local community interests to develop a proposal that is beneficial to the communities and the state.”

In May, the company filed a $510 million lawsuit against local landowners for antitrust violations. A Flannery spokesperson said that a group of hold-out locals conspired to fix prices well above “fair market value.” That suit has since been dropped.

Earlier this month, Solano County’s water agency elected to straight up stop engaging in conversations with California Forever, after the company asked them to study ways to bring water to the proposed town. Residents filled the board meeting about the water, where they made their opposition clear. “I mostly am going to listen to our citizens and our citizens right now don’t want anything to do with them,” said Fairfield Mayor Catherine Moy last week.

On its website’s FAQ page, California Forever defends itself, saying that keeping its plans for the land under wraps for years was the “only way to avoid” a “rush of reckless short-term land speculation,” but the company insists it’s now committed to developing a “consensus-minded plan.” It seems to be putting that plan into action by assembling key individuals for an advisory committee, including the Solano County sheriff. It also states that “approximately 97% of capital comes from U.S. investors.”

According to its website, California Forever aims to develop “a new community, solar farms, and a greenbelt of agriculture ”with“ homes, shopping, dining, and schools all within walking distance.”

Tech reporter Adam Rogerse viscerated the plans on California Forever’s website in a piece for Insider back in September, calling them “really terrible.” The company’s CEO Jan Sramek said more comprehensive plans are coming early next year, after they receive community feedback.

Even if California Forever’s grand vision for a new community is entirely on the level, architect Dan Parolek told Insider that it’s much more likely to devolve into your garden-variety suburb than it is to become a shining city of the future. "There's just such a momentum and it's so much easier to deliver [a suburb]," he said. "Trying to get a builder or developer to build something more urban in a historically suburban or rural environment is really, really hard.”

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It bears mentioning that California Forever is just the latest in a long line of projects backed by the ultra-rich in a quest to realize a new vision of society. Elon Musk is reportedly planning his own town outside Austin, Peter Thiel has held a longtime obsession with creating a libertarian society on artificial islands, and even Walt Disney had an original plan for EPCOT to be a wildly revolutionary “city of tomorrow.”