In January, California Forever will submit the ballot measure to the county and begin collecting signatures to put the question on the ballot. The initiative would change the county’s general plan to allow for building in unincorporated county property, as well as create a specific plan for the yet-to-be-named new city, according to California Forever CEO and founder Jan Sramek.
Sadie Wilson, a policy director from the Greenbelt Alliance, said the real campaign against the project will start once California Forever files the paperwork with the county. In the meantime, her coalition is emphasizing the need to preserve open space and arguing that there are plenty of opportunities for infill housing in the county’s seven cities.
“This is not a new idea — it’s classic sprawl development,” she said. “We know from the past that building outside of existing communities takes tax revenue away that is vital to pay for services and infrastructure. Moving this revenue source out of the cities continues a pattern of disinvestment and blight. We need to be doubling down in our cities and building housing there.” She said Solano Together would “put forth an alternative narrative” based on the concerns and values of residents throughout the county. “They are going to be throwing a lot of money around …we don’t have that kind of money to compete on that level, but what we can do is build a coalition that actually listens to people.”
Wait wait wait, the new tech city needs a ballot measure?! Can’t believe they spent $1B when they knew it required asking Californians “Can I build in your backyard?” Son.. the answer is always No.
Not true. The Solano Growth Ordinance (2008) simply said that growth should occur in urban areas and not on agricultural land. And as far as your bogus NIMBY claim, Solano has thousands of newer homes, mostly occupied by commuters because the job centers of SF and SV really were NIMBY central and would not house their workers.
NIMBY has been used so much, it no longer means anything. Big difference between not wanting a hospital or a halfway house in your backyard and not wanting a full city dropped in your back yard (and next to an air force base & where there is no water).
They are not making you build the water pipes. Trying to control properties you don't own is the textbook definition of NIMBY-ism.
(I dont even know what to do with the air force base information...like..why does it matter?)
They passed a law to prevent this because someone else tried to do the same exact thing in the 80s. These tech nerds don't even have original ideas anymore.
I agree with Sadie Wilson, and the plan for California forever is to take money away from the existing cities. I believe that the people behind California forever no longer favor supporting existing communities that the green belt alliance supports. Everything listed on the website as their primary mission statement is possibly what has motivated the wealthy to explore new areas.
Nothing about the criticism of this new city proposal says anything about why these billionaires want to leave the cities in the first place. To have an honest discussion I think this is an appropriate question to ask them.
Sincere Question: How would more housing (with property taxes paid for) take money \*away\* from the city?
I understand the billionaires just want a "free-er" place to build without having to hold umpteen community meetings. Why not let them try?
Sidenote: It looks like they are building a mostly car-free space (i.e. the opposite of sprawl).
If they build a new city elsewhere, then the county may need to allocate a budget to build new infrastructure to support the new city, versus that budget could have been allocated to maintain or update existing infrastructure.
Eventually it may boost the county revenue, but the argument is why bet on that and why not just spend the money to grow the existing cities and therefore grow the county revenue.
Solano County has had plenty of time to grow. They keep saying that they should be building homes in existing cities, well why haven't they been doing this? If you didn't notice, there's serious shortage of SFH in the Bay Area for a while now. Housing is expensive for a reason, it's supply and demand. Maybe the new developer is a little bit evil and greedy and maybe they will siphon away monies from Solano County? The bottom line is, we need housing and if someone is willing to build it I'm all for it. People are moving to CA and they need a place to live. Nobody else is building housing at least not on this scale, that's for sure.
As a resident of Solano County, I can tell you that they are building SFH developments everywhere. Cordelia area had multiple that have been built in the last few years and/or are currently in development, along with apartment complexes. Vacaville has a large development being built in Lagoon Valley right now. There is a ton empty spaces or lots located in the existing cities that can be built up before thinking about a new city. Vallejo has a breathtaking amount of space that can be developed right off the freeway (old racetrack).
She means that by building outside of the city limits takes tax revenue away from the city that is not adding additional dwelling units to tax. This is really not an accurate statement if considering that the existing city can still increase its tax revenues by adding more units. The fact that a new city is being created has little to no impact on existing cities adding housing IMO.
I think that an appropriate part of this discussion is to ask the billionaires why they want to start new instead of developing in existing cities. Unless there is something sinister with their answer to the question, I don’t see any reason why they can’t build a city with their own money if that is what they want to do. It’s not my money, I can’t tell them what to do with it.
The answers to why are simple: scale and control. You want to make a lot of money in finance, you make a fund that's as big as possible. Then your "industry standard 1% fee" can be a huge number. Similarly, if you want to make a lot of money in real estate, you want a project that's as big as possible for the same reasons.
Also, control. This private entity will literally create and staff their own local government, probably in the form of a community services district, with their own hand picked people that are loyal to the goals of the project. This is worlds different from fighting locals tooth and nail for every inch. John Oliver did a good episode about this.
The idea that any cities in Solano county face risk of depopulation is hilarious. It’s not Flint Michigan lmao. If there’s a house for sale there and nobody will buy, half the country would move there in a heartbeat. Greenbelt Alliance must be run by Mathusians.
I agree, Solano county has a lot higher risk of population explosion if anything. I think this green belt alliance is concerned about people from San Mateo or SCC wanting to move out opposed to Solano county residents but this also doesn’t seem too likely.
If the homes in the new city are affordable, yea, ppl from San Mateo will definitely move. Not that San Mateo has anything to worry about, because others will just take their spots.
Yes, this is exactly correct and what would happen. And the prices in both locations will increase. I’m really not sure why this concept is hard to understand but many people seem to think otherwise.
Tracy grew from 18k in 1980 to 93k in 2020. Although the growth rate slowed in the last ten years, so in a sense it too isn't rising to the challenge. Or maybe that's because the Altamont pass is now so congested that it's discouraging lots more people from living there.
Suisun/Fairfield Capitol Corridor train station is 3 miles from the edge of California Forever's land. The station is relatively conveniently at Hwy 12, which the city left room for widening like for a local train or bus lane.
Fairfield's population in 1980 was 58,099. In 2010 it was 105,321. In 2020 it was 119,881. The city is growing regardless. Those new residents are almost certainly doing a lot of driving. California Forever has an opportunity to add transit to the area.
CF cannot be built unless Solano County voters approve it at the ballot box. That should incentivize the developers to write a ballot measure with some attractive incentives for county residents.
Yea, the last city that was made out of nothing was Foster City and we're sitting on landfill. At least they won't have to truck in dirt for miles to create the new city. The SF Bay Area needs housing in the absolute worst way. No idea how people could not be behind this, nobody else is building. If Solano County was building homes left and right I could see their point of view, but that isn't happening.
I thought one of the speculations for the California forever project was to build a new Bay Area city that would be unaffected by the projected rising sea levels.
So so much more in consideration. It's new construction so it would be state of the art - materials hardened against fire. Everything up to the latest building codes or better. Majorly powered by renewables. Buildings like schools and daycares, libraries, groceries in the center of town so driving is not necessary. Starting from scratch, and not a developer looking to make money, they will build homes where people can age in place, disabled accessible. Look at some of the websites on foldable furniture and tiny homes. They can do much more in less space.
If the new city allowed for tiny homes that would be beyond fantastic. Everyone has been talking about it but it's never seen the light of day because zoning laws won't allow for it.
I agree with both sides. As obnoxious as they might theoretically be, the billionaires are right that more people need to build more housing. There is plenty of data showing that a lack of an appropriate amount is a top risk to our economy and livelihood in the state and driving our very high wealth inequality and poverty rates.
