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For several years Silicon Valley billionaires, including Apple Inc. founder Steve Jobs’s widow, secretly have been buying up tens of thousands of acres of the nation’s most productive farmland in pursuit of a plan to replace the farms with large cities, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
The billionaires have been paying up to three- to five times appraised value for farmland located approximately 50 miles northeast of San Francisco, turning neighbor against neighbor in an effort that one local rancher described as a “hostile takeover.” The investors plan to build tens of thousands of residences in up to three cities, one of which could be twice the size of San Francisco.
The company behind the land purchases, Flannery Associates, has bought a portfolio of farmland consisting of at least 230 parcels and 40,000 acres in Solano County over the past five years. The properties are currently zoned for agriculture in unincorporated parts of the county.
According to a poll sent to Solano County residents last week, the “new city,” which is an area nearly the size of two San Franciscos, would be developed between Fairfield and Rio Vista in southeast Solano County. A poll sent to area residents suggested it might include tens of thousands of homes and a large solar energy farm.
One source says the billionaires already have acquired as many as 55,000 acres — and they have employed what a local Congress member called “mobster tactics.” The SF Chronicle article includes maps of the land reportedly bought up by the billionaires.
The investors sell their city dreams by claiming they’ll build affordable housing, “orchards with over a million new trees,” a solar energy farm, and “over ten thousand acres” of new parks and open space. They also say they plan to build a new aqueduct to replace an existing one, restore habitats in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and give Solano County residents priority assistance in buying the homes the billionaires want to build — all with private money — prompting U.S. Rep. John Garamendi (D-Walnut Grove) to quip to a Los Angeles times reporter that
some of the few things they didn’t mention were “a lollipop and ice cream cone every day for every kid.”
However, Suisun City Mayor Pro Tem Princess Washington told KTVU that the investors’ “end goal” is “to create a new playground for who they want there,” rather than to serve the needs of local residents and community members.
Washington added that further building should done in existing cities, such as Rio Vista, Fairfield, Vallejo and Dixon, and not on rural farmland, a position supported by Solano County voters, who have green-lighted such policies at the ballot box. Additionally, land in the area has been restricted as open space and agricultural under a state program.
Unsurprisingly, the investors are playing hardball to get their way, filing suit in a Sacramento federal court, accusing some landowners of colluding to drive up the price of land. Think about that: on one hand, the investors reportedly paid some owners 3-5 times the appraised value for some of the farmland, yet they’re suing other owners for asking too high a price — all of which makes one wonder if the tech bros are misusing the federal court system to bully family farmers. Garamendi referred to the investors’ lawsuits against family farmers as “strong-arm mobster tactics.”
Some of the land purchased by the investors is adjacent to Travis Air Force base, a facility that handles more cargo and passengers than any other military air terminal in the United States. Presently Solano County bars wind and solar farms within miles of the airbase to avoid radar disruption.
The obvious question is where would the new cities get their water?
Also, who would bear the risk of repeat flooding on pool table-flat terrain as global warming-driven weather events intensify? And who would pay for the extensive new infrastructure needed to support large-city populations in a region now served by a narrow two-lane state highway? We can trust the billionaires to attempt to push those costs onto the public.
The SF Chronicle points out that
The project is by no means a sure bet. If it gets built, it could take decades. For comparison, the greater Bay Area’s newest city, Mountain House in San Joaquin County, took 20 years to build — and with 21,000 residents, it is one-tenth the size of the development envisioned in Solano County.
Although the real estate portfolio assembled by Flannery is one of the biggest in the Bay Area and is backed by some of the world’s savviest investors, land-use politics in California are notoriously fraught. It could meet stiff resistance from anti-growth activists, environmentalists and local politicians and voters.
Moreover, local Congress members are not exactly sold on the concept.
“They don’t have a plan, they have a vision, an idea,” Thompson told the Chronicle after meeting with Flannery representatives. “To say that this is going to be a long, long road is probably an understatement.”
Additionally, Garamendi called out
heavy handed and, frankly, dishonest operations that Flannery’s engaged in with the historic family farms in the area.
For years shrouded in mystery, the identities of at least some of the investors have been revealed. Former Goldman Sachs trader Jan Sramek is the creator of Flannery Associates and pitched the new-city idea in 2017 “to a coterie of other Silicon Valley power players,” according to the Chronicle. Other investors include LinkedIn co-founder Ride Hoffman; Laurene Powell Jobs; Andreessen Horowitz, a Menlo Park venture capitalist; Michael Moritz, billionaire venture capitalist; Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison; and investors Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman.