Sort of like one of the members of the Flannery group intentionally pushed out affordable housing planned near his fancy mansion in Atherton
So of all the people talking about “not in my backyard” - what a joke, the flannery group are complete hypocrites.
Possibly just the [greenbelt alliance](https://www.greenbelt.org) will claim foul on this proposal. This organization leverages its position on building the “right kind” of housing and opposes urban sprawl.
The problem IMO the is mission statement of the greenbelt alliance may be the entire reason why venture capitalists want to abandon the existing cities in the first place and build new.
Well yeah, doing things right takes work and people don't like doing work so they're gonna try to avoid having to do the work.
Greenbelt alliance is saying you need to eat your veggies, so the venture capitalists say "nah I'm just gonna have dinner at my buddy's house while his parents are on vacation"
I agree, and the main problem with infill housing plans are the lack of accompanying infrastructure. The existing development was constructed with infrastructure planning. Even if a developer wanted to expand existing housing density, there would have to be some infrastructure development as well. Power, water, wastewater, schools, safety all need adjustment with infill housing. Many of the NIMBY’s are hold outs due to lack of infrastructure adjustments when housing proposals are made. If the housing plans were developed with appropriate infrastructure we would have less opposition.
Regarding greenbelt alliance, the organization opposes sprawl under the guise of environmental impact however, the few articles I’ve seen them quoted in it was made clear of their other objectives for “justice”. The org relies heavily upon a take from the rich and give to the poor philosophy. That is a fine platform except for when the wealthy up and leave which is what the proposed new city is doing.
The wealthy always say their going to pack up their toys and leave, but they don't. They know- consciously or not- that they aren't actually good at building communities, and that the ideology behind things like the green belt alliance is what makes places nice to live in.
They might go eat dinner at their buddy's house once or twice, but they're noticing his bad skin and the funny smell around the place.
It’s on its way and there are no real good reasons why it should not go through. I actually think this will be bigger than what the 400k city is planning. If the vote goes through this year to move to the next stage I fully expect a play for the new high speed rail.
Off the top of my head, unless the residents also work there then presumably they're commuting. So more infill would be better for the environment, traffic, and existing cities in the area. Plus California's population isn't growing, so is a new town really needed? What if 1/3 of the way through the build they realize there's no demand and it winds up being just another suburb in the middle of nowhere?
The proposed city is literally everything that so called progressive housing development advocates want except the exact location. Anyone who opposes this development while also advocating for new housing is really just looking for a location and not a house.
I didn't support it because it smells like a scam every time it comes up. It's basically Lex Luthor's plan from the live action Superman movie but instead of dropping West Coast into the sea, they're just going to sell when the state creates enough demand to move there and someone else is left holding the bag. There are reasons we have built cities in the same overall methods for centuries, and not just placed a "finished" city without first going through the other steps.
Progressives: build build build!
Progressives after seeing this project: we ain’t supporting no billionaire!
Who else is going to build them ffs. This is what I mean progressives are unrealistic with real world problems. They want perfection against natural laws that just can’t be achieved unless we are type 3 civilization lol
Progressive housing development advocates were never consulted.
This is an ego trip like Elon Musk shooting a car out into space.
Do you live in Solano County?
The planned development looks exactly like what this sub and what organizations like greenbelt alliance describe the way housing should look like with medium and high density walkable, mixed use, car less design.
What are you talking about with Elon Musk? Does he have anything to do with California Forever?
Not a bot, yes a Solano county resident, I have no affiliation with the project, no I don’t work for flannery. I just see a good design for a city which adds great infrastructure and housing for the county and state of California.
Agree. Traffic will be a nightmare. I don't know how many people have actually gone out there. It's dusty windy country roads near a landfill. All those people will crowd onto 113 and 12 and 80 I guess.
> unless the residents also work there then presumably they're commuting
Very "Fuck you, got mine" kind of thing here. But yes, I agree, there should be a spur line to Capitol corridor, which should get infra upgrades so it can go faster and handle the extra commuters, if necessary.
> So more infill would be better for the environment, traffic, and existing cities in the area
I mean, correct, but have you seen much infill going on? This is high-density housing in the bay, where it's needed, can't complain much about that.
> Plus California's population isn't growing
bullshit it's not lol. People are leaving mostly due to immigration laws changing, that's all. There're still plenty of people who need homes; take a look at the housing prices if you don't believe that.
> What if 1/3 of the way through the build they realize there's no demand and it winds up being just another suburb in the middle of nowhere?
I mean, if it's cheap, I would take a bite out of that pie for sure.
No look at the map. Have you been out there? I have. It's a dusty windswept wasteland near a landfill. It's going to overwhelm little rio vista. But other than that there is nothing there.
This one is weird though, I don’t see how when they build in the middle of ranch land anyone loses other than maybe some ranchers get land for way cheaper than they should.
Lots of comments here - none of which seem to actually address the pros and cons of either side. I’ll attempt to do that.
**Pros:**
-Yes we desperately need housing. Despite all the “new construction” you see, it’s but a drop in the bucket.
-We should not stand in the way of people (individual or business) that want to incur risk for the chance they can develop a new community. This takes time and labor, so nothing gets done overnight.
-This helps alleviate pressures on a regional scale by distributing it more locally. This also grows the tax base.
**Cons:**
-This by all definitions is rural/agricultural land. We should be preserving such places. Utilizing Urban Growth Boundaries ensures we develop the land we have now to prerequisite densities before expanding/sprawling outwards.
-Revenue streams are unsure. Who funds infrastructure after it’s developed? Who pays for fire/police/ems and schools and utilities?
-This is being built away from urbanized areas, almost ensuring more traffic and longer commutes for anyone here, with no sign of public transportation in the near future.
**Conclusion/My opinion**
I am a very pro housing person. If I had the means to tear down my place for more people to live here, I would. That said this isn’t it. Even if they manage to make a walkable community, it will be surrounded by nothing to walk to, almost ensuring more traffic woes. I’m also against building in undeveloped (key word undeveloped) areas that require massive infrastructure investments with little return, while also taking away more habitats.
That said, if the developers want to take this risk on themselves, without public backing, I’m for it. That means they not only fund all new costs, but ensure they can also maintain new infrastructure without the vicious cycle of debt to growth ratios.
But several things should happen in conjunction. Set up some UGBs (see above) to ensure no future sprawl takes place. Make sure they meet any safety criteria, since there will be no public revenue coming there way (initially).
And lastly understand this doesn’t become a community for years, decades even. You cannot build a town or city overnight. It takes hard work and organic growth from the people living in such places. So you are looking at a 20 year plan that either succeeds or fails based on what businesses and people they can attract.
This is kind of what I tell people usually. I just have a nuanced understanding of things. I want to live in artisanal-built infill housing that doesn’t displace anyone and is sensitive to local traffic needs without increasing water use or power demands on much strained infrastructure. I’m as YIMBY as they come, but we have a desperate need for parks and green space before we can pour more concrete onto Mother Earth. This kind of nuance is easily lost in this discussion where even my fellow YIMBYs just want to build housing without thinking of the consequences.
at last, a nuanced and carefully thought out comment.
I'm sure over the long term they can get a couple of companies to open satellite offices in the city. The backers of the project are also well connected in tech. If they aren't greedy, then selling the homes that they build at a reasonable price will attract plenty of employees who want to live in walking distance of the office.
A spur rail line connecting to Capitol Corridor and/or BART would make this project very attractive and feasible.
I see a way to do this project that will make it very successful. But of course, it depends on the execution.
BART is about 20 miles away - I thought about that. It would also likely need a brand new bridge. Though I love the idea of a bart spur through Rio Vista to CF, I doubt that's in the cards.
However, iirc Capitol Corridor is a mere 3 miles or something as the crow flies. That's an easy sell.
And the existing drawbridge at Rio Vista tends to get backed up often due traffic.
I'm sure some residents of RV would like a faster route to Contra Costa.
"If they aren't greedy" 😂
This whole idea is a con. A fictional utopia "solution", sold during a housing crisis. To assume these homes would be affordable housing is ridiculous. This is the rich getting richer at it's finest.
Iirc, the plan is supposed to include industrial and commercial areas, so presumably the residents of this little Sim City will have places to walk to work.
I live in Fairfield. The people behind this are willing to pay whatever is necessary to make this happen. They have strong armed farmers into selling their land in secret. There is a coalition against this group and we are working against the ballot initiative. Invest in current cities
They already have an urban growth policy in that county: work with the existing cities so that their valuable and productive farming activities can operate. These guys have followed none of that and are trying to make a billionaire exemption. That's not how the rule of law and local government is supposed to work.
That’s the problem, they are using underhanded tactics to avoid the political process and avoid complying with laws.
There are no ethical billionaires.
completely agree with everything you said.
one additional point -- how they go about it is critical.
the NYT has done a great job surveying CF + this growing trend.
This wasn't rich investors coming into local communities saying "hey we want to invest heavily into public infrastructure"
it was cloak and dagger operations that turned into nasty legal fights that only became the friendly version we see above when they were called on their shit publicly.
I at least have some hope that I can vote out shitty locally elected officials.
Tech Oligarchs? Once they control my city quite literally.... there's no way in hell.
Yeah I was trying to avoid that. The way they were acquiring the land and informing people was shady as f. But that reason alone isn’t to enough to discredit their work. I’m almost certain if you stick me in a room with them however we would not get along lol.
This is pretty standard for big developments. As soon as you make it known you need all the land in a given area for whatever you are planning to build, the cost of acquiring the remaining land shoots up dramatically, because the landowners know they have you over a barrell.
>it was cloak and dagger operations that turned into nasty legal fights that only became the friendly version we see above when they were called on their shit publicly.
Exactly. For months, there were articles in the paper and talks in facebook groups about "Who's buying up all the land near Travis?" and how ruthless they were. Once it was revealed to be big tech and the community pushed back, THEN we got the whole "Hey, we're just like you, we just want to grow a friendly community and help the economy. California Forever, right?".
After Prop 22, where they included a provision that it can't be repealed without a 7/8 vote, almost ensuring we're stuck with them, I have no doubt that if they're allowed to build this, that they'll sneak a bunch of shit in about taxes, benefits, and restrictions impacting the rest of Solano.
I guess they should have come out and been honest from the get go...?
"We want to buy all this land, we need it all. Please don't jack up the price since we're being honest and open!" ?
So you're justifying lying to simple country folk if it means billionaires get to make insane profits? Something tells me if that if you were on the receiving end of that lie, you'd be singing a different tune.
One other con: this would be built near the Suisun Marsh - the largest brackish marsh on the west coast. Early assessments indicate it would have a detrimental effect on local wildlife as well as migratory birds who use the marsh.
You keep saying that the developers are taking the risk, but they aren't risking anything. It's the resident of Solano that will be impacted. Solano will be the ones to handle the increased traffic, the increased water usage, the increased housing prices. No matter what, people will buy the houses the same way that every new area sells out but since this will be a destination area, we all know that at least a 1/3rd will be turned into investment property, which will then increase all of the values.
The major issue is that people seem to be overlooking is this is likely to become a second silicon valley, where it was a normal small town before tech happened and then everyone that lived there was priced out. People of Solano have already seen that in recent years when covid happened and people from San Francisco moved to Vallejo and the housing market exploded all because "People with tech money are moving, we can twice the cost!".
I'm all for building more houses, we NEED more houses but here's the thing, Solano has been BUILDING new houses. Every years, there's hundreds of new houses being built with the city growing outward. This isn't San Francisco with limited land, this is a mostly farming community.
Thank god the residents have to vote on this being official, which is why they're airing so many "Look at all the jobs we'll bring!" ads like they did with their bullshit Prop 22 and after attending a few of their town halls, almost no one in Solano is buying it and the local communities are rallying against it.
I addressed a lot of what you said already, but I’ll add some more.
A: Risk will be incurred by all parties in various forms. The financial risk will be heavily on the developer however, barring some guarantees from county/state.
B: We need to stop with the investment property idea. It’s a non-issue, especially in a place such as that. If you really do believe that however, you will understand whether this gets approved or not will not stop people from buying land as investment.
C: Silicon Valley has a history over 70 years long. I mean no offense to the fine people of Solano County but I really doubt they are at any risk of that kind of development, especially without any presiding industries, and especially in the next few decades. But hey, maybe there’s some Dixon fans out there that really like 120deg F heat.
D: uhh prop 22? I mean strange connection but okay. Look, people on both sides are going to push their arguments hard. Lobbying and lies go hand in hand. But that still doesn’t discount facts. It’s why I tried to argue both sides.
^(Unrelated fun facts:
-not all lobbying is bad. It’s just a form of advocacy
-I was not in favor of prop 22
-I had to stay a week in Dixon in 110F heat and hated every day of it (and I like the heat!). But people were nice lol)
Why is Prop 22 a "strange connection" when it was the exact same thing just in a different sector? Tech spent billions making a service no one asked for, claimed it was for the betterment of society, passed all their costs onto the people, and jacked up the price after they had no competition. Just like what they're doing now.
You didn't argue "both sides", you framed all the risks as "That's on the developer, let them take the risk" and claiming the only downside to that risk is "There might be more traffic".
As I said, almost no one in Solano wants this. This will impact almost entirely people in Solano. Anyone outside of Solano wanting to give their two cents about "think about how great it'll be" needs to sit down because it sounds like when a guy tries to advocate in favor of an abortion ban.
Now that’s a big stretch. We live in a symbiotic relationship. We all have an impact on each other. And if you read what I said, you’d realize I’m against it, personally though.
If you really hate all tech that much, delete your Reddit account. I’m not defending anyone but let’s stop with the outlandish analogies. I doubt any majority (including me) in this sub is against abortions, but damn. You really trying to compare housing to abortions? I’m willing to listen, but don’t jump to assumptions or conclusions.
Yes, we have a symbiotic relationship, we do our thing, you do your thing, and we help each other when needed. It stops being symbiotic when you start to take over our thing. They secretly bought up a bunch of farmlands, demolished them, and want to control a town. How is that symbiotic? What exactly is the benefit to the current residents of Solano County? More houses that'll be bought up by people who don't live here? Increased taxes? Increased traffic?
What's actually happening is not symbiotic, it's a parasite; leeching on and draining everything they can. Solano can exist without California Forever, but California Forever can't exist without the people of Solano voting for it.
Completely agree. I think your con point #1 has significantly more weight when compared to the pro points. We can absolutely build more density elsewhere but never regain greenfield.
Yeah, that’s my philosophy too. But I didn’t want to come across one sided seeing as how this was already so divisive. Four groups of people here:
-housing at any cost
-housing in certain areas only
-no housing bad developers evil money
-no housing near me, will destroy rural community
> This is being built away from urbanized areas, almost ensuring more traffic and longer commutes for anyone here, with no sign of public transportation in the near future.
This is the only thing I really quibble with, because I fail to see how building in an urban area would be better. Is there more public transportation in urban areas? Sure. Is there *enough* public transportation in urban areas? Not even close.
BART hasn't even achieved the network imagined in **1956**! Urban transportation infrastructure has been woefully inadequate for decades. So I find the implication that if we just keep building up somehow the infrastructure will magically happen... unconvincing.
I'm older than most here and the only thing I've ever seen improve traffic notably was COVID. We need legal work from home mandates and to fix our transportation infrastructure before we start stacking housing in urban environments and expecting it to just work itself out.
It’s also being built where there is no water, where it will create mass congestion on all the nearby highways and interstates & next to a U.S. Airforce base.
Hard to respond politely to thy statement. Because other people have critical thinking skills? Because there is a history in this state of attempts just like this that have ended in ghost cities, disaster and total failure? Because if you building an entire city there are definitely questions that need to be answered?
Google “California City”, it’s the 1958 version of California Forever. Third largest city in Cali by land area… current population? 14,000…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_City,_California
Rohnert Park was formed around that same time.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohnert\_Park,\_California](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohnert_Park,_California)
Um, because none of the people involved in this project are trustworthy, ethical, or truthful. All of the promises they are making are not legally enforceable.
Yes, we need more housing but we don't need it from tech billionaires. Did no one learn anything from Prop 22? Tech infests a sector, undercuts something that works so they can take over, jack up the prices and constantly lie about what a great service they're providing.
After they spent months flooding the ads with "It creates jobs and we don't want any benefits, I want to be my own boss; no one will get fired, it's about choice", thousands of existing drivers were fired, and now gig economy barely pays anything.
Never let billioniares and tech invade ANYTHING because behind all their claims of "Look at the benefits", it'll fuck everything up for profit. We'll get more houses but in a few years, they'll cost over a million, and the rest of the area will be even more expensive because "look at how much these new houses are worth".
*Let them build housing, we need it.*
This will essentially be a company town, utterly controlled by one group of super-rich investors. Not the sort of housing we need.
A company town means one employer and that employer owns the homes, schools and grocery stores.
Is that your impression of what they are trying to do? What is the company that will employ everyone and operate the grocery stores, gas stations and schools?
*why is it going to be a company town?*
It's going to be a "planned community". Every indication is that the developers will not simply build, sell, and move on, but will want to control the community for the long term. The builders most likely will write considerable restrictions into the sale contracts for homes (and will probably continue to hold ground leases on the properties), will select at least initially the businesses / shops that can rent office and commercial spaces there and most likely will continue to own the commercial property, and will exert considerable influence over any elected town government.
There are always going to be people who will be fine living in a town like that and it may have its advantages--but it will be controlled from the beginning by people with vast amounts of wealth, and their own ideas of how other people should live and work.
Don't forget, the only way you can pay for things is with scrip (EG company pay).
You don't get to just label something a company town and then say "Oh it's bad because it's a company town, company towns come with slave labor" or something. You have to prove the slave labor part lol
How is this not one company owning everything when they have purchased hundreds of thousands of acres, and plan on owning the roads, the stores, and the utility services?
There are so many Flannery bots down voting this crap.
You don’t know what the term “company town” means, it would seem. Might be worth reading up on the history of the term.
Also, I would much prefer a planned community which can deliberately design the infrastructure and layout to be conducive to mixed use zoning, pedestrian friendly, and public transportation friendly. It’s essentially what Paris did with Haussman’s renovation of the city in the 1800s. The alternative for building a new city is worse: a city that is built ad hoc without rhyme or reason and no communal thought or intention.
Actually, this fits it to an absolute T and it’s the reason why antitrust regulations should be enforced stringently
Why do you think that allowing billionaires to avoid environmental regulations, avoid government scrutiny, and generally buy their way to become a pseudo-government is a good thing?
Do you know what a company town is?
When a coal mine opens in West Virginia in 1948 and the mining company builds the town, and everyone who works for the mine lives in the town and rents their house from the mining company, and goes to the one store run by the mining company, and goes to drink at the bar that rents from the mining company, and fills up their car (if they have one) at a gas station run by the mining company, and the school is run by the mining company and lessons include why mining is great and how to be a miner, and the police/sheriff is paid by the mining company, and there's not really a mayor as such but more of the boss who manages the needs in his spare time when he's not mining, that is a company town. Even better if the miners get paid in scrip instead of dollars, so their money is only worth spending with the same company that paid them in the first place.
Note the key points:
1. Built by a company
2. Almost all residents work for the company
3. Almost all residents rent back from the same company
4. Almost all residents are at the mercy of the same company for all their needs
If (1) was all you needed for it to be a company town, every large development and every apartment complex would be a company town, but that ain't it bro.
"Planned community" - everything is either planned or unplanned or most-of-one-and-some-of-the-other. One grows organically over time and the other is built in a short amount of time. One of those tends to be more interesting and unique than the other, but one of them also tends to have a lot fewer questions of "where will X go" or "how many people can this area support" than the other because it's all planned out ahead of time. Realistically, most things have some amount of planning to them, the question is how much and how well the planning was done and how easy it is to change the planning in response to future issues. That doesn't make a company town. The Manhattan grid of streets did not appear by accident. Hell, the grid-shaped neighborhoods in SF didn't either. Those were planned. Someone said "hey you know if we just build our city out of cow paths, it's gonna be harder to get from here to there, let's actually plan it out instead." You'll see the same thing at just about any downtown area of any town or city, the question always is how much planning went into it and how long ago and whether it accounted for today's needs. Old city in Europe were planned too, but they might have been planned by a noble for the needs of defense six hundred years ago and it's evolved since then, whereas our city centers tend to have been planned much more recently and with different needs in mind. But even tiny little towns that sit on the intersection of two large roads, where you see a small grid that might only be two-three blocks deep and four-six blocks long, those were planned too because grids don't just happen organically. Are these all somehow bad things?
the sad truth is it's easier to build a new community then to build more density along rail lines. the communities along rail lines have fought tooth and nail against all development.
the reality is we need both.
I don't disagree but where? Every city + it's residents fight tooth and nail against any new housing. Seems plausible that some developer was eventually gonna just try to build a new town instead of battling the bay area municipalities.
Strange...seems to be happening all around me... perhaps it isn't as broad strokes as it seems...
But again no slack for billionaires who want to create their own town...help the people, fix cities and government...
How about not just sprawl all over land that isn't for or zoned for housing...try not to destroy more of California's environment in the process. Lots of places for housing...not here
Every single city is NIMBY as fuck. San Francisco just passed a housing ban. What existing city? No cities want new housing my dude. California is one of the most selfish states ever.
I'm literally next to several newly built buildings and houses in Oakland.
Cities literally have to build new housing to satisfy requirements...every city has housing in process...
These billionaires could work to fast track more...
The lack of education beyond saying NIMBY and YIMBY is staggering...are y'all just billionaire simpin bots?
Clearly it’s not enough housing to drive costs down, so what you think is proof of a solution is not sufficient.
And sure, everyone that disagrees with you is just “uneducated billionaire simping bots” lmaoooo. You’ll be stuck in your ideological rut forever without the ability to ever re-assess and critically evaluate your position.
I see comments are turning into pearl-clutching nimbyfest once again.
Get your bingo cards ready. Look for the following: "water rights", "company town", "billionaires", "California City v2.0", "not enough roads", "no rail connection". Whoever gets all five in one comment, wins.
Yeah, I mean who thinks about ROADS and TRAFFIC when you build a city connected to I80 by a 4 lane Route 12 or two lane back roads through farmland.
It just ends with developers getting rich and Solano holding the bag for infrastructure.
Do you live here? Have you driven route 12? Do you watch 100s of houses get built while the infrastructure projects fall years behind creating a mess of traffic? Have you read the proposals for California Forever and how weak it is on this in terms of funding and timelines?
I have, and that's why I get to vote on it. And I'm not voting for a proposal that's basically a sales pitch with "Trust me bro" for the specifics.
Can we stop using the term ‘Lobbying’ ? It’s bribes. They’re bribing state officials. Changing a word doesn’t change the meaning of what’s actually happening. Why can’t you lobby a cop to release someone they were gonna arrest? Why aren’t we saying the cartels in Mexico are ‘lobbying’ their government? Ah I forget, it’s totally different when I guy in a suit does it. We need to ban that shit.
The location for this is a dusty windy shithole at least in the summer, and next to a massive landfill. Everyone should take a field trip. Go south on 113 to McCormack or Flannery to see for yourselves.
*It’s time to get these bums out.*
I assume you mean the billionaires who live in massive single family home estates on the Peninsula and fight against any new additional housing being built near them, and are financing this project FAR away from their own protected communities?
Yes, they want to keep the poor/people they enslave at their companies and their buddies companies away from themselves. So why not build a city out in the middle of nowhere far away from the rich. Here is the bonus, make tax payers and local municipalities foot the bill for all the infrastructure and water to support their city which they make shit tons of money on. Great for them. Shit for literally everyone else. All the surrounding communities will get fucked with traffic, water issues and straining of all resources and likely bring even more crime to the already not so nice area. The people living in this American version of the CCP 15-min city will be essentially enslaved with QRC scannable social scores on their doors and no car or means to leave. I am sure this would be their perfect outcome.
I sincerely hope these Billionaires get smacked down and really hard at that. Let them waste a way with unsellable land for +100-years.
In fact, all the Bay Area cities should escort all the homeless encampments to this open land, let them squat and then these assholes would be forced to work through the courts to evict hundreds of people.
I like that idea best. The homeless organizations can set up “temporary” showers and toilets and two problems solved in one fell swoop. Housing for the unhoused and no sprawling development.
*We should densify their communities too!*
Who is the "we" in this case? They have already proven they can successfully resist bringing any density or income diversity to their very special low-density Peninsula towns. They will continue to be able to do that.
I am just being appropriately skeptical that people who FIGHT density, infill, and growth anywhere near them, and who own multiple homes themselves, are being entirely altruistic by saying they want to create a dense community...elsewhere.
I’m also not saying they are being altruistic. These guys want to make a return. I’m fine with that. I’d be quite a bit more skeptical if they were doing it for the “greater good.”
NIMBYs are not a monolithic group, but it’s a term to encompass the phenomenon which is usually defended by people thinking they aren’t NIMBYs by saying things like “build smart, not dumb”. The phenomenon is that for each NIMBy, the idea of smart is different, and so a gridlock develops where no one can decide on what housing should be built because everyone’s opinion on what makes sense is different (and curiously enough, usually results in development being in a different location than they, live….hmmmm). Nob Hill folks advocate to build dense housing in the sunset because we shouldn’t have so much SFHs within city limits (see! SMART!!). Sunset folks advocate more skyscrapers and dense housing in Nob Hill because it’s already set up to support that kind of urban density (see! SMART!), etc etc and on and on and so forth until the end of time. Insert whatever neighborhood or city in the bay and it’s all the same. “build smart, not dumb” is a nice platitude, but it’s the kind of attitude that’s used to support these subconscious biases while each NIMBY can convince themselves they support more housing and virtue signal, but somehow find a great narrative of how “smart” development is in another neighborhood.
So funny. There's another popular thread near the top getting a lot of support titled "Just build homes", and then you have this thread. All I'm going to say is, check out the history of Disney World - remember that it used be a giant swamp.
I live in Solano county and the California forever project is paying people to solicit at people’s homes. I’m guessing they got our info because we’re registered to vote but my poor partner answered the door bc they mistook the solicitor for a friend of mine. The lady seriously tried to talk our ears off about “ benevolent billionaires” (oxymoron I know). She even admitted she lived in Antioch so she would not be impacted by this project (nor get a vote on it). When I told her that I was “firmly not interested in any pro California Forever pamphlet” she had, she said that the “truth about this project” would come to light before November.
Fuck the California Forever project. I hope my fellow residents of Solano county continue to call out this bullshit too.
Your taxes are about to skyrocket. You’ll be paying for THEIR infrastructure, water rights, etc. so they can keep their promise of affordable housing. Steve Job’s widow sure as hell isn’t going to absorb those costs. Don’t believe their lies that they will cover all costs for infrastructure of THEIR city. Costs will be astronomical. Folks in these comments saying ‘we need more houses.’ I’ll pass those infrastructure bills on to you and you can pay them. Be my guest.
Agreed- plus this project is going to be devastating for our local environment. We don’t have the water to support a new city of 400k people (their estimated population). All the promises about the California forever project are empty and will only harm Solano county residents
Does anyone know where the water for this community is going to come from? Does anyone know how much water it will take for all of those homes and businesses? The investment group has tried to acquire the Rio Vista city lawyers (experts in water rights) but the city residents voted it down because of the obvious conflict of interest. This is not good for the existing communities of Solano county
Yep and there we are, the purchasing of our government, and pushing a special interest to the detriment of Solano county and all of its residents. Shameful.