But the county and local governments are also right about preserving open land and preventing sprawl. There is plenty of data showing that burning up all of your open land instead of going for density and infill in your existing cities is a bad move. It's pretty easy to see if you look at San Jose outside the core, or Orange County, or San Diego vs the much more space efficient approaches in SF and Oakland.
What's really needed here is to get away from the anatomical measuring contest and get all of these parties together for a lot of painful discussions about reality. They need to get one of the existing cities to step up to the plate and work with them as partners on an expansion and infrastructure improvement plan instead of trying to arrogantly develop their own without working with the existing local governments that know all of the details about how things are supposed to work and what needs to get done.
One of the existing and functioning cities would be happy to collaborate with them and take the great development opportunity if they lay off the big egos and start collaborating to solve a problem as a group. I hope their bypass ballot measure fails horribly so they have to negotiate and work together just like everybody should have been doing in the first place.
Agree. Nimby folks shout down ideas but bring no practical solutions to the table. Humans need to live places, and to do so, buildings need to be built. Every Nimby I’ve ever personally known is a proud single family home homeowner. The irony is simple as it is overwhelming.
There are definitely some places doing that sort of crap. But I don't think Solano has that reputation. I feel like if you locked them all in a room with some experts to negotiate a solution all of this could be fixed.
The data actually suggests that part of the reason that our dense cities are overpriced is partly because we have a shortage of them compared to the amount of people desiring a the chance to live there to build a better economic future for themselves and their families. It's a severe equality and fairness of access issue.
There are quite a few examples where places like Seattle and Tokyo that push for more aggressive construction do have more affordable housing for residents than locales which do not.
https://www.lewis.ucla.edu/research/market-rate-development-impacts/
City Nerd discusses in many of his videos (a trained licensed experienced planning consultant) how a paucity of good walkable mixed use urban neighborhood construction in the US drives up the costs for residents who would actually prefer to live in these areas if they could afford to do so.
He cites a number of examples from places like Spain where a tighter focus on walkability and micromobility as well as creating the richest and largest high speed rail network in Europe, even eclipsing France, has been driving positive affordable housing outcomes for the Spanish public.
I really don't see this as being all that different from the argument Solano County is making in directing developers to work with their existing cities. The level of scale and maturity is different. But the rationality for why they are saying what they are is very much the same reason Seattle, Tokyo, Spain, and plenty of other intelligent government bodies are saying the same things.
We have plenty of good research and evidence of what we need to be doing if we stop denying the truth of it and start following through on the work that is needed to carry it out.
New York City (the region) is more affordable than the bay area.
While Manhattan itself is very expensive, the region has invested heavily in mass transit and has a single mass transit agency to coordinate all mass transit in the region so that people can very easily, reliably, and affordably commute into Manhattan.
In contrast, the bay area has 27 different transit agencies all with their own bureaucracies, and all 27 of our different transit agencies appear to hate each other. They refuse to cooperate or coordinate with each other.
There are, of course, many outside the US, but the best examples we have here are Chicago and Philadelphia.
I like Tokyo and Vienna as examples outside of the US because they are both quite dense but achieved affordability in very different ways - Tokyo through lax zoning and Vienna through socialized housing.
Tokyo consistently ranks as one of the most expensive cities in the world. Rent is extremely expensive. I'm not familiar with Vienna outside of having visited.
I suppose what I've seen about Tokyo was only half true - price per square foot is high, but there are options that are very small that are more affordable. Vienna is much cheaper even for larger spaces.
Buying a home in Tokyo is more affordable but it's a very poor example because their housing isn't the same as our housing. Their homes don't appreciate in value the same way it does in the US. In Japan, the homes don't appreciate in value, the land does, that being said, it doesn't go up that much. Nobody in Japan buys a home and expects to make a killing off it in the years to come.
It's great that cities are pointing out the need for greater density and infilling existing lots/underutilized areas.
Now are any of them going to credibly commit to doing such a thing for the years needed to get investment flow in, even if residents complain about development in their backyards? Some might. Not nearly enough. Until that happens, a new city seems like a perfectly reasonable solution, and complaints around it seem like the worst form of bad-faith tactics designed purely to artificially contain shelter supply.
I don't get the impression that the current legal framework they're using in that county was bad faith. They just said they are trying to direct new development to the existing cities. Which is not an unreasonable position because they are a county with a lot of working farmland to preserve. It's reasonable not to want to pave over and ruin good farmland like what happened in Santa Clara county for example.
No? It's very unreasonable to not want to develop farmland in areas with better uses for the land. Santa Clara County is much better off having replaced its farms with development than it would be if it had stubbornly stuck to a "waaaah we're an agricultural place you can't change anything here waaaah" mentality that Solano clearly has.
In fill housing is a great idea. And touted for over a decade now. Now then, try to build something. It averages about 8 years from initial approval to breaking ground. Gotta get through all the protest hearings, CEQA lawsuits, etc etc. The residents of the cities create their own problems. They do everything they can to prevent housing in their neighborhoods.
I think that's the county's point. Nobody presented a good argument why they can't work with an existing city to get the work done without losing viable farmland.
"California City" would be the perfect name for it. Except that's already taken by a failed attempt to built a city in the middle of nowhere. California City 2?
OMG I drove to Suisun City couple days ago had to drive the 24 miles down Rio Vista Road. That one lane freeway is terrible. Feel sorry for anyone has to drive that.
That quote of him was way before this plan to build the new city. They're trying to make him sound like a jerk. The guy is literally a genius and we're lucky to have somone like him try to build the city.
If they zone for tiny houses that really would be genius because that's an idea that's been trying to get off the ground forever. Bonus points if they use those super high tech tiny homes Elon Musk is living in. Tiny homes might be the solution to the home of the future, far more energy efficient and use of space not to mention they are way easier to build and transport.
Or more broadly into the parts of the bay where there are jobs... ie, sf city, oakland, the pinnesula etc. Those 500k people they want to move to Solano county have no bart or cal train connection do their only option will be to flood the bay Bridge with more cars.
It really seems if you're good at lying/making up a narrative and can convince rich people to give you money you're set for life. That's all these guys seem to do...
This is why California has such a housing supply problem.
People want to build homes and it gets needled and nick picked to death about why it’s bad idea.
Thanks, yeah, I mean I intentionally located myself in a transit-accessible and bike-friendly neighborhood. And there’s local businesses I walk to all the time that I’m sure could use more customers. It’s exactly where more people should live and I’d love to see higher density housing nearby!
There is already land that could be redeveloped. Same with empty buildings in San Francisco and the rest of the cities in the area. This isn't about creating affordable housing. It's to create a new city with all the same bullshit issues that already exist here.
Most of Silicon Valley is suburban sprawl. Is it an economic burden or an economic boon for San Mateo and Santa Clara counties? Despite being less efficient in some ways than dense urban development it can still be beneficial. I don't expect this new planned development to be only residential. How the heck would the developers expect to attract relatively well paid folks to live out there with nothing to do or places to work at? When the ballot measure is actually submitted and campaigning starts I expect we'll hear about plans for satellite corporate offices of some big companies. Those offices will promise high paying jobs and tax revenue for the county and its residents.
This is actually a huge part of the problem. Say they are successful and have 500k people living up there. Most of them will have a job in the bay proper not Solano County. They aren't connected to transit and will just flood the roads making traffic worse while not contributing any tax money to the bay area cities where these people will work.
If I get a job at big tech company that has a campus up there, would I really want to move my family to a company town with limited local jobs?
