Solano County Braces for Vote on "California Forever" Development
- Josh Stephens
- May 20, 2024
- 8 min read
In November, if election patterns hold steady, around 250,000 voters in Solano County will decide whether to welcome as many as 400,000 new neighbors. It is likely to be a serious test of “yes in my backyard” sentiment in California — or, in the case of Solano County — yes in my pasture, field, or rangeland.
The vote would mark a preliminary step in the development of the project, which was being promoted by corporate parent Flannery Associates and known as “California Forever,” but was recently rebranded the “East Solano Plan.” The developers submitted over 20,000 signatures in late April, which the county is now verifying; 13,000 valid signatures are needed for it to qualify for the November ballot.
Currently titled, “East Solano Homes, Jobs, and Clean Energy Initiative,” the measure would set the terms for a general plan amendment and development agreement between the company and the county.
“It will be contentious and emotional,” said John Carli, mayor of Vacaville, in central Solano County. “Whichever way it goes, it’s going to create further divisions. The sides are becoming entrenched.”
The project has gained infamy for its magnitude, nearly doubling the county’s population, and its origins: a consortium of backers from the technology industry who have espoused progressive views about urbanism while surreptitiously acquiring roughly 60,000 acres of rural land well beyond the existing urban fringe.
(In early April, the company successfully defended a lawsuit filed by a group of ranchers who accused the company of price-fixing.)
Most of the development would take place between Travis Air Force Base and the City of Rio Vista, with a “security zone” to separate development from the base.
California Forever cannot simply start pouring and framing whenever it wants to, in part because of the county’s strict Orderly Growth Ordinance, which is designed to preserve open space and direct growth to the county’s half-dozen existing small cities. Overriding the ordinance to rezoning the 17,500 acres of land that the company wants to develop from agricultural to mid-density urban requires either assent of the county’s Board of Supervisors or a popular vote.
Flannery Associates has chosen the latter route. It is a major gamble, given the fact that – according to CP&DR’s long history of ballot measure coverage – developer-initiated ballot measures designed to end-run elected officials rarely succeed.