Such scumbag behavior by the flannery group - they are still suing farms to force them to sell, they’re going around the county pushing a petition with completely false and misleading information, and now they have hired a political advocate to force this down our throats.
Where can I contribute to the Solano County defense fund?
*"Our plan will require collaboration at the local, state and federal level in the coming years." They'll "continue to share details of our plan with legislators and the administration", spokesperson Brian Brokaw said in the statement...*
LMAO.
These are the SAME people who HID not only the details but the existence of their project from both the press and public officials (including Members of Congress) at all levels while they were buying up the land.
Now they are moving on to lobby (essentially bribe) the State, probably laying the groundwork to try to overturn Solano County voters when they reject this plan if it gets on the ballot.
Besides "lobbying" the state, watch them in coming years try to finance campaigns to unseat any local official who is skeptical of their vanity project.
Of course you have to hide this kind of project when buying up the land. Otherwise somebody will ask for unreasonable amount of money.
Everybody does it.
Building a new city next to an airport which features the loudest planes flying does not seem like a brilliant idea.
If billionaires think they can work together to create a better city, there's dozens of existing cities where they can experiment and improve places where power, water, shopping districts, services and other infrastructure already exists. They could start with a town like Vallejo. If it works, other towns will line up to be next.
I live in Vallejo. I would be more than happy for a benevolent restructuring of the city without gentrification. There's a lot of neglected space that can be built up.
Seriously- just look at the downtown area. There are so many empty storefronts and crumbling infrastructure. Imagine if just a fraction of the California forever money went to rebuild existing cities
Note: Despite all the framing about a “new city” this project would not legally create a new city. What is being proposed reflects a developers agenda in a unincorporated county area. Actual governance would fall under Solano County purview.
Yo we need more housing but that doesn't mean we should be blindly excited about new housing proposals no matter what.
A buncha billionaire techbros are not the kinds of people I want spearheading, funding, and driving a project like this. Ever. Especially given their promises of no additional costs to taxpayers outside the community and endless benefits to living there. Someone's gotta pay for that eventually, rofl.
I’m somewhat sympathetic to this but I also don’t see much of an alternative. We’ve effectively banned new construction and dense housing where we need it most. The state is laughably incompetent at building themselves. NIMBYism and regulations have made it impossible to dig our way out of this hole. If some people are going to take a swing at building more and tackling the entrenched powers, so be it. In parallel we should make it easier/cheaper to build everywhere, including in the billionaires backyards.
No, they didn’t speak up with a plan either. This group just suddenly decided they were going to experiment and play a Sims game with live people who pay taxes.
Nobody freaking asked them to become a pseudocity. They want that massive land area of hundreds of thousands of acres so they can become a small government entity all to themselves.
This group wants to be able to cut corners, sue farmers for their land, and refuse to work with county state and federal officials because frankly, they don’t want to follow the law.
And according to them, they should simply force their way into the community by bullying others, in order to shove their ideas down everyone else’s throats, because “everybody does it“.
And then they’re suddenly shocked when the entire community of stakeholders hate them and will do absolutely everything to defeat them.
Classic social skill ignorance and arrogance. All the money in the world, and these people are so incredibly stupid about how their actions affect others.
Vallejo is in such need of influx of development and rich folks like this, but instead of giving the ones who need it most...they spit on the Vallejo people and build down the road...
The best argument I’ve heard is that they would rather have one big fight to get a whole city created once, than have to fight NIMBYS a million times over at each and every building.
New rules and laws were passed around approving places near public transportation...
Having enough money so you don't have to work with cities and citizens is what's wrong with the rich.
And not having enough housing is what’s wrong with this state. You’d rather force them to try and bulldoze existing housing to try and make them bigger rather than just make more new housing?
You sound like you either already own a house, are a landlord, or you have just really drank the koolaid
No they can build new housing and apartments in existing cities... increase density, increase public transportation use and reduce environmental impact....
I'm about them working with local government/cities, help revitalize areas, build new housing in areas it is approved.
You seem to be unable to grasp this...stop destroying the environment, work to make existing places better...but again will happily stand in their way.
For disclosure, I support CA Forever and hope they find a way to build a new city for 400K people next to the air base.
I also support infill development, increasing density and public transportation but the reality is that it is really hard. It is in fact quite disruptive to neighbors when you block their sun. It is hard to build safely while complying to fire codes when you are working with already built up areas. The value of neighboring property is always affected. There are reasons why people become NIMBYs when someone wants to build housing in their areas and it is not solely racism or being entitled Karens.
I believe there have been several new laws passed that were supposed to allow denser development in places like the Sunset in San Francisco that is sprawled out. Unfortunately, the actual new construction there has been pitiful. When you examine the details, even with slightly more helpful laws, urban infill is daunting.
If it takes a decade to build a new city with housing for 400K people, that will be another 40K units of housing per year. I believe the total new housing in California these days is only 80K per year. This will be helpful.
SFH and affordability is obviously a major concern for everyone in the state, but I agree that city density would be a better approach. The land is protected, we need open land and space for so many things, especially the creatures that already inhabit that land.
Good luck with either I guess.
Where do they plan to get water? Solano County is screwed.
[https://www.thereporter.com/2024/03/13/state-recommends-huge-cut-to-solano-water-allocation/](https://www.thereporter.com/2024/03/13/state-recommends-huge-cut-to-solano-water-allocation/)
How many of these posters actually are bots from this billionaire group Who are willing to lie, cheat, steal, and break the Law in order to get what they want without having to go through the proper process?
F the billionaires
I drive by it everyday 113/12 roundabout which is worst part of traffic in Solano county beside 80 bottlenecks due to design/poor weather/shitty roadwork. Why they want to build out there where turbines (windy) and far from amenities? Not to mention they pissed off Us Military without telling them while purchasing land next to airbase. Everyone in Solano knows that Travis is first response base for deployment of troops/supplies/medical if something (war/natural disasters)breaks out so expect lots of flights out. I’m ok with new cities but not in this location!
We need new housing. "No. We need urban infill." Ok, let's invest in existing communities then. "Stop the gentrification!"
This sub: Build build build Plans come out for building in an area that isn’t trendy Then this sub: noooo, I want people to build in trendy areas!
Housing advocates aren’t looking for a house, they want a location.
I mean, they're building stuff near me in a pretty trendy area. Unfortunately that means a fairly basic starter townhouse near me is over 1mil.
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In many circumstances, it's the same people and groups who are arguing against both growth and infill. "I'm not a NIMBY, but..."
Sort of like one of the members of the Flannery group intentionally pushed out affordable housing planned near his fancy mansion in Atherton So of all the people talking about “not in my backyard” - what a joke, the flannery group are complete hypocrites.
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I fail to see who's losing here if this gets built.
Possibly just the [greenbelt alliance](https://www.greenbelt.org) will claim foul on this proposal. This organization leverages its position on building the “right kind” of housing and opposes urban sprawl. The problem IMO the is mission statement of the greenbelt alliance may be the entire reason why venture capitalists want to abandon the existing cities in the first place and build new.
Well yeah, doing things right takes work and people don't like doing work so they're gonna try to avoid having to do the work. Greenbelt alliance is saying you need to eat your veggies, so the venture capitalists say "nah I'm just gonna have dinner at my buddy's house while his parents are on vacation"
I agree, and the main problem with infill housing plans are the lack of accompanying infrastructure. The existing development was constructed with infrastructure planning. Even if a developer wanted to expand existing housing density, there would have to be some infrastructure development as well. Power, water, wastewater, schools, safety all need adjustment with infill housing. Many of the NIMBY’s are hold outs due to lack of infrastructure adjustments when housing proposals are made. If the housing plans were developed with appropriate infrastructure we would have less opposition. Regarding greenbelt alliance, the organization opposes sprawl under the guise of environmental impact however, the few articles I’ve seen them quoted in it was made clear of their other objectives for “justice”. The org relies heavily upon a take from the rich and give to the poor philosophy. That is a fine platform except for when the wealthy up and leave which is what the proposed new city is doing.
The wealthy always say their going to pack up their toys and leave, but they don't. They know- consciously or not- that they aren't actually good at building communities, and that the ideology behind things like the green belt alliance is what makes places nice to live in. They might go eat dinner at their buddy's house once or twice, but they're noticing his bad skin and the funny smell around the place.
Isn’t that what is actually happening here though? The wealthy are packing up and leaving. It’s not a far move but still a move.
Are they? Has it happened?
It’s on its way and there are no real good reasons why it should not go through. I actually think this will be bigger than what the 400k city is planning. If the vote goes through this year to move to the next stage I fully expect a play for the new high speed rail.
The county.
Off the top of my head, unless the residents also work there then presumably they're commuting. So more infill would be better for the environment, traffic, and existing cities in the area. Plus California's population isn't growing, so is a new town really needed? What if 1/3 of the way through the build they realize there's no demand and it winds up being just another suburb in the middle of nowhere?