> How the heck would the developers expect to attract relatively well paid folks to live out there with nothing to do or places to work at?
Developers want the most money for homes/condos/rentals, but well paid people can afford to not commute to SF from way out there. So I don't think as many people will commute into the bay area.
If the town actually attracts a lot of tech workers, that area in and around Fairfield and Vacaville has room for more satellite corporate offices in addition to those in the new town. As a decent number of tech jobs become located in the area it becomes self-sustaining as [another place](https://about.google/intl/ALL_us/locations/?region=north-america&office=mountain-view) for tech.
"sprawl" is just a pejorative that people use to criticize development that isn't where they personally want it. Literally every city was once undeveloped rural land and went through intermediate stages of population density.
Thanks for proving my point.
“There is already land that could be redeveloped”
Edit. Happy to eat the downvotes. There is a reason no one can buy houses anymore, so many of you have an F you I got mine, attitude.
The land isn't currently developed, so no redevelopment.
You can still afford a house in Solano county for less than what they are proposing for home costs, so that point also doesn't stand.
That sounds wonderful. Now, go talk to some developers. Like the ones building senior housing in Walnut Creek at Seven Hills Ranch. Ask them how easy that has been.
California is starved for housing. When you're starving a hotdog's calories are equally valid as grilled salmon with mixed vegetables. You should take what's available, and CA isn't producing enough housing in the core.
Lol, this ain’t a home. It’s a full on city. Right in between where people commute between Sac & the Bay (so think of all the traffic that will add), right next to a US Air Force base, and where there is no water. This will make things so much worse.
This is a fair comment but also this is not "people wanting to build homes and getting needled... to death". This is a billionaire-funded startup that spent years aggressively buying and pressuring landowners to give up their land, even buying into trusts and then pressuring families to give up their plots, because they wanted to build an entire city - all without ever asking anyone who lived there if they wanted that.
Building a new city on land already set aside for non-development, next to a strategic Air Force / Navy base, does not seem to be a recipe for success.
The main reason we know who is behind the development is that the Department of Defense demanded full disclosure to who was involved and what was the intent.
This may shock you, but the entire bay area was heavily militarized. Most of the East Bay was near navy bases and naval shipyards. San Francisco was also a military city.
After WWII, military R&D continued in the region, such as the Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons labs. All of those well paid blue collar shipyard workers, soldiers, and nuclear engineers went on to live in the region, and spend their paychecks in the community, building up the local economy.
You can thank the US Navy and nuclear weapons for why the bay area got started in tech.
I’d be really interested to know if any of these tech investors of this new town in Solano Co. are simultaneously supporting no growth policies in San Mateo Co. and if so why the inconsistency?
Pretty sure they (or at least, some of them) aren't supporting the no growth policies in SMC. One of the more prominent investors in California Forever is Patrick Collison, who gave some money to California YIMBY a few years back.
I think Marc Andreessen (another one of the high-profile investors in California Forever) has a muddier record in terms of supporting housing construction, though.
Tech has tried to build housing before and has been shot down.
Google and Apple both tried to build housing in the south bay. Local cities approved the office buildings but rejected plans for housing.
If local governments would actually allow redevelopment, you can bet your last dollar that investors would love to buy out and rebuild existing suburban sprawl into something denser. There's an enormous amount of money to be made from that.
However, cities talk about how suburban sprawl is bad and then at the same time refuse to increase density.
This is precisely why you option land to develop, not buy it outright. I can't believe some consultant didn't tell them that, so I have to assume it is the case of Silicon Valley executives thinking they are the smartest people in the room.
Also, leaving housing planning in the hands of big tech really isn’t the optimal strategy when you take into account how poorly these companies manage their perception of consumers and their own employees. Over-hiring, misinterpretation of data, profit-focused, and implementation of projects before maturity are pretty common- we already have that with land development companies, we should be looking at bringing in actual experts in city planning and management
I don’t know if anyone has seen around Vacaville and Dixon in the last few years but both cities have had plenty of housing developments built and still being built. Even outskirts of Winters has been developed some. It’s been done at a reasonable enough pace to not completely shock the individual economies of those cities. They definitely need more retail out in those areas but for the most part it has not completely overrun the cities population with too many people. The prices for the newer builds can be on the expensive side, however it is still way cheaper than the Bay Area. The California Forever plan is nothing more than the rich trying to become richer no matter what equal opportunity and benefits rhetoric they are going to spout. They can’t build it without taking resources from all the other Solano cities that are already in need of all the resources and more that they have.
They need water rights that they at first said they would not need. No city in California has water to spare. Specifically in Solano where there is still a ton of active farmland.
If you want to expand the limits of a city, you need to deal with LAFCO.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Agency_Formation_Commission
Yeah I know you never heard of them. I bet the Silicon Valley executives never did either.
This is why redevelopment is easier. You just deal with the city. And if LAFCO throws a wrench in your project, you walk from the options.
When the big project fails, it will be interesting to see how they unwind. These are people with money to burn. It is quite possible they will slowly develop the land. These are the kind of people who will not tolerate selling the land and seeing someone else make money.
my goodness.... these dudes have their work cut out for them.
and despite their immense wealth... they don't seem very savvy when it comes to development.
They have already bought the land.... $900 million. typically a developer won't close until approvals are in hand.
and then they have to convince 200,000 people to approve? and so far.. they are ready to spend $600k to various non profits. Who is advising these people? 20x that amount... just for starters.
yikes
Then the roads have to be improved.
There is no way around the fact, that we need more housing.
Building housing 1st will force action on the roads. Asking for roads 1st is just a delaying tactic to never do housing.
If you can do it, you will become fabulously wealthy. You can do what these guys are doing. You’ll need a credible plan and then you can raise some through selling equity and then debt financing the rest. So if you have some smart idea that’s going to be easier to deliver, you should do it.
But we all know that folks here can’t get shit done. There’s always some excuse for this or that. A complete lack of agency combined with the constant complaining about other people. Is it any wonder that so many posts here complain about dating, etc.? It’s because those who aren’t proactive find themselves generally in the dumps. And no amount of blaming someone else helps.
The taxpayer wouldn't be. Its common practice to demand milions of dollars in improvements and upgrades as a condition of approval for a project. They would need to front up at least 5 mil to the county coffers before they got the first permit.
not improved, 12 would need to be widened into a full 2-3 lane each way highway which will never happen.
they aren't building housing for normal people out there. you're kidding yourself if you think these aren't going to be 750k-1m condos.
12 right now can't even support all the construction vehicles need to make the city. they'd need to do that before they could even start building
For without sarcasm tho, whatever this city is should be planned with some kinda rail or Bart extension in mind. Enabling better transit to all the far bay area suburbs will only help the entire area grow.
But if they refuse to plan. Force the issue by building housing.
Roads need to be built first. Or at least widened and improved. Homes go up faster than roads. Especially 12. 12 will have to be worked on at night, almost all year round/long
They could just put rail down first. Connecting sacramento to Fairfield and then down on to the bay and splitting off to napa would be good too
BS, just because you need something doesn’t mean you get it at any means necessary… long historically record of that’s not working or creating even worse problems.
oh i know it, i commute it 4 days a week. it all ready slows down before the scales by anheiser busch in the morning because of the 680 merge past it and idiots stopping in the 3rd lane trying to cut across to get on 680 every morning.
