Starting a Conversation About Eastern Solano County. A Chance for a New Community

Good Paying Local Jobs , Solar Farms, and Open Space

 

California Forever is the parent company of Flannery Associates. Over the last few years, Flannery has purchased over 50,000 acres in Solano County. To date, the  company has been quiet about our activities. This has, understandably, created interest, concern, and speculation. Now that we're no longer limited by confidentiality, we are eager to begin a conversation about the future of Solano County a conversation with all of you. Like much of our state, Solano County faces many challenges, but also possesses countless opportunities. Over the past few years, we have completed surveys and interviews with about 2,000 residents of Solano County and your voices were clear. Residents want more opportunities to buy homes in safe, walkable communities. Good paying local jobs, so they can both live and work in the county. Better funding to improve schools, promote public safety, and reduce homelessness, as well as resources to invest in infrastructure for transportation, water, and wildfire protection.

 

 

Last month, 81% of Solano parents we surveyed said that their kids won’t be able to find a future in their own neighborhood when they grow up.  These challenges often have separate, unrelated causes, but they could share a common solution. Instead of watching our kids leave, we have the opportunity to build a new community that attracts new employers, creates good paying local jobs, builds homes in walkable neighborhoods, leads in environment stewardship, and fuels a growing tax base to serve the county at large. Solano is fortunate to have the right location for a project like this in the eastern part of the county.

 

The Current Site for Development - Sonoma County, CA

 

This is nota new idea. In the past, when preparing long-range plans for the Bay Area, the Association of Bay Area Governments ("Regional Plan 1970-1990") and the U.S. Department of Commerce ("Future Development of the San Francisco Bay Area, 1960-2020") both concluded that to keep our region affordable, prosperous, and balanced, new industries and communities could be built in eastern Solano. The area had low fire risk, access to water, and was strategically located in the middle of the larger Northern California region. All that remains true today.

 

 

 

California Forever was founded in 2017 by Flannery Associates'CEO, Jan Sramek. After moving to California a decade ago, Jan spent time in Solano County during fishing trips on the California Delta and fell in love with the area. Having previously lived in many of the world’s most walkable, livable, and sustainable towns and cities, Jan became interested in fusing what he learned about those livable communities with those old plans for eastern Solano. He became committed to a vision for the future of Solano County. 

 

 

 

This idea of building a new community and economic opportunity in eastern Solano seemed impossible on the surface, but after spending a lot of time learning about Solano and its people, Jan became convinced that with a thoughtful design, the right long-term patient investors, and strong partnerships with all stakeholders, there would be an opportunity to build a remarkable place for Solano residents, both current and the many generations to come.

 

 

Over the past few years, the company purchased over 50,000 acres in eastern Solano County, between Fairfield and Rio Vista. California Forever owns about half of the properties in this area. Other landowners own the remaining half. Our project would not change the zoning of other landowners’ properties : they would remain zoned for agriculture, and those landowners would be able to continue their agricultural operations. In addition, on our lands, the project would include a variety of land uses : a new community, but also solar farms and open space, including both agriculture and habitat conservation. Our project would protect and support Travis Air Force Base, including by respecting Solano County’s official Travis Reserve Area, which is a security buffer for the protection of Travis Air Force base established by Solano County in its General Plan, and subsequently clarified through a recent ordinance. After assembling an excellent team of people from all over the world as well as from the local community,  the team started collaborating with Solano’s residents, elected officials and agencies, as well as the many Solano stakeholders, including Travis Air Force Base, labor, business, agriculture, educators, police, fire, conservation, and many others.

 

 

Build walkable neighborhoods and new paths to homeownership.  The goal is to build homes of different sizes and price points integrated in the same walkable neighborhoods, with homes, shopping, dining, and schools all within walking distance. We are also interested in exploring new paths to homeownership for Solano residents through down-payment assistance programs and other solutions

 

 

Create good paying local jobs, and paths to get those jobs, for Solano’s residents. This project can bring new employers to Solano, and independently create thousands of permanent, good-paying local jobs in construction, energy, services, and other industries. We are also interested in building trade schools and other educational paths that help Solano residents learn the skills they need to get those new jobs and build long-lasting careers

 

 

This is a project that must be not just designed with, but also approved by, all Solano residents. Solano County’s Orderly Growth Measure directs development into cities, and asks that new projects outside of cities be submitted to the voters for approval. We fully support these principles, and we will ultimately ask the voters to approve the project. The Orderly Growth Measure is the right approach to safeguard Solano, including our project, from sprawl and disorderly growth for many years to come.  

 

 

California was built on its pioneering spirit, its boundless optimism, and the steadfast conviction that if we work hard, and together, that our best days still lie ahead, waiting to be built, for our children, and their children, and for all the generations to come. California Forever is committed to building a place that embodies these ideals.

 

 

Help solve regional infrastructure needs, including energy, transportation, water, and wildfire protection. Eastern Solano benefits from existing transmission lines that could make it possible to build a large solar farm that creates hundreds of jobs and accelerates California’s transition to clean energy. Improvements to Highway 12 could make it safer and less congested.

 

 

The North Bay Aqueduct needs major upgrades to deliver cleaner and more reliable water to over 500,000 people in Solano and Napa counties. Solano’s rural fire districts need more money to keep communities safe from wildfires. We cannot solve any of these issues on our own, but we want to be part of larger regional solutions.

 

 

Protect and support Travis Air Force Base.   Travis Air Force Base is critical to both our national security and to Solano County. We fully support its mission and always will. For example, when California Water Service and Travis were building a new water pipeline to Travis in 2021 and asked us to sell them a right of way for the pipeline, we immediately offered to donate the right of way for free instead. We are just beginning our dialogue with Travis about the right safeguards, but we are committed to respecting its boundaries both on the ground and in the air. We also hope to work with the Air Force in other ways, including by helping provide homes to base personnel, and training and career options for veterans.

 

 

Protect Solano’s open space and prime agricultural lands.  Solano County has a long history of city-centered growth. We believe building a compact community away from prime agricultural lands, surrounded by open space, is the best way to achieve that objective. Many nearby landowners are committed to agriculture, and have told us they do not want to sell or develop their properties. Their properties will, along with some of our properties, form this agricultural green belt around the new community.