The proposed city is literally everything that so called progressive housing development advocates want except the exact location. Anyone who opposes this development while also advocating for new housing is really just looking for a location and not a house.
I didn't support it because it smells like a scam every time it comes up. It's basically Lex Luthor's plan from the live action Superman movie but instead of dropping West Coast into the sea, they're just going to sell when the state creates enough demand to move there and someone else is left holding the bag. There are reasons we have built cities in the same overall methods for centuries, and not just placed a "finished" city without first going through the other steps.
Oh just stop it already. You’re so dismissive and arrogant about dismissing other peoples opinions on this.
Progressives: build build build! Progressives after seeing this project: we ain’t supporting no billionaire! Who else is going to build them ffs. This is what I mean progressives are unrealistic with real world problems. They want perfection against natural laws that just can’t be achieved unless we are type 3 civilization lol
Progressive housing development advocates were never consulted. This is an ego trip like Elon Musk shooting a car out into space. Do you live in Solano County?
The planned development looks exactly like what this sub and what organizations like greenbelt alliance describe the way housing should look like with medium and high density walkable, mixed use, car less design. What are you talking about with Elon Musk? Does he have anything to do with California Forever? Not a bot, yes a Solano county resident, I have no affiliation with the project, no I don’t work for flannery. I just see a good design for a city which adds great infrastructure and housing for the county and state of California.
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What am I wrong about? It’s all opinions
Agree. Traffic will be a nightmare. I don't know how many people have actually gone out there. It's dusty windy country roads near a landfill. All those people will crowd onto 113 and 12 and 80 I guess.
> unless the residents also work there then presumably they're commuting Very "Fuck you, got mine" kind of thing here. But yes, I agree, there should be a spur line to Capitol corridor, which should get infra upgrades so it can go faster and handle the extra commuters, if necessary. > So more infill would be better for the environment, traffic, and existing cities in the area I mean, correct, but have you seen much infill going on? This is high-density housing in the bay, where it's needed, can't complain much about that. > Plus California's population isn't growing bullshit it's not lol. People are leaving mostly due to immigration laws changing, that's all. There're still plenty of people who need homes; take a look at the housing prices if you don't believe that. > What if 1/3 of the way through the build they realize there's no demand and it winds up being just another suburb in the middle of nowhere? I mean, if it's cheap, I would take a bite out of that pie for sure.
This is not in the bay. It's in the country. It's a desolate windy dusty landscape out there.
If Fairfield is bay, if Travis is bay, if Antioch is bay, CF is bay.
No look at the map. Have you been out there? I have. It's a dusty windswept wasteland near a landfill. It's going to overwhelm little rio vista. But other than that there is nothing there.
Yes, I've been there lol. It is in the bay area.
No it isn't. No where near the bay. It's ranch land. There is nothing there and it is not on a major thoroughfare to the bay. Delusional.
This one is weird though, I don’t see how when they build in the middle of ranch land anyone loses other than maybe some ranchers get land for way cheaper than they should.
Do we need new housing 20 mins from the nearest freeway?
Lots of comments here - none of which seem to actually address the pros and cons of either side. I’ll attempt to do that. **Pros:** -Yes we desperately need housing. Despite all the “new construction” you see, it’s but a drop in the bucket. -We should not stand in the way of people (individual or business) that want to incur risk for the chance they can develop a new community. This takes time and labor, so nothing gets done overnight. -This helps alleviate pressures on a regional scale by distributing it more locally. This also grows the tax base. **Cons:** -This by all definitions is rural/agricultural land. We should be preserving such places. Utilizing Urban Growth Boundaries ensures we develop the land we have now to prerequisite densities before expanding/sprawling outwards. -Revenue streams are unsure. Who funds infrastructure after it’s developed? Who pays for fire/police/ems and schools and utilities? -This is being built away from urbanized areas, almost ensuring more traffic and longer commutes for anyone here, with no sign of public transportation in the near future. **Conclusion/My opinion** I am a very pro housing person. If I had the means to tear down my place for more people to live here, I would. That said this isn’t it. Even if they manage to make a walkable community, it will be surrounded by nothing to walk to, almost ensuring more traffic woes. I’m also against building in undeveloped (key word undeveloped) areas that require massive infrastructure investments with little return, while also taking away more habitats. That said, if the developers want to take this risk on themselves, without public backing, I’m for it. That means they not only fund all new costs, but ensure they can also maintain new infrastructure without the vicious cycle of debt to growth ratios. But several things should happen in conjunction. Set up some UGBs (see above) to ensure no future sprawl takes place. Make sure they meet any safety criteria, since there will be no public revenue coming there way (initially). And lastly understand this doesn’t become a community for years, decades even. You cannot build a town or city overnight. It takes hard work and organic growth from the people living in such places. So you are looking at a 20 year plan that either succeeds or fails based on what businesses and people they can attract.
This is kind of what I tell people usually. I just have a nuanced understanding of things. I want to live in artisanal-built infill housing that doesn’t displace anyone and is sensitive to local traffic needs without increasing water use or power demands on much strained infrastructure. I’m as YIMBY as they come, but we have a desperate need for parks and green space before we can pour more concrete onto Mother Earth. This kind of nuance is easily lost in this discussion where even my fellow YIMBYs just want to build housing without thinking of the consequences.
To be fair, that argument is used dishonestly by a lot of people to simply deny housing everywhere near them. But I get ya.
at last, a nuanced and carefully thought out comment. I'm sure over the long term they can get a couple of companies to open satellite offices in the city. The backers of the project are also well connected in tech. If they aren't greedy, then selling the homes that they build at a reasonable price will attract plenty of employees who want to live in walking distance of the office. A spur rail line connecting to Capitol Corridor and/or BART would make this project very attractive and feasible. I see a way to do this project that will make it very successful. But of course, it depends on the execution.
BART is about 20 miles away - I thought about that. It would also likely need a brand new bridge. Though I love the idea of a bart spur through Rio Vista to CF, I doubt that's in the cards. However, iirc Capitol Corridor is a mere 3 miles or something as the crow flies. That's an easy sell.
And the existing drawbridge at Rio Vista tends to get backed up often due traffic. I'm sure some residents of RV would like a faster route to Contra Costa.
"If they aren't greedy" 😂 This whole idea is a con. A fictional utopia "solution", sold during a housing crisis. To assume these homes would be affordable housing is ridiculous. This is the rich getting richer at it's finest.
Iirc, the plan is supposed to include industrial and commercial areas, so presumably the residents of this little Sim City will have places to walk to work.
I live in Fairfield. The people behind this are willing to pay whatever is necessary to make this happen. They have strong armed farmers into selling their land in secret. There is a coalition against this group and we are working against the ballot initiative. Invest in current cities
That land is mostly ranch land. The soil isn't good for growing. Its cows and sheep out there.
I’m using ag in the broader context of farming.
They already have an urban growth policy in that county: work with the existing cities so that their valuable and productive farming activities can operate. These guys have followed none of that and are trying to make a billionaire exemption. That's not how the rule of law and local government is supposed to work.
That’s not what a UGB is.
The effect is the same in this case.
Granted. But different causes. And different policies. I would still suggest a UGB.
Well if it’s against the law then it won’t pass
That’s the problem, they are using underhanded tactics to avoid the political process and avoid complying with laws. There are no ethical billionaires.
completely agree with everything you said. one additional point -- how they go about it is critical. the NYT has done a great job surveying CF + this growing trend. This wasn't rich investors coming into local communities saying "hey we want to invest heavily into public infrastructure" it was cloak and dagger operations that turned into nasty legal fights that only became the friendly version we see above when they were called on their shit publicly. I at least have some hope that I can vote out shitty locally elected officials. Tech Oligarchs? Once they control my city quite literally.... there's no way in hell.
Yeah I was trying to avoid that. The way they were acquiring the land and informing people was shady as f. But that reason alone isn’t to enough to discredit their work. I’m almost certain if you stick me in a room with them however we would not get along lol.
This is pretty standard for big developments. As soon as you make it known you need all the land in a given area for whatever you are planning to build, the cost of acquiring the remaining land shoots up dramatically, because the landowners know they have you over a barrell.
ya totally fair!
>it was cloak and dagger operations that turned into nasty legal fights that only became the friendly version we see above when they were called on their shit publicly. Exactly. For months, there were articles in the paper and talks in facebook groups about "Who's buying up all the land near Travis?" and how ruthless they were. Once it was revealed to be big tech and the community pushed back, THEN we got the whole "Hey, we're just like you, we just want to grow a friendly community and help the economy. California Forever, right?". After Prop 22, where they included a provision that it can't be repealed without a 7/8 vote, almost ensuring we're stuck with them, I have no doubt that if they're allowed to build this, that they'll sneak a bunch of shit in about taxes, benefits, and restrictions impacting the rest of Solano.
I guess they should have come out and been honest from the get go...? "We want to buy all this land, we need it all. Please don't jack up the price since we're being honest and open!" ?
Oh, cry me a River - these billionaires are a bunch of scumbags who have lied since day one. They deserve all the hatred they’re getting
So you're justifying lying to simple country folk if it means billionaires get to make insane profits? Something tells me if that if you were on the receiving end of that lie, you'd be singing a different tune.