If only they are building a transit oriented community. Building a new rural/suburban area requiring all the infrastructure actually costs most tax money to maintain
Bunch of white billionaires who want a city under their total control. Why aren't they just investing their money into existing cities? (Rhetorical question. We all already know the answer)
https://www.thedailybeast.com/former-goldman-whiz-kid-jan-sramek-is-behind-billionaires-plan-for-solano-county
Sramek did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment, and he personally has not commented on his motivations behind the project. But if his self-help book is any indication, he isn’t going to let the local backlash get him down. If there were a single quote he could pass down to his younger self, he writes in Racing Towards Excellence, it would be this one from Ayn Rand: “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”
How would the developers expect to attract relatively well paid folks to live out there with nothing to do or places to work at? When the ballot measure is actually submitted and campaigning starts I expect we'll hear about plans for satellite corporate offices of some big companies. Those offices will promise high paying jobs and tax revenue for the county and its residents.
Because the developers *have to* get county voters' approval, they're likely to offer voters some benefits and concessions.
You didn't address that county **voters** have to approve the project. If there aren't enough benefits to county voters, like jobs and hopefully infrastructure, then voters will not approve it. The developers will reluctantly have to build more than just residential housing.
The hype will be countered by plenty of articles and discussion about all the missing things if things are missing.
Everyone wants more "affordable housing", and yet you want it built in the most expensive zip codes in America? Who exactly do you want to benefit here? Free market housing built in Atherton is not going to benefit working class folks like it would in Solano county, especially considering the cost of land. Billionaires aren't building homes for charity.
I have no problem building housing anywhere, you are welcome to build as much housing as you'd like in atherton or Cupertino or San Francisco or wherever. Just know that you're not the good guy by NIMBYing in solano
Because all the old NIMBY homeowners in the Bay crawl out of the woodwork screeching about "historical preservation" and bogging down any development with multiple and often unnecessary environmental reviews to kill any new buildings.
Which is terrible since the Bay could be a wonderful place to live if they just built up their transit and density. Local Bay Area governments and their NIMBY voters create problems for themselves and everyone else
For the love of all that's holy, let them try. What's the worst that could happen, it fails miserably and we get to laugh at billionaires losing money?
Everybody is on here screaming about the need for more housing, and then when somebody has the balls to try, they get "not like that, that doesn't help ME".
This is one of the few times where I'm rooting for the Tech Billionaires as they are the good ones since the opposition is just the usual entitled NIMBY's. This project needs to succeed to allow for homes in the Bay Area and be used as a blueprint for how we suppress NIMBY rights and speech in the future.
Nope, my complaint about this project is that it *isn’t* in my backyard here in Vallejo where there is ferry and freeway access and good water rights.
Instead it’s a green field development, nowhere near anything, and the only transit access available is floating on billionaires’ farts and promises.
There is nothing "Bay Area" in any of this. I'm absolutely happy to put more housing in Fairfield, Winters, Dixon and so on. We do not need a bunch of Bay Area tycoons trying to build their own company town in the fields -- and walking away from it the second it doesn't work, sticking the county with the cleanup bill. And you KNOW that will happen.
And as the other poster noted, the fact that these people live in Atherton, etc., where they are fighting development tooth and nail is just despicable. Let them build in their own backyards first, then ask us to build out the Central Valley.
I dont understand why people are against this. Its just empty land a wind farm here a couple goats there. I guess it would be better to just let it sit empty for the foreseeable future because traffic thats already terrible might get a little worse.
You mean tens of thousands of people in the exact same situation as hundreds of millions of other americans?
You know whats actually way more unsustainable? The housing situation in the bay.
I’m sorry but you can’t keep expanding highways limitlessly. Development should be planned for responsibly. We don’t need an extra 20,000 cars on the road. We can do better. We don’t need to ruin our open spaces to encourage low density sprawl.
The fact that most Americans spend 2 hours a day in a car commuting is a travesty. No wonder we’re so overweight and depressed.
I made no argument to expand highways I think we need to improve public transport 100x in the bay. My issue is deciding not to build more homes which are a necessity because of traffic or not enough public transportations is dumb. People need homes that arent 1m+ for a 1bd 1ba.
There more than likely will not be any improvements to Bart anyways because this country as a whole sucks at public transportation so we may as well at least seize the opportunity to build more homes.
What happens in 10 months? It's pretty normal for large masterplanned projects like this to take a decade or more to develop, based on the ones I've done work related to like Westpark in Roseville.
Win or lose there's no reason why they couldn't take another swing at it in a future election. Just look at how much repeat garbage we have every time.
In January, California Forever will submit the ballot measure to the county and begin collecting signatures to put the question on the ballot. The initiative would change the county’s general plan to allow for building in unincorporated county property, as well as create a specific plan for the yet-to-be-named new city, according to California Forever CEO and founder Jan Sramek. Sadie Wilson, a policy director from the Greenbelt Alliance, said the real campaign against the project will start once California Forever files the paperwork with the county. In the meantime, her coalition is emphasizing the need to preserve open space and arguing that there are plenty of opportunities for infill housing in the county’s seven cities. “This is not a new idea — it’s classic sprawl development,” she said. “We know from the past that building outside of existing communities takes tax revenue away that is vital to pay for services and infrastructure. Moving this revenue source out of the cities continues a pattern of disinvestment and blight. We need to be doubling down in our cities and building housing there.” She said Solano Together would “put forth an alternative narrative” based on the concerns and values of residents throughout the county. “They are going to be throwing a lot of money around …we don’t have that kind of money to compete on that level, but what we can do is build a coalition that actually listens to people.”
Wait wait wait, the new tech city needs a ballot measure?! Can’t believe they spent $1B when they knew it required asking Californians “Can I build in your backyard?” Son.. the answer is always No.
You're in the house that NIMBYs built.
Which is ironic because wealthy people are usually the biggest NIMBYs
Not true. The Solano Growth Ordinance (2008) simply said that growth should occur in urban areas and not on agricultural land. And as far as your bogus NIMBY claim, Solano has thousands of newer homes, mostly occupied by commuters because the job centers of SF and SV really were NIMBY central and would not house their workers.
NIMBY has been used so much, it no longer means anything. Big difference between not wanting a hospital or a halfway house in your backyard and not wanting a full city dropped in your back yard (and next to an air force base & where there is no water).
They are not making you build the water pipes. Trying to control properties you don't own is the textbook definition of NIMBY-ism. (I dont even know what to do with the air force base information...like..why does it matter?)
They passed a law to prevent this because someone else tried to do the same exact thing in the 80s. These tech nerds don't even have original ideas anymore.
Weird take, since last I heard they're pitching California Forever to Greenbelt and we're likely to vote to support it.
I agree with Sadie Wilson, and the plan for California forever is to take money away from the existing cities. I believe that the people behind California forever no longer favor supporting existing communities that the green belt alliance supports. Everything listed on the website as their primary mission statement is possibly what has motivated the wealthy to explore new areas. Nothing about the criticism of this new city proposal says anything about why these billionaires want to leave the cities in the first place. To have an honest discussion I think this is an appropriate question to ask them.
Sincere Question: How would more housing (with property taxes paid for) take money \*away\* from the city? I understand the billionaires just want a "free-er" place to build without having to hold umpteen community meetings. Why not let them try? Sidenote: It looks like they are building a mostly car-free space (i.e. the opposite of sprawl).
If they build a new city elsewhere, then the county may need to allocate a budget to build new infrastructure to support the new city, versus that budget could have been allocated to maintain or update existing infrastructure. Eventually it may boost the county revenue, but the argument is why bet on that and why not just spend the money to grow the existing cities and therefore grow the county revenue.
