Tech billionaires’ plan for a new California city may bypass voter approval

A group backed by tech billionaires spent years and $800 million secretly buying up over 60,000 acres of land in Solano County, California, 60 miles northeast of San Francisco. The group—which calls itself California Forever and is funded by Marc Andreessen, LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, and Laurene Powell Jobs, among others—planned from the start to build a brand-new city for as many as 400,000 residents. But to do that they needed voter approval to change the county’s development rules. Just before heading to the ballot this past November, California Forever yanked its initiative despite spending over $9 million on its campaign.

Now it seems California Forever may have found a way to develop the property it owns without needing to win an election.

The pulled ballot measure caught the attention of Bret Prebula, the city manager of Suisun City, a small city in the area. It was the “trigger,” he tells Fast Company, for coming up with the idea to expand the city’s borders and annex nearby land as a way to address the city’s finances and budget deficit. There is only a small bit of undevelopable marshland to the city’s west; to the east are the vast tracts of land owned by the tech titans.

Prebula brought his idea to the Suisun City council last year, and in January it voted four to one to explore the possibility of annexing land. It was a heated meeting, with critics bringing up California Forever’s likely involvement, but the mayor of Suisun City chastised attendees multiple times that California Forever was not on the agenda. And yet, when Suisun City later sent letters out to property owners surrounding the city, California Forever was the main group that responded to indicate its interest. The map Suisun City produced of what land it’s looking at annexing is “exactly” where California Forever’s proposed city would be, says Sadie Wilson, director of planning and research at The Greenbelt Alliance, which has been leading the opposition to California Forever’s development plans.

A few weeks later, Rio Vista, another small city in the area, announced it, too, would explore annexation in response to Suisun City’s announcement. The city voted to join the effort to ensure that, as City Manager Kristina Miller said at the meeting, it will have “a seat at the table so that, for lack of a better word, we are not on the menu.” Many of the councilmembers took the same stance, voicing their opposition to California Forever’s plans while saying, in the words of Councilmember Rick Dolk, the city needs to take a “defensive” position. Indeed, Rio Vista’s hand may have been forced: the land Suisun City is looking at annexing that’s owned by California Forever goes right up to the city’s west border. If it didn’t join in, the city could “feel the impacts and get none of the benefits,” Wilson says.

At a meeting in mid-April, the two cities signed a memorandum of understanding to avoid being pitted against each other. Suisun City is also pursuing an agreement with California Forever that would require the group to cover all of the costs of consultants and other needs the cities will have as it explores the idea of annexation so it doesn’t have to spend its own money. That could also include an agreement that California Forever won’t put another measure on Solano County’s ballot next year as the group vowed to do after it pulled last year’s initiative.

For California Forever, it seems that “annexation is the focus right now,” says Nate Huntington, resilience manager at the Greenbelt Alliance. Representatives from the group have attended meetings in both cities in which these plans were discussed. In response to a request for comment, a California Forever spokesperson says: “We look forward to working with Suisun City, Rio Vista, and Solano County to bring new industries, amazing neighborhoods, and new sources of tax revenue to the region.”

The annexation process is typically lengthy, often unfolding over several years. Before either city can expand its sphere of influence to include additional territory, the city councils must first vote in favor of the proposal. They must then reach an agreement with the county on how to share property tax revenue. After that, detailed plans and analyses must be developed to outline what the expansion would involve and how the cities would provide municipal services to the new areas. The plan must then be approved by the Solano Local Agency Formation Commission, which oversees jurisdictional boundaries. The process also requires a municipal service review, an environmental review, and multiple city council votes.

But opponents of California Forever’s development plan point out that the group has a track record of trying to do things differently than what is typical. “There are roadblocks, but also I think they’ve shown they’re really willing to go around the normal process,” Wilson says. “California Forever is very powerful and they have a lot of resources.” Prebula, for his part, sees it similarly, saying that it could make sense, if annexation moves forward, to see if the state legislature will pass legislation shortening the process as it did for the construction of a new NBA stadium.

But the deal could be a raw one for the cities if they move forward. Although they would get upfront development fees from California Forever, a fiscal study of the group’s ballot initiative commissioned by the county last year found that, had it won and developed the city, the county would over time actually lose $103.1 million, and that was under an arrangement where all tax revenue would have flowed to the county. If the cities go forward with annexation, they’ll have to share tax revenue with each other and the county, earning even less. Prebula rebuts those findings, arguing the analysis “happened way too quickly” and was based on “archaic” ways of delivering services.

Opponents of California Forever’s efforts say the annexation plan reflects the group’s belief that it can’t win at the ballot box, “especially when they got off on such a bad start and there’s so much distrust,” Huntington says. The group kept its plans secret until the New York Times revealed who was behind the land acquisition in 2023. California Forever also sued local ranchers and farmers—most of whom had refused to sell their land—alleging they violated antitrust law when they “collude[d]” by holding out for higher offers and seeking $510 million in damages. Many of those landowners were ultimately forced to settle and give up their property. Jan Sramek, former Goldman Sachs trader and CEO of California Forever, told Fast Company last August that the group would refuse to drop the case.

They also say it represents an end-run around the public. “If you go the annexation route, there is no vote,” noted Duane Kromm, a former member of the Solano County Board of Supervisors who was involved in opposing California Forever’s ballot initiative. Prebula argued that county residents’ voice “can be heard without a public vote” and that his approach “brings more people into the conversation when you have a select group of people who can foster a process and a project.” That, he argued, is “what democracy is, it’s just not about a vote.”

But Wilson argued that it’s a way to go around the process California Forever should have followed. “It’s saying you don’t care about the public’s vote, don’t care about the county process,” she says. “Time and again they seem to just be doing whatever they want and not respecting the people or laws or processes or communities.”

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