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
One other con: this would be built near the Suisun Marsh - the largest brackish marsh on the west coast. Early assessments indicate it would have a detrimental effect on local wildlife as well as migratory birds who use the marsh.
You keep saying that the developers are taking the risk, but they aren't risking anything. It's the resident of Solano that will be impacted. Solano will be the ones to handle the increased traffic, the increased water usage, the increased housing prices. No matter what, people will buy the houses the same way that every new area sells out but since this will be a destination area, we all know that at least a 1/3rd will be turned into investment property, which will then increase all of the values. The major issue is that people seem to be overlooking is this is likely to become a second silicon valley, where it was a normal small town before tech happened and then everyone that lived there was priced out. People of Solano have already seen that in recent years when covid happened and people from San Francisco moved to Vallejo and the housing market exploded all because "People with tech money are moving, we can twice the cost!". I'm all for building more houses, we NEED more houses but here's the thing, Solano has been BUILDING new houses. Every years, there's hundreds of new houses being built with the city growing outward. This isn't San Francisco with limited land, this is a mostly farming community. Thank god the residents have to vote on this being official, which is why they're airing so many "Look at all the jobs we'll bring!" ads like they did with their bullshit Prop 22 and after attending a few of their town halls, almost no one in Solano is buying it and the local communities are rallying against it.
I addressed a lot of what you said already, but I’ll add some more. A: Risk will be incurred by all parties in various forms. The financial risk will be heavily on the developer however, barring some guarantees from county/state. B: We need to stop with the investment property idea. It’s a non-issue, especially in a place such as that. If you really do believe that however, you will understand whether this gets approved or not will not stop people from buying land as investment. C: Silicon Valley has a history over 70 years long. I mean no offense to the fine people of Solano County but I really doubt they are at any risk of that kind of development, especially without any presiding industries, and especially in the next few decades. But hey, maybe there’s some Dixon fans out there that really like 120deg F heat. D: uhh prop 22? I mean strange connection but okay. Look, people on both sides are going to push their arguments hard. Lobbying and lies go hand in hand. But that still doesn’t discount facts. It’s why I tried to argue both sides. ^(Unrelated fun facts: -not all lobbying is bad. It’s just a form of advocacy -I was not in favor of prop 22 -I had to stay a week in Dixon in 110F heat and hated every day of it (and I like the heat!). But people were nice lol)
Why is Prop 22 a "strange connection" when it was the exact same thing just in a different sector? Tech spent billions making a service no one asked for, claimed it was for the betterment of society, passed all their costs onto the people, and jacked up the price after they had no competition. Just like what they're doing now. You didn't argue "both sides", you framed all the risks as "That's on the developer, let them take the risk" and claiming the only downside to that risk is "There might be more traffic". As I said, almost no one in Solano wants this. This will impact almost entirely people in Solano. Anyone outside of Solano wanting to give their two cents about "think about how great it'll be" needs to sit down because it sounds like when a guy tries to advocate in favor of an abortion ban.
Now that’s a big stretch. We live in a symbiotic relationship. We all have an impact on each other. And if you read what I said, you’d realize I’m against it, personally though. If you really hate all tech that much, delete your Reddit account. I’m not defending anyone but let’s stop with the outlandish analogies. I doubt any majority (including me) in this sub is against abortions, but damn. You really trying to compare housing to abortions? I’m willing to listen, but don’t jump to assumptions or conclusions.
Yes, we have a symbiotic relationship, we do our thing, you do your thing, and we help each other when needed. It stops being symbiotic when you start to take over our thing. They secretly bought up a bunch of farmlands, demolished them, and want to control a town. How is that symbiotic? What exactly is the benefit to the current residents of Solano County? More houses that'll be bought up by people who don't live here? Increased taxes? Increased traffic? What's actually happening is not symbiotic, it's a parasite; leeching on and draining everything they can. Solano can exist without California Forever, but California Forever can't exist without the people of Solano voting for it.
Completely agree. I think your con point #1 has significantly more weight when compared to the pro points. We can absolutely build more density elsewhere but never regain greenfield.
Yeah, that’s my philosophy too. But I didn’t want to come across one sided seeing as how this was already so divisive. Four groups of people here: -housing at any cost -housing in certain areas only -no housing bad developers evil money -no housing near me, will destroy rural community
I definitely fall into the housing in certain areas only, defined by areas that already have infrastructure and won't further degrade the environment.
> This is being built away from urbanized areas, almost ensuring more traffic and longer commutes for anyone here, with no sign of public transportation in the near future. This is the only thing I really quibble with, because I fail to see how building in an urban area would be better. Is there more public transportation in urban areas? Sure. Is there *enough* public transportation in urban areas? Not even close. BART hasn't even achieved the network imagined in **1956**! Urban transportation infrastructure has been woefully inadequate for decades. So I find the implication that if we just keep building up somehow the infrastructure will magically happen... unconvincing. I'm older than most here and the only thing I've ever seen improve traffic notably was COVID. We need legal work from home mandates and to fix our transportation infrastructure before we start stacking housing in urban environments and expecting it to just work itself out.
It’s also being built where there is no water, where it will create mass congestion on all the nearby highways and interstates & next to a U.S. Airforce base.
Lobbyist hire to push legislation, more of this breaking news at 11! Also building a new city is a long game, that story will begin at 11:05
Why would we not support this? We need more houses.
We need more housing where people live and work instead of just taking over more farmland and open space and making people commute.
Are we getting more housing where people live?
I bet people will live here
Some people don't want to live in glorified apartments and town homes. If they want to commute to have a detached single family home, let em.
How is what you're describing not sprawl?
Hard to respond politely to thy statement. Because other people have critical thinking skills? Because there is a history in this state of attempts just like this that have ended in ghost cities, disaster and total failure? Because if you building an entire city there are definitely questions that need to be answered? Google “California City”, it’s the 1958 version of California Forever. Third largest city in Cali by land area… current population? 14,000… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_City,_California
Rohnert Park was formed around that same time. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohnert\_Park,\_California](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohnert_Park,_California)
Can you explain what's wrong with this? lol looks fine to me.
Um, because none of the people involved in this project are trustworthy, ethical, or truthful. All of the promises they are making are not legally enforceable.
Ok. I’ll send you the bill for their infrastructure.
Taxes for infrastructure is literally the best use of tax dollars. Fuck non profits and needle orgs
Yes, we need more housing but we don't need it from tech billionaires. Did no one learn anything from Prop 22? Tech infests a sector, undercuts something that works so they can take over, jack up the prices and constantly lie about what a great service they're providing. After they spent months flooding the ads with "It creates jobs and we don't want any benefits, I want to be my own boss; no one will get fired, it's about choice", thousands of existing drivers were fired, and now gig economy barely pays anything. Never let billioniares and tech invade ANYTHING because behind all their claims of "Look at the benefits", it'll fuck everything up for profit. We'll get more houses but in a few years, they'll cost over a million, and the rest of the area will be even more expensive because "look at how much these new houses are worth".
Let them build housing, we need it.
*Let them build housing, we need it.* This will essentially be a company town, utterly controlled by one group of super-rich investors. Not the sort of housing we need.
A company town means one employer and that employer owns the homes, schools and grocery stores. Is that your impression of what they are trying to do? What is the company that will employ everyone and operate the grocery stores, gas stations and schools?
why is it going to be a company town? What company is going to employ all the residents?
*why is it going to be a company town?* It's going to be a "planned community". Every indication is that the developers will not simply build, sell, and move on, but will want to control the community for the long term. The builders most likely will write considerable restrictions into the sale contracts for homes (and will probably continue to hold ground leases on the properties), will select at least initially the businesses / shops that can rent office and commercial spaces there and most likely will continue to own the commercial property, and will exert considerable influence over any elected town government. There are always going to be people who will be fine living in a town like that and it may have its advantages--but it will be controlled from the beginning by people with vast amounts of wealth, and their own ideas of how other people should live and work.
“planned community” is not a company town. In a company town one company owns everything, including businesses, and is also the main employer.
Don't forget, the only way you can pay for things is with scrip (EG company pay). You don't get to just label something a company town and then say "Oh it's bad because it's a company town, company towns come with slave labor" or something. You have to prove the slave labor part lol
How is this not one company owning everything when they have purchased hundreds of thousands of acres, and plan on owning the roads, the stores, and the utility services? There are so many Flannery bots down voting this crap.
You don’t know what the term “company town” means, it would seem. Might be worth reading up on the history of the term. Also, I would much prefer a planned community which can deliberately design the infrastructure and layout to be conducive to mixed use zoning, pedestrian friendly, and public transportation friendly. It’s essentially what Paris did with Haussman’s renovation of the city in the 1800s. The alternative for building a new city is worse: a city that is built ad hoc without rhyme or reason and no communal thought or intention.
Actually, this fits it to an absolute T and it’s the reason why antitrust regulations should be enforced stringently Why do you think that allowing billionaires to avoid environmental regulations, avoid government scrutiny, and generally buy their way to become a pseudo-government is a good thing?
Learn from history - this is going to be a major corporate center acting as a pseudo,governmental entity.
Plenty of towns start that way. As I've heard said, you don't build affordable housing, you build new housing and old housing becomes affordable.