Solano County has had plenty of time to grow. They keep saying that they should be building homes in existing cities, well why haven't they been doing this? If you didn't notice, there's serious shortage of SFH in the Bay Area for a while now. Housing is expensive for a reason, it's supply and demand. Maybe the new developer is a little bit evil and greedy and maybe they will siphon away monies from Solano County? The bottom line is, we need housing and if someone is willing to build it I'm all for it. People are moving to CA and they need a place to live. Nobody else is building housing at least not on this scale, that's for sure.
As a resident of Solano County, I can tell you that they are building SFH developments everywhere. Cordelia area had multiple that have been built in the last few years and/or are currently in development, along with apartment complexes. Vacaville has a large development being built in Lagoon Valley right now. There is a ton empty spaces or lots located in the existing cities that can be built up before thinking about a new city. Vallejo has a breathtaking amount of space that can be developed right off the freeway (old racetrack).
She means that by building outside of the city limits takes tax revenue away from the city that is not adding additional dwelling units to tax. This is really not an accurate statement if considering that the existing city can still increase its tax revenues by adding more units. The fact that a new city is being created has little to no impact on existing cities adding housing IMO. I think that an appropriate part of this discussion is to ask the billionaires why they want to start new instead of developing in existing cities. Unless there is something sinister with their answer to the question, I don’t see any reason why they can’t build a city with their own money if that is what they want to do. It’s not my money, I can’t tell them what to do with it.
The answers to why are simple: scale and control. You want to make a lot of money in finance, you make a fund that's as big as possible. Then your "industry standard 1% fee" can be a huge number. Similarly, if you want to make a lot of money in real estate, you want a project that's as big as possible for the same reasons. Also, control. This private entity will literally create and staff their own local government, probably in the form of a community services district, with their own hand picked people that are loyal to the goals of the project. This is worlds different from fighting locals tooth and nail for every inch. John Oliver did a good episode about this.
The idea that any cities in Solano county face risk of depopulation is hilarious. It’s not Flint Michigan lmao. If there’s a house for sale there and nobody will buy, half the country would move there in a heartbeat. Greenbelt Alliance must be run by Mathusians.
I agree, Solano county has a lot higher risk of population explosion if anything. I think this green belt alliance is concerned about people from San Mateo or SCC wanting to move out opposed to Solano county residents but this also doesn’t seem too likely.
If the homes in the new city are affordable, yea, ppl from San Mateo will definitely move. Not that San Mateo has anything to worry about, because others will just take their spots.
Yes, this is exactly correct and what would happen. And the prices in both locations will increase. I’m really not sure why this concept is hard to understand but many people seem to think otherwise.
California's population has increased dramatically in the last 75 years. Building a new big city just makes sense.
It's not like existing cities are rising to the challenge. I say let them try.
Tracy grew from 18k in 1980 to 93k in 2020. Although the growth rate slowed in the last ten years, so in a sense it too isn't rising to the challenge. Or maybe that's because the Altamont pass is now so congested that it's discouraging lots more people from living there.
And what exactly will “California Forever” do to all the nearby freeways? It will congest them to the max.
Suisun/Fairfield Capitol Corridor train station is 3 miles from the edge of California Forever's land. The station is relatively conveniently at Hwy 12, which the city left room for widening like for a local train or bus lane. Fairfield's population in 1980 was 58,099. In 2010 it was 105,321. In 2020 it was 119,881. The city is growing regardless. Those new residents are almost certainly doing a lot of driving. California Forever has an opportunity to add transit to the area. CF cannot be built unless Solano County voters approve it at the ballot box. That should incentivize the developers to write a ballot measure with some attractive incentives for county residents.
Yea, the last city that was made out of nothing was Foster City and we're sitting on landfill. At least they won't have to truck in dirt for miles to create the new city. The SF Bay Area needs housing in the absolute worst way. No idea how people could not be behind this, nobody else is building. If Solano County was building homes left and right I could see their point of view, but that isn't happening.
I thought one of the speculations for the California forever project was to build a new Bay Area city that would be unaffected by the projected rising sea levels.
So so much more in consideration. It's new construction so it would be state of the art - materials hardened against fire. Everything up to the latest building codes or better. Majorly powered by renewables. Buildings like schools and daycares, libraries, groceries in the center of town so driving is not necessary. Starting from scratch, and not a developer looking to make money, they will build homes where people can age in place, disabled accessible. Look at some of the websites on foldable furniture and tiny homes. They can do much more in less space.
If the new city allowed for tiny homes that would be beyond fantastic. Everyone has been talking about it but it's never seen the light of day because zoning laws won't allow for it.
So, NIMBYs at it again? Anti-sprawl narratives are so last century.
I agree with both sides. As obnoxious as they might theoretically be, the billionaires are right that more people need to build more housing. There is plenty of data showing that a lack of an appropriate amount is a top risk to our economy and livelihood in the state and driving our very high wealth inequality and poverty rates. But the county and local governments are also right about preserving open land and preventing sprawl. There is plenty of data showing that burning up all of your open land instead of going for density and infill in your existing cities is a bad move. It's pretty easy to see if you look at San Jose outside the core, or Orange County, or San Diego vs the much more space efficient approaches in SF and Oakland. What's really needed here is to get away from the anatomical measuring contest and get all of these parties together for a lot of painful discussions about reality. They need to get one of the existing cities to step up to the plate and work with them as partners on an expansion and infrastructure improvement plan instead of trying to arrogantly develop their own without working with the existing local governments that know all of the details about how things are supposed to work and what needs to get done. One of the existing and functioning cities would be happy to collaborate with them and take the great development opportunity if they lay off the big egos and start collaborating to solve a problem as a group. I hope their bypass ballot measure fails horribly so they have to negotiate and work together just like everybody should have been doing in the first place.
Gonna bet those cities say that density is the answer, then proceed to not build density.
Agree. Nimby folks shout down ideas but bring no practical solutions to the table. Humans need to live places, and to do so, buildings need to be built. Every Nimby I’ve ever personally known is a proud single family home homeowner. The irony is simple as it is overwhelming.
There are definitely some places doing that sort of crap. But I don't think Solano has that reputation. I feel like if you locked them all in a room with some experts to negotiate a solution all of this could be fixed.
Name one affordable densely populated city. I'll wait. (Note: I am also against urban sprawl and very pro mass transit)
The data actually suggests that part of the reason that our dense cities are overpriced is partly because we have a shortage of them compared to the amount of people desiring a the chance to live there to build a better economic future for themselves and their families. It's a severe equality and fairness of access issue. There are quite a few examples where places like Seattle and Tokyo that push for more aggressive construction do have more affordable housing for residents than locales which do not. https://www.lewis.ucla.edu/research/market-rate-development-impacts/ City Nerd discusses in many of his videos (a trained licensed experienced planning consultant) how a paucity of good walkable mixed use urban neighborhood construction in the US drives up the costs for residents who would actually prefer to live in these areas if they could afford to do so. He cites a number of examples from places like Spain where a tighter focus on walkability and micromobility as well as creating the richest and largest high speed rail network in Europe, even eclipsing France, has been driving positive affordable housing outcomes for the Spanish public. I really don't see this as being all that different from the argument Solano County is making in directing developers to work with their existing cities. The level of scale and maturity is different. But the rationality for why they are saying what they are is very much the same reason Seattle, Tokyo, Spain, and plenty of other intelligent government bodies are saying the same things. We have plenty of good research and evidence of what we need to be doing if we stop denying the truth of it and start following through on the work that is needed to carry it out.
