Solano County Supervisor Announces California Forever Project Pulled From 2024 Ballot

Solano County Supervisor Mitch Mashburn announced on Monday that the controversial venture capitalist-backed California Forever development plan, which would create a green city for up to 400,000 people in the majority rural county, was effectively removed from the 2024 November ballot in favor of a two-year plan to get it approved by voters in 2026 via an environmental impact report and a development agreement with the County.

Since 2017, California Forever purchased 50,000 acres of farm and pasture land in Solano County in secret for $900 million. After the purchase was done, in secret to avoid land speculation rises, the company drew up plans and started the process to rezone the land from agriculture to residential and commercial, with the city to be in the area between Travis Air Force Base and the city of Rio Vista.

As the Globe noted last month, “If the East Solano Plan as it is now called comes to pass it will transform rural Solano County—62 percent of its land is devoted to agriculture—into something quite different. At build-out some 400,000 people will live there, almost doubling Solano’s current population. Nearly 18,000 acres of pasture land will become urban or suburban; up will rise a small city of many thousands of new homes, office parks, office buildings, solar installations, new streets, widened highways, and all the infrastructure required to support all that.”

While there have been some supporters to the plan, including some in the county who want the economic benefits coming in, the vast majority of voters in the county have opposed the plan. According to an April poll, 70% of voters in Solano County are against California Forever. Many residents want to keep the country rural, with others noting that the city would have no real source of water and that Travis AFB would also likely to be negatively affected.  Amazingly, the project has brought an issue that both Republicans and Democrats have agreed to oppose, with business groups and environmentalists also oddly being on the same page in opposition.

Following multiple signature drives this year, it was announced last month that they had collected enough validated signatures to put the East Solano Plan on the ballot this year. However, it soon became apparent that backers of California Forever had jumped the gun. They forgot to include a full environmental impact plan for the project, as well as a fully negotiated development agreement. As it will take time to prepare the two, both Mashburn and California Forever CEO Jan Sramek said on Monday that a vote on the project will now be delayed to the 2026 election.

“After a discussion between myself and Jan Sramek, the Founder and CEO of California Forever, we have agreed that they will withdraw their measure and not proceed with the election in November,” said Mashburn in a statement on Monday. “Instead, they will submit an application for a General Plan & Zoning Amendment and proceed with the normal County process which includes preparation of a full Environmental Impact Report and the negotiation and execution of Development Agreement. As part of the normal County process, California Forever will reimburse the County’s costs for this future work, including both staff time and external consultants.

“Announcing last year that California Forever would seek a vote on the November 2024 ballot, without a full Environmental Impact Report and a fully negotiated Development Agreement, was a mistake. This politicized the entire project, made it difficult for us and our staff to work with them, and forced everyone in our community to take sides.

“Delaying the vote gives everyone a chance to pause and work together, which is what is needed – not a fight between friends throughout the County on both sides of the issue. With the ballot measure off the table, it will be far easier for county staff to work with California Forever. It also creates an opportunity to take a fresh look at the plan and incorporate input from more stakeholders.”

California Forever city vote in Solano County delayed by two years

Sramek added that “In recent decades, California has stopped building, and as a result, that optimism and opportunity has begun to slip away. We build a fraction of the homes every year that we built in the 1970s – despite our population growth. We make companies go through five years of planning and environmental review to open one factory – so they move to Arizona instead, and take their jobs with them. We make solar farms so difficult to permit that Texas now has more renewables than California.

“We want to show that it’s possible to move faster in California. That’s why we asked for zoning approvals in 2024, followed by an Environmental Impact Report and Development Agreement in 2025 and 2026. But we recognize now that it’s possible to reorder these steps without impacting our ambitious timeline. Instead, we will work with the County to prepare the Environmental Impact Report and Development Agreement over the next two years, and then bring the full package back for approval in 2026.

“This creates opportunities to incorporate additional community input, and then provide everyone with access to objective analysis, and the full terms of the Development Agreement, including the community benefits. We believe that with this process, we can build a shared vision that passes with a decisive majority and creates broad consensus for the future. We’re excited about working with the Board of Supervisors, its land use subcommittee, and county staff to make this happen.”

With major opposition still against the plan, California Forever will likely see a polarized 2026 vote as well, should the project get the final approvals over the next two years. As California Forever was set to take the East Solano Plan before the Solano County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, many theorized that the County would have shot down the plan over the missing report and agreement, which would have marked the 2024 ballot initiative dead on arrival if that happened. A Solano County report issued last week had made light of these missing things, as well as noted huge fiscal deficits.

“The Initiative does not specifically address obligations of the proponents to make changes to the plan if, for example, a significant environmental impact is identified,” said the report. “As a result, the Initiative places the voters in a difficult position because they will not have available the type of important site-specific environmental information typically available.”

Many noted on Monday that California Forever was caught being very unprepared and pulled out to avoid further public embarrassment.

“They saved face on Monday,” explained San Jose-based pollster Ricky Gordon to the Globe on Monday. “There are tens of billions tied up in the project, and they couldn’t risk any chance of it failing in November. They came in not nearly as prepared as they thought they were going to need to be. In the end, they’d rather take a two year delay than risk it all this year.”

More on California Forever’s plan for the next two years is likely to be expanded on soon.