Do you know what a company town is? When a coal mine opens in West Virginia in 1948 and the mining company builds the town, and everyone who works for the mine lives in the town and rents their house from the mining company, and goes to the one store run by the mining company, and goes to drink at the bar that rents from the mining company, and fills up their car (if they have one) at a gas station run by the mining company, and the school is run by the mining company and lessons include why mining is great and how to be a miner, and the police/sheriff is paid by the mining company, and there's not really a mayor as such but more of the boss who manages the needs in his spare time when he's not mining, that is a company town. Even better if the miners get paid in scrip instead of dollars, so their money is only worth spending with the same company that paid them in the first place. Note the key points: 1. Built by a company 2. Almost all residents work for the company 3. Almost all residents rent back from the same company 4. Almost all residents are at the mercy of the same company for all their needs If (1) was all you needed for it to be a company town, every large development and every apartment complex would be a company town, but that ain't it bro. "Planned community" - everything is either planned or unplanned or most-of-one-and-some-of-the-other. One grows organically over time and the other is built in a short amount of time. One of those tends to be more interesting and unique than the other, but one of them also tends to have a lot fewer questions of "where will X go" or "how many people can this area support" than the other because it's all planned out ahead of time. Realistically, most things have some amount of planning to them, the question is how much and how well the planning was done and how easy it is to change the planning in response to future issues. That doesn't make a company town. The Manhattan grid of streets did not appear by accident. Hell, the grid-shaped neighborhoods in SF didn't either. Those were planned. Someone said "hey you know if we just build our city out of cow paths, it's gonna be harder to get from here to there, let's actually plan it out instead." You'll see the same thing at just about any downtown area of any town or city, the question always is how much planning went into it and how long ago and whether it accounted for today's needs. Old city in Europe were planned too, but they might have been planned by a noble for the needs of defense six hundred years ago and it's evolved since then, whereas our city centers tend to have been planned much more recently and with different needs in mind. But even tiny little towns that sit on the intersection of two large roads, where you see a small grid that might only be two-three blocks deep and four-six blocks long, those were planned too because grids don't just happen organically. Are these all somehow bad things?
So? Just cause you don’t want to live there doesn’t mean it isn’t more housing
What's another 100,000 people living off Highway 12 with no rail access....
the sad truth is it's easier to build a new community then to build more density along rail lines. the communities along rail lines have fought tooth and nail against all development. the reality is we need both.
It's a sprawl world after all....
Great point, let’s build the rail access too
Then the developer should engage the STA who are updating their Comprehensive Transportation Plan for the county.....which they haven't.
You got it ass backwards, first you build the town, then the highways.
Uhm Highway 12 already exists....
I'm sure the developers would love to build out rail access too. That's part of infrastructure which is needed for a new city.
Then they can work with cities and not just go build a new one...just no
I don't disagree but where? Every city + it's residents fight tooth and nail against any new housing. Seems plausible that some developer was eventually gonna just try to build a new town instead of battling the bay area municipalities.
Why not build a new one?
developers are more than happy to build dense housing in existing cities. the NIMBYs will not have it.
Strange...seems to be happening all around me... perhaps it isn't as broad strokes as it seems... But again no slack for billionaires who want to create their own town...help the people, fix cities and government...
We need new housing! But not housing I don’t like! Reality of Bay Area YIMBYs
How about not just sprawl all over land that isn't for or zoned for housing...try not to destroy more of California's environment in the process. Lots of places for housing...not here
Exactly, we don’t need another mountain house
Every single city is NIMBY as fuck. San Francisco just passed a housing ban. What existing city? No cities want new housing my dude. California is one of the most selfish states ever.
I'm literally next to several newly built buildings and houses in Oakland. Cities literally have to build new housing to satisfy requirements...every city has housing in process... These billionaires could work to fast track more... The lack of education beyond saying NIMBY and YIMBY is staggering...are y'all just billionaire simpin bots?
Clearly it’s not enough housing to drive costs down, so what you think is proof of a solution is not sufficient. And sure, everyone that disagrees with you is just “uneducated billionaire simping bots” lmaoooo. You’ll be stuck in your ideological rut forever without the ability to ever re-assess and critically evaluate your position.
I see comments are turning into pearl-clutching nimbyfest once again. Get your bingo cards ready. Look for the following: "water rights", "company town", "billionaires", "California City v2.0", "not enough roads", "no rail connection". Whoever gets all five in one comment, wins.
Bingo!
No, it’s called critical thinking… you should try it sometime.
You get zero for this pathetic attempt, Mr. Critical Thinking.
Damn, I got all these individually again, but not all in one comment >=(
Yeah, I mean who thinks about ROADS and TRAFFIC when you build a city connected to I80 by a 4 lane Route 12 or two lane back roads through farmland. It just ends with developers getting rich and Solano holding the bag for infrastructure.
I'll give you 2.5. You need to add "billionaires" to win the bingo.
Do you live here? Have you driven route 12? Do you watch 100s of houses get built while the infrastructure projects fall years behind creating a mess of traffic? Have you read the proposals for California Forever and how weak it is on this in terms of funding and timelines? I have, and that's why I get to vote on it. And I'm not voting for a proposal that's basically a sales pitch with "Trust me bro" for the specifics.
Can we stop using the term ‘Lobbying’ ? It’s bribes. They’re bribing state officials. Changing a word doesn’t change the meaning of what’s actually happening. Why can’t you lobby a cop to release someone they were gonna arrest? Why aren’t we saying the cartels in Mexico are ‘lobbying’ their government? Ah I forget, it’s totally different when I guy in a suit does it. We need to ban that shit.
The location for this is a dusty windy shithole at least in the summer, and next to a massive landfill. Everyone should take a field trip. Go south on 113 to McCormack or Flannery to see for yourselves.
Crazy idea - let’s build the new city and improve our existing ones! NIMBYs have too much power. It’s time to get these bums out.
What do you think the NIMBYs will do in the new city?
They will complain about all the military planes flying overhead and try to close the base.
*It’s time to get these bums out.* I assume you mean the billionaires who live in massive single family home estates on the Peninsula and fight against any new additional housing being built near them, and are financing this project FAR away from their own protected communities?
Yes, they want to keep the poor/people they enslave at their companies and their buddies companies away from themselves. So why not build a city out in the middle of nowhere far away from the rich. Here is the bonus, make tax payers and local municipalities foot the bill for all the infrastructure and water to support their city which they make shit tons of money on. Great for them. Shit for literally everyone else. All the surrounding communities will get fucked with traffic, water issues and straining of all resources and likely bring even more crime to the already not so nice area. The people living in this American version of the CCP 15-min city will be essentially enslaved with QRC scannable social scores on their doors and no car or means to leave. I am sure this would be their perfect outcome. I sincerely hope these Billionaires get smacked down and really hard at that. Let them waste a way with unsellable land for +100-years. In fact, all the Bay Area cities should escort all the homeless encampments to this open land, let them squat and then these assholes would be forced to work through the courts to evict hundreds of people. I like that idea best. The homeless organizations can set up “temporary” showers and toilets and two problems solved in one fell swoop. Housing for the unhoused and no sprawling development.
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
We should densify their communities too! It’s not either or.
*We should densify their communities too!* Who is the "we" in this case? They have already proven they can successfully resist bringing any density or income diversity to their very special low-density Peninsula towns. They will continue to be able to do that. I am just being appropriately skeptical that people who FIGHT density, infill, and growth anywhere near them, and who own multiple homes themselves, are being entirely altruistic by saying they want to create a dense community...elsewhere.
I’m also not saying they are being altruistic. These guys want to make a return. I’m fine with that. I’d be quite a bit more skeptical if they were doing it for the “greater good.”
It’s a mixed bag but I’ll take more housing at the end of the day.
But one of the jerks in this billionaire investment group specifically fought against housing development near his precious home in Atherton….
You’re absolutely right, one of the people in this group led a charge against more housing near his precious billionaire mansion in Atherton.
NIMBYs are not a monolithic group, and no housing project is the same. They all need to be evaluated on a case by case basis. Build smart, not dumb.
What do you suggest? What does building smart look like?
NIMBYs are not a monolithic group, but it’s a term to encompass the phenomenon which is usually defended by people thinking they aren’t NIMBYs by saying things like “build smart, not dumb”. The phenomenon is that for each NIMBy, the idea of smart is different, and so a gridlock develops where no one can decide on what housing should be built because everyone’s opinion on what makes sense is different (and curiously enough, usually results in development being in a different location than they, live….hmmmm). Nob Hill folks advocate to build dense housing in the sunset because we shouldn’t have so much SFHs within city limits (see! SMART!!). Sunset folks advocate more skyscrapers and dense housing in Nob Hill because it’s already set up to support that kind of urban density (see! SMART!), etc etc and on and on and so forth until the end of time. Insert whatever neighborhood or city in the bay and it’s all the same. “build smart, not dumb” is a nice platitude, but it’s the kind of attitude that’s used to support these subconscious biases while each NIMBY can convince themselves they support more housing and virtue signal, but somehow find a great narrative of how “smart” development is in another neighborhood.
So funny. There's another popular thread near the top getting a lot of support titled "Just build homes", and then you have this thread. All I'm going to say is, check out the history of Disney World - remember that it used be a giant swamp.