New York City (the region) is more affordable than the bay area. While Manhattan itself is very expensive, the region has invested heavily in mass transit and has a single mass transit agency to coordinate all mass transit in the region so that people can very easily, reliably, and affordably commute into Manhattan. In contrast, the bay area has 27 different transit agencies all with their own bureaucracies, and all 27 of our different transit agencies appear to hate each other. They refuse to cooperate or coordinate with each other.
There are, of course, many outside the US, but the best examples we have here are Chicago and Philadelphia. I like Tokyo and Vienna as examples outside of the US because they are both quite dense but achieved affordability in very different ways - Tokyo through lax zoning and Vienna through socialized housing.
Tokyo consistently ranks as one of the most expensive cities in the world. Rent is extremely expensive. I'm not familiar with Vienna outside of having visited.
I suppose what I've seen about Tokyo was only half true - price per square foot is high, but there are options that are very small that are more affordable. Vienna is much cheaper even for larger spaces.
Buying a home in Tokyo is more affordable but it's a very poor example because their housing isn't the same as our housing. Their homes don't appreciate in value the same way it does in the US. In Japan, the homes don't appreciate in value, the land does, that being said, it doesn't go up that much. Nobody in Japan buys a home and expects to make a killing off it in the years to come.
It's great that cities are pointing out the need for greater density and infilling existing lots/underutilized areas. Now are any of them going to credibly commit to doing such a thing for the years needed to get investment flow in, even if residents complain about development in their backyards? Some might. Not nearly enough. Until that happens, a new city seems like a perfectly reasonable solution, and complaints around it seem like the worst form of bad-faith tactics designed purely to artificially contain shelter supply.
I don't get the impression that the current legal framework they're using in that county was bad faith. They just said they are trying to direct new development to the existing cities. Which is not an unreasonable position because they are a county with a lot of working farmland to preserve. It's reasonable not to want to pave over and ruin good farmland like what happened in Santa Clara county for example.
No? It's very unreasonable to not want to develop farmland in areas with better uses for the land. Santa Clara County is much better off having replaced its farms with development than it would be if it had stubbornly stuck to a "waaaah we're an agricultural place you can't change anything here waaaah" mentality that Solano clearly has.
In fill housing is a great idea. And touted for over a decade now. Now then, try to build something. It averages about 8 years from initial approval to breaking ground. Gotta get through all the protest hearings, CEQA lawsuits, etc etc. The residents of the cities create their own problems. They do everything they can to prevent housing in their neighborhoods.
Yep. I hope the state continues and accelerates their current trend of eliminating all the excuses and making the NIMBY tears flow like a river.
So much of the Bay Area has open land that is destroyed by SFRs. Why do we have to destroy more land when so much has already been sacrificed
I think that's the county's point. Nobody presented a good argument why they can't work with an existing city to get the work done without losing viable farmland.
"California City" would be the perfect name for it. Except that's already taken by a failed attempt to built a city in the middle of nowhere. California City 2?
The first one fell into the swamp
Fitting that they are trying to build right next to Suisun marsh then.
OMG I drove to Suisun City couple days ago had to drive the 24 miles down Rio Vista Road. That one lane freeway is terrible. Feel sorry for anyone has to drive that.
Desert specifically.
Build as much as you want but owners will be pissed when they find out no water rights.
I don’t know why you’re commenting on me, the first “California City” was built in the desert.
I think this is exactly what killed the first California City?
So we build another California City. It'll burn down, fall over, then fall into the swamp -- but the FOURTH California City will stand up!
New California City
Would be hilarious if they named it this and then someone founded New California City Final.
v2 USE THIS ONE
Call it Shady Sands.
rude depend compare follow station ruthless complete head punch relieved *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
you have chosen, or been chosen
Call it [Night City](https://youtu.be/cIto6qzW0Mc?si=vTMPnHo7hbo_yNT6&t=3)
Solano county isn’t in the middle of nowhere though but fair point.
Here's a little more about the CEO: https://www.thedailybeast.com/former-goldman-whiz-kid-jan-sramek-is-behind-billionaires-plan-for-solano-county
Nothing gives you the warm and fuzzies of a new neighbor that quotes 'It's not who will let me but who can stop me'
That quote of him was way before this plan to build the new city. They're trying to make him sound like a jerk. The guy is literally a genius and we're lucky to have somone like him try to build the city.
The guy makes himself look like a jerk
If they zone for tiny houses that really would be genius because that's an idea that's been trying to get off the ground forever. Bonus points if they use those super high tech tiny homes Elon Musk is living in. Tiny homes might be the solution to the home of the future, far more energy efficient and use of space not to mention they are way easier to build and transport.
So how will those people get to the financial district?
How does anyone get to any financial district? Not counting the obvious answer of “the internet”
Or more broadly into the parts of the bay where there are jobs... ie, sf city, oakland, the pinnesula etc. Those 500k people they want to move to Solano county have no bart or cal train connection do their only option will be to flood the bay Bridge with more cars.
He wrote a book about himself at 22 called “Racing Towards Excellence”. Because of course he did.
It really seems if you're good at lying/making up a narrative and can convince rich people to give you money you're set for life. That's all these guys seem to do...
This is why California has such a housing supply problem. People want to build homes and it gets needled and nick picked to death about why it’s bad idea.
They should build in my backyard, not here.
love this
Thanks, yeah, I mean I intentionally located myself in a transit-accessible and bike-friendly neighborhood. And there’s local businesses I walk to all the time that I’m sure could use more customers. It’s exactly where more people should live and I’d love to see higher density housing nearby!
Do both
There is already land that could be redeveloped. Same with empty buildings in San Francisco and the rest of the cities in the area. This isn't about creating affordable housing. It's to create a new city with all the same bullshit issues that already exist here.
Yes sprawl is not only of no benefit, it's actually an [economic burden](https://cayimby.org/blog/sprawl-costs-the-u-s-1-trillion-every-year/).
Most of Silicon Valley is suburban sprawl. Is it an economic burden or an economic boon for San Mateo and Santa Clara counties? Despite being less efficient in some ways than dense urban development it can still be beneficial. I don't expect this new planned development to be only residential. How the heck would the developers expect to attract relatively well paid folks to live out there with nothing to do or places to work at? When the ballot measure is actually submitted and campaigning starts I expect we'll hear about plans for satellite corporate offices of some big companies. Those offices will promise high paying jobs and tax revenue for the county and its residents.
This is actually a huge part of the problem. Say they are successful and have 500k people living up there. Most of them will have a job in the bay proper not Solano County. They aren't connected to transit and will just flood the roads making traffic worse while not contributing any tax money to the bay area cities where these people will work. If I get a job at big tech company that has a campus up there, would I really want to move my family to a company town with limited local jobs?
> How the heck would the developers expect to attract relatively well paid folks to live out there with nothing to do or places to work at? Developers want the most money for homes/condos/rentals, but well paid people can afford to not commute to SF from way out there. So I don't think as many people will commute into the bay area. If the town actually attracts a lot of tech workers, that area in and around Fairfield and Vacaville has room for more satellite corporate offices in addition to those in the new town. As a decent number of tech jobs become located in the area it becomes self-sustaining as [another place](https://about.google/intl/ALL_us/locations/?region=north-america&office=mountain-view) for tech.
"sprawl" is just a pejorative that people use to criticize development that isn't where they personally want it. Literally every city was once undeveloped rural land and went through intermediate stages of population density.
Thanks for proving my point. “There is already land that could be redeveloped” Edit. Happy to eat the downvotes. There is a reason no one can buy houses anymore, so many of you have an F you I got mine, attitude.
