An illustration of Flannery Associates’ planned city from a distance surrounded by farmland, California Forever
- A group backed by Silicon Valley billionaires is planning to build a new city in California.
- The Flannery Associates group has so far purchased more than 53,000 hectares of land.
- This area is larger than the entire city of Beaumont, Texas, or Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Tens of thousands of acres later, a group backed by Silicon Valley’s wealthiest says it’s finished buying up land in Northern California for its walkable, utopian city.
Flannery Associates has been acquiring properties in Solano County, about 60 miles from San Francisco, for five years. The company has spent around $800 million to buy tens of thousands of acres of farmland with the backing of tech billionaires including Marc Andreessen and Laurene Powell Jobs.
Renderings of the company’s plan show two- to three-story townhouses, children cycling in the middle of the street and parents walking – all without a car in sight. Jan Sramek, a former Goldman Sachs trader, said the company wanted to build a “yesterday’s city.” The project is called California Forever.
Now the company says it has the land necessary to realize its vision.
“As far as future purchases are concerned, with the exception of a few remaining properties that Flannery has under contract and will be closing in the coming weeks, Flannery has assembled all of the properties needed and does not anticipate making any additional purchases,” a Flannery Associates spokesperson said Bloomberg.
Flannery Associates had acquired about 52,000 acres of farmland around Travis Air Force Base in rural Solano County. County records reviewed by Bloomberg show the group purchased an additional 814 acres in October.
According to the report, the company now has more than 53,000 hectares of land. That’s more square miles than the entire city of Beaumont, Texas, or Sioux Falls, South Dakota, less than 83 square miles, or just over 53,000 acres.
Flannery’s purchases may be over, but the group’s legal disputes between the landowners from whom the company bought thousands of acres of land remain.
Flannery filed a lawsuit in May against a group of Solano County landowners and farmers, claiming they conspired to drive up property prices. The company is seeking more than half a billion dollars in damages.
This week, farmers alleged that Flannery Associates used “gangster tactics” to buy up the land by evicting farmers or using legal strategies to force landowners to sell their land.
An attorney for Flannery Associates did not respond to a request for comment sent after hours.
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