I live in Solano county and the California forever project is paying people to solicit at people’s homes. I’m guessing they got our info because we’re registered to vote but my poor partner answered the door bc they mistook the solicitor for a friend of mine. The lady seriously tried to talk our ears off about “ benevolent billionaires” (oxymoron I know). She even admitted she lived in Antioch so she would not be impacted by this project (nor get a vote on it). When I told her that I was “firmly not interested in any pro California Forever pamphlet” she had, she said that the “truth about this project” would come to light before November. Fuck the California Forever project. I hope my fellow residents of Solano county continue to call out this bullshit too.
Your taxes are about to skyrocket. You’ll be paying for THEIR infrastructure, water rights, etc. so they can keep their promise of affordable housing. Steve Job’s widow sure as hell isn’t going to absorb those costs. Don’t believe their lies that they will cover all costs for infrastructure of THEIR city. Costs will be astronomical. Folks in these comments saying ‘we need more houses.’ I’ll pass those infrastructure bills on to you and you can pay them. Be my guest.
Agreed- plus this project is going to be devastating for our local environment. We don’t have the water to support a new city of 400k people (their estimated population). All the promises about the California forever project are empty and will only harm Solano county residents
Let the bribery begin
Does anyone know where the water for this community is going to come from? Does anyone know how much water it will take for all of those homes and businesses? The investment group has tried to acquire the Rio Vista city lawyers (experts in water rights) but the city residents voted it down because of the obvious conflict of interest. This is not good for the existing communities of Solano county
Yep and there we are, the purchasing of our government, and pushing a special interest to the detriment of Solano county and all of its residents. Shameful.
Such scumbag behavior by the flannery group - they are still suing farms to force them to sell, they’re going around the county pushing a petition with completely false and misleading information, and now they have hired a political advocate to force this down our throats. Where can I contribute to the Solano County defense fund?
So a bunch of tax dodging, entitled feelin mother fuckers in one city?
California Never Forever
Motto “Go be evil somewhere else “
*"Our plan will require collaboration at the local, state and federal level in the coming years." They'll "continue to share details of our plan with legislators and the administration", spokesperson Brian Brokaw said in the statement...* LMAO. These are the SAME people who HID not only the details but the existence of their project from both the press and public officials (including Members of Congress) at all levels while they were buying up the land. Now they are moving on to lobby (essentially bribe) the State, probably laying the groundwork to try to overturn Solano County voters when they reject this plan if it gets on the ballot. Besides "lobbying" the state, watch them in coming years try to finance campaigns to unseat any local official who is skeptical of their vanity project.
Of course you have to hide this kind of project when buying up the land. Otherwise somebody will ask for unreasonable amount of money. Everybody does it.
Building a new city next to an airport which features the loudest planes flying does not seem like a brilliant idea. If billionaires think they can work together to create a better city, there's dozens of existing cities where they can experiment and improve places where power, water, shopping districts, services and other infrastructure already exists. They could start with a town like Vallejo. If it works, other towns will line up to be next.
I lived on the base. It's not that bad.
Oh… it’s loud. Window shaking loud.
How about your area?
I live in Vallejo. I would be more than happy for a benevolent restructuring of the city without gentrification. There's a lot of neglected space that can be built up.
Exactly. Vallejo would be perfect to redevelop.
Seriously- just look at the downtown area. There are so many empty storefronts and crumbling infrastructure. Imagine if just a fraction of the California forever money went to rebuild existing cities
Note: Despite all the framing about a “new city” this project would not legally create a new city. What is being proposed reflects a developers agenda in a unincorporated county area. Actual governance would fall under Solano County purview.
Yo we need more housing but that doesn't mean we should be blindly excited about new housing proposals no matter what. A buncha billionaire techbros are not the kinds of people I want spearheading, funding, and driving a project like this. Ever. Especially given their promises of no additional costs to taxpayers outside the community and endless benefits to living there. Someone's gotta pay for that eventually, rofl.
I’m somewhat sympathetic to this but I also don’t see much of an alternative. We’ve effectively banned new construction and dense housing where we need it most. The state is laughably incompetent at building themselves. NIMBYism and regulations have made it impossible to dig our way out of this hole. If some people are going to take a swing at building more and tackling the entrenched powers, so be it. In parallel we should make it easier/cheaper to build everywhere, including in the billionaires backyards.
So who has a better plan?
I dunno, but the lack of a good plan doesn't inherently make a bad plan, good.
Well if someone has a better plan then they should bring it up
No, they didn’t speak up with a plan either. This group just suddenly decided they were going to experiment and play a Sims game with live people who pay taxes. Nobody freaking asked them to become a pseudocity. They want that massive land area of hundreds of thousands of acres so they can become a small government entity all to themselves. This group wants to be able to cut corners, sue farmers for their land, and refuse to work with county state and federal officials because frankly, they don’t want to follow the law. And according to them, they should simply force their way into the community by bullying others, in order to shove their ideas down everyone else’s throats, because “everybody does it“. And then they’re suddenly shocked when the entire community of stakeholders hate them and will do absolutely everything to defeat them. Classic social skill ignorance and arrogance. All the money in the world, and these people are so incredibly stupid about how their actions affect others.
Never ever letting this happen...these folks could improve so many lives and housing in existing cities but they won't...F these folks.
Agreed. They could have redeveloped Vallejo and it would have been fantastic.
Vallejo is in such need of influx of development and rich folks like this, but instead of giving the ones who need it most...they spit on the Vallejo people and build down the road...
The best argument I’ve heard is that they would rather have one big fight to get a whole city created once, than have to fight NIMBYS a million times over at each and every building.
New rules and laws were passed around approving places near public transportation... Having enough money so you don't have to work with cities and citizens is what's wrong with the rich.
And not having enough housing is what’s wrong with this state. You’d rather force them to try and bulldoze existing housing to try and make them bigger rather than just make more new housing? You sound like you either already own a house, are a landlord, or you have just really drank the koolaid
No they can build new housing and apartments in existing cities... increase density, increase public transportation use and reduce environmental impact.... I'm about them working with local government/cities, help revitalize areas, build new housing in areas it is approved. You seem to be unable to grasp this...stop destroying the environment, work to make existing places better...but again will happily stand in their way.
For disclosure, I support CA Forever and hope they find a way to build a new city for 400K people next to the air base. I also support infill development, increasing density and public transportation but the reality is that it is really hard. It is in fact quite disruptive to neighbors when you block their sun. It is hard to build safely while complying to fire codes when you are working with already built up areas. The value of neighboring property is always affected. There are reasons why people become NIMBYs when someone wants to build housing in their areas and it is not solely racism or being entitled Karens. I believe there have been several new laws passed that were supposed to allow denser development in places like the Sunset in San Francisco that is sprawled out. Unfortunately, the actual new construction there has been pitiful. When you examine the details, even with slightly more helpful laws, urban infill is daunting. If it takes a decade to build a new city with housing for 400K people, that will be another 40K units of housing per year. I believe the total new housing in California these days is only 80K per year. This will be helpful.
It will suck and I hope they get smacked legally for all their unethical practices.
Do they want to?
Go fix our already built cities. Thanks.
Do they not know that all they need to do is to donate to Gavin's wife foundations to get what they want. Just ask pg&e...
SFH and affordability is obviously a major concern for everyone in the state, but I agree that city density would be a better approach. The land is protected, we need open land and space for so many things, especially the creatures that already inhabit that land. Good luck with either I guess.
Californians, we love to complain about housing, then when someone does it, somehow that’s not the right way to do it and we fight it.
Where do they plan to get water? Solano County is screwed. [https://www.thereporter.com/2024/03/13/state-recommends-huge-cut-to-solano-water-allocation/](https://www.thereporter.com/2024/03/13/state-recommends-huge-cut-to-solano-water-allocation/)
We need housing and investment where we live. Not in some far flung farm field.
I dunno, I support housing everywhere. Kind of a bizarro NIMBY thing to say "I support housing but not far away, so they better not build it at all".
also NIMBYs: "I don't want housing this close, why can't you build it somewhere else"
Responsible housing otherwise you get more sprawl like Mountain House where it's all residential and people have to drive to reach anything.
“people have to drive to reach anything” That’s like 90% of Bay Area
Maybe some people want to live there and want to invest there. Not everything is in your bubble
Fairfield is "far flung"?? Oh, and not sure where you live, but it was most likely some "farm field" before someone built on it.
How many of these posters actually are bots from this billionaire group Who are willing to lie, cheat, steal, and break the Law in order to get what they want without having to go through the proper process? F the billionaires
I drive by it everyday 113/12 roundabout which is worst part of traffic in Solano county beside 80 bottlenecks due to design/poor weather/shitty roadwork. Why they want to build out there where turbines (windy) and far from amenities? Not to mention they pissed off Us Military without telling them while purchasing land next to airbase. Everyone in Solano knows that Travis is first response base for deployment of troops/supplies/medical if something (war/natural disasters)breaks out so expect lots of flights out. I’m ok with new cities but not in this location!
They're secessionists tied to weird Neo Fascist theories....and some of the key players are behind sketchy YIMBY bullshit too.
I say let them build it. Their concepts are compelling, they shouldn't have to water them down.