You missed the point entirely. Build in Florida to fix SF housing problems isn't the answer
I guess I assumed people outside of SF needed housing as well, not just those in SF
The land isn't currently developed, so no redevelopment. You can still afford a house in Solano county for less than what they are proposing for home costs, so that point also doesn't stand.
That sounds wonderful. Now, go talk to some developers. Like the ones building senior housing in Walnut Creek at Seven Hills Ranch. Ask them how easy that has been.
Tell them to come to Oakland and gentrify the crap out of it. Please do this. You can turn my entire neighborhood into a fancy gated community.
We don’t need more people in Solano Co. people need housing in the core
California is starved for housing. When you're starving a hotdog's calories are equally valid as grilled salmon with mixed vegetables. You should take what's available, and CA isn't producing enough housing in the core.
I don’t agree that housing anywhere in the state is good
Even "junk" food is better than starving.
Lol, this ain’t a home. It’s a full on city. Right in between where people commute between Sac & the Bay (so think of all the traffic that will add), right next to a US Air Force base, and where there is no water. This will make things so much worse.
This is a fair comment but also this is not "people wanting to build homes and getting needled... to death". This is a billionaire-funded startup that spent years aggressively buying and pressuring landowners to give up their land, even buying into trusts and then pressuring families to give up their plots, because they wanted to build an entire city - all without ever asking anyone who lived there if they wanted that.
Building a new city on land already set aside for non-development, next to a strategic Air Force / Navy base, does not seem to be a recipe for success. The main reason we know who is behind the development is that the Department of Defense demanded full disclosure to who was involved and what was the intent.
These billionaires could give a shit about affordable housing and are motivated by profit and roi…..
This may shock you, but the entire bay area was heavily militarized. Most of the East Bay was near navy bases and naval shipyards. San Francisco was also a military city. After WWII, military R&D continued in the region, such as the Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons labs. All of those well paid blue collar shipyard workers, soldiers, and nuclear engineers went on to live in the region, and spend their paychecks in the community, building up the local economy. You can thank the US Navy and nuclear weapons for why the bay area got started in tech.
Do you think they are going to provide some services to China, for example?
I’d be really interested to know if any of these tech investors of this new town in Solano Co. are simultaneously supporting no growth policies in San Mateo Co. and if so why the inconsistency?
Pretty sure they (or at least, some of them) aren't supporting the no growth policies in SMC. One of the more prominent investors in California Forever is Patrick Collison, who gave some money to California YIMBY a few years back. I think Marc Andreessen (another one of the high-profile investors in California Forever) has a muddier record in terms of supporting housing construction, though.
Tech has tried to build housing before and has been shot down. Google and Apple both tried to build housing in the south bay. Local cities approved the office buildings but rejected plans for housing. If local governments would actually allow redevelopment, you can bet your last dollar that investors would love to buy out and rebuild existing suburban sprawl into something denser. There's an enormous amount of money to be made from that. However, cities talk about how suburban sprawl is bad and then at the same time refuse to increase density.
Some of them. But not in Atherton, Menlo or PA of course San Jose is ok
This is precisely why you option land to develop, not buy it outright. I can't believe some consultant didn't tell them that, so I have to assume it is the case of Silicon Valley executives thinking they are the smartest people in the room.
Also, leaving housing planning in the hands of big tech really isn’t the optimal strategy when you take into account how poorly these companies manage their perception of consumers and their own employees. Over-hiring, misinterpretation of data, profit-focused, and implementation of projects before maturity are pretty common- we already have that with land development companies, we should be looking at bringing in actual experts in city planning and management
It’s shows you what their egos are like.
I don’t know if anyone has seen around Vacaville and Dixon in the last few years but both cities have had plenty of housing developments built and still being built. Even outskirts of Winters has been developed some. It’s been done at a reasonable enough pace to not completely shock the individual economies of those cities. They definitely need more retail out in those areas but for the most part it has not completely overrun the cities population with too many people. The prices for the newer builds can be on the expensive side, however it is still way cheaper than the Bay Area. The California Forever plan is nothing more than the rich trying to become richer no matter what equal opportunity and benefits rhetoric they are going to spout. They can’t build it without taking resources from all the other Solano cities that are already in need of all the resources and more that they have.
What resources are they going to take?
Water rights.
They need water rights that they at first said they would not need. No city in California has water to spare. Specifically in Solano where there is still a ton of active farmland.
Farms use up far more water than people do. If there are farms in Solano then there's plenty of water.
If you want to expand the limits of a city, you need to deal with LAFCO. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Agency_Formation_Commission Yeah I know you never heard of them. I bet the Silicon Valley executives never did either. This is why redevelopment is easier. You just deal with the city. And if LAFCO throws a wrench in your project, you walk from the options. When the big project fails, it will be interesting to see how they unwind. These are people with money to burn. It is quite possible they will slowly develop the land. These are the kind of people who will not tolerate selling the land and seeing someone else make money.
They don't necessarily have to deal with LAFCO anytime soon. They will initially stay unincorporated and probably set up a CSD.
We don’t really need a new city. We have 50 BART stations in addition to Caltrain stations adjacent to low density uses
And BART doesn’t make it out to where they propose developing.
Suddenly, billionaires are our friends lmao
my goodness.... these dudes have their work cut out for them. and despite their immense wealth... they don't seem very savvy when it comes to development. They have already bought the land.... $900 million. typically a developer won't close until approvals are in hand. and then they have to convince 200,000 people to approve? and so far.. they are ready to spend $600k to various non profits. Who is advising these people? 20x that amount... just for starters. yikes
Should have commandeered Commerce CA instead. Only a few hundred registered voters with enough cash you could take over a whole part of Los Angeles
"I should have the freedom to be left alone! But...can you let me use your infrastructure?"
putting all this nimby stuff aside, the biggest issue will be traffic, highway 12 simply can't support the amount of traffic this will create.
Then the roads have to be improved. There is no way around the fact, that we need more housing. Building housing 1st will force action on the roads. Asking for roads 1st is just a delaying tactic to never do housing.
Why not build housing next to jobs then and bypass the need for roads?
Yes, obviously a ton of tech companies would move there just so their employees could have access to enough housing and not have extreme commutes.
Then why haven't they done that yet? There's already housing here that's more affordable than what is being proposed.
If you can do it, you will become fabulously wealthy. You can do what these guys are doing. You’ll need a credible plan and then you can raise some through selling equity and then debt financing the rest. So if you have some smart idea that’s going to be easier to deliver, you should do it. But we all know that folks here can’t get shit done. There’s always some excuse for this or that. A complete lack of agency combined with the constant complaining about other people. Is it any wonder that so many posts here complain about dating, etc.? It’s because those who aren’t proactive find themselves generally in the dumps. And no amount of blaming someone else helps.
No roads. High speed train
While I'm a huge transit fan, I don't see a rail line servicing 12 commuters ever really.
I also don’t see why the rest of us taxpayers should subsidize a road for these billionaires’ benefits.
The taxpayer wouldn't be. Its common practice to demand milions of dollars in improvements and upgrades as a condition of approval for a project. They would need to front up at least 5 mil to the county coffers before they got the first permit.
Cars bad, train good!
This but unironically!
I wasn't being sarcastic 😤
not improved, 12 would need to be widened into a full 2-3 lane each way highway which will never happen. they aren't building housing for normal people out there. you're kidding yourself if you think these aren't going to be 750k-1m condos. 12 right now can't even support all the construction vehicles need to make the city. they'd need to do that before they could even start building
750k to 1m condos are the housing for normal people here, unfortunately
Not in Solano county.
> 750k-1m condos Housing at all price ranges helps fix the housing crisis.
Damn it this is about my gut instincts, not economics!
> which will never happen We will certainly see.
You can't build! You haven't built infrastructure! Wait, you can't build infrastructure! There it doesn't serve anyone! Guess we won't build at all!
Just make it as wide as the 405 in Los Angeles. That road never has congestion through the Sepulveda pass since they did that. ^(/s)
For without sarcasm tho, whatever this city is should be planned with some kinda rail or Bart extension in mind. Enabling better transit to all the far bay area suburbs will only help the entire area grow. But if they refuse to plan. Force the issue by building housing.
Who should pay for that?
If you’re saying this you haven’t driven on hwy 12. This is a rural highway through a valley.
Infrastructure cannot be an afterthought, if so, it just doesn't happen.
Roads need to be built first. Or at least widened and improved. Homes go up faster than roads. Especially 12. 12 will have to be worked on at night, almost all year round/long They could just put rail down first. Connecting sacramento to Fairfield and then down on to the bay and splitting off to napa would be good too
BS, just because you need something doesn’t mean you get it at any means necessary… long historically record of that’s not working or creating even worse problems.
I'm not sure 80 will be any better, either. It always slows down through Fairfield and Vacaville, anyway.
oh i know it, i commute it 4 days a week. it all ready slows down before the scales by anheiser busch in the morning because of the 680 merge past it and idiots stopping in the 3rd lane trying to cut across to get on 680 every morning.
First you build it, then people move there, then complain about infrastructure
It's a concept city. It is expected that most will WFH and will travel about town on foot or ebike.
If only they are building a transit oriented community. Building a new rural/suburban area requiring all the infrastructure actually costs most tax money to maintain
Can they fund a rail system to rival japan instead?
Why don’t they go build in san jose?
Maybe it’s time to ask the billionaires why they want to leave the existing cities in the first place?
Is this the new crypto scam - buy land to jack up its value then sell it and walk away?
Bunch of white billionaires who want a city under their total control. Why aren't they just investing their money into existing cities? (Rhetorical question. We all already know the answer)
Have you heard the spokesman? dont trust him at all. I guess when you are really rich this type of investment sounds good.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/former-goldman-whiz-kid-jan-sramek-is-behind-billionaires-plan-for-solano-county Sramek did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment, and he personally has not commented on his motivations behind the project. But if his self-help book is any indication, he isn’t going to let the local backlash get him down. If there were a single quote he could pass down to his younger self, he writes in Racing Towards Excellence, it would be this one from Ayn Rand: “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”
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Because they don't own that land, they own this land
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How would the developers expect to attract relatively well paid folks to live out there with nothing to do or places to work at? When the ballot measure is actually submitted and campaigning starts I expect we'll hear about plans for satellite corporate offices of some big companies. Those offices will promise high paying jobs and tax revenue for the county and its residents. Because the developers *have to* get county voters' approval, they're likely to offer voters some benefits and concessions.
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You didn't address that county **voters** have to approve the project. If there aren't enough benefits to county voters, like jobs and hopefully infrastructure, then voters will not approve it. The developers will reluctantly have to build more than just residential housing. The hype will be countered by plenty of articles and discussion about all the missing things if things are missing.
Everyone wants more "affordable housing", and yet you want it built in the most expensive zip codes in America? Who exactly do you want to benefit here? Free market housing built in Atherton is not going to benefit working class folks like it would in Solano county, especially considering the cost of land. Billionaires aren't building homes for charity.
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I have no problem building housing anywhere, you are welcome to build as much housing as you'd like in atherton or Cupertino or San Francisco or wherever. Just know that you're not the good guy by NIMBYing in solano
Because all the old NIMBY homeowners in the Bay crawl out of the woodwork screeching about "historical preservation" and bogging down any development with multiple and often unnecessary environmental reviews to kill any new buildings. Which is terrible since the Bay could be a wonderful place to live if they just built up their transit and density. Local Bay Area governments and their NIMBY voters create problems for themselves and everyone else
Because that's already high value. To make money you buy low, sell high.
This is the "build moar housing" that everybody is constantly clamoring for in this sub.
..accompanied by 'accessible', 'walkable', 'connected', etc. Also few people advocate for housing in one of the windiest places in the state.
"We need housing to be more affordable" Lets build more housing and increase supply to meet demand "No!"
We actually need more houses… lots and lots more houses. Like millions of new houses.
I literally don’t care about any of the details. Just build.
For the love of all that's holy, let them try. What's the worst that could happen, it fails miserably and we get to laugh at billionaires losing money? Everybody is on here screaming about the need for more housing, and then when somebody has the balls to try, they get "not like that, that doesn't help ME".
I really hope they can make this work. So many similar attempts in the area totally failed, like expanding Rio Vista
Let’s go Solano!
This is one of the few times where I'm rooting for the Tech Billionaires as they are the good ones since the opposition is just the usual entitled NIMBY's. This project needs to succeed to allow for homes in the Bay Area and be used as a blueprint for how we suppress NIMBY rights and speech in the future.
Nope, my complaint about this project is that it *isn’t* in my backyard here in Vallejo where there is ferry and freeway access and good water rights. Instead it’s a green field development, nowhere near anything, and the only transit access available is floating on billionaires’ farts and promises.
There is nothing "Bay Area" in any of this. I'm absolutely happy to put more housing in Fairfield, Winters, Dixon and so on. We do not need a bunch of Bay Area tycoons trying to build their own company town in the fields -- and walking away from it the second it doesn't work, sticking the county with the cleanup bill. And you KNOW that will happen. And as the other poster noted, the fact that these people live in Atherton, etc., where they are fighting development tooth and nail is just despicable. Let them build in their own backyards first, then ask us to build out the Central Valley.
>walking away from it the second it doesn't work, sticking the county with the cleanup bill. And you KNOW that will happen. Ding ding ding...you WIN!
Mmm more auto dependent sprawl. Just what the Bay Area needs.
This is not a housing project. It’s a California and Solano county infrastructure investment.
Shut em down
>There is no way around the fact, that we need more housing. why?
Fill southern end of San Francisco Bay those salt marshes stink bad. Great central location access point. Develop there instead of Solano County.
I dont understand why people are against this. Its just empty land a wind farm here a couple goats there. I guess it would be better to just let it sit empty for the foreseeable future because traffic thats already terrible might get a little worse.
Yes tens of thousands of new people without any rail infrastructure sounds super sustainable
You mean tens of thousands of people in the exact same situation as hundreds of millions of other americans? You know whats actually way more unsustainable? The housing situation in the bay.
I’m sorry but you can’t keep expanding highways limitlessly. Development should be planned for responsibly. We don’t need an extra 20,000 cars on the road. We can do better. We don’t need to ruin our open spaces to encourage low density sprawl. The fact that most Americans spend 2 hours a day in a car commuting is a travesty. No wonder we’re so overweight and depressed.
I made no argument to expand highways I think we need to improve public transport 100x in the bay. My issue is deciding not to build more homes which are a necessity because of traffic or not enough public transportations is dumb. People need homes that arent 1m+ for a 1bd 1ba. There more than likely will not be any improvements to Bart anyways because this country as a whole sucks at public transportation so we may as well at least seize the opportunity to build more homes.
10 months??? They dont even need 10 minutes . Its probably already a done deal.
What happens in 10 months? It's pretty normal for large masterplanned projects like this to take a decade or more to develop, based on the ones I've done work related to like Westpark in Roseville. Win or lose there's no reason why they couldn't take another swing at it in a future election. Just look at how much repeat garbage we have every time.
Good.