A billionaire-backed tech group has finally acquired enough California property to construct their own utopia
The group had previously raised national security concerns when it paid $800 million for land near the base.
A group of tech billionaires and venture capitalists who have been buying up California real estate in mysterious land deals now claims to have "assembled all the land it needs" for a proposed utopia. The Bloomberg and the Messenger report.
According to a Bloomberg report, Flannery Associates LLC, which operates under parent company California Forever, now owns more than 53,000 acres in Solano County as a result of recent purchases. It has been quietly acquiring properties for years, and in October it added at least seven more.
"With regards to future purchases, except for a few remaining properties that Flannery has under contract and will close on in the coming weeks, Flannery has assembled all the land it needs and does not anticipate making any additional purchases," the company said in a statement obtained by Bloomberg.
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"We want to do that by building a new community, solar farms, and a greenbelt of agriculture and habitat in eastern Solano County"
According to the California Forever website, the organisation intends to "bring back the California Dream" and has "purchased over 60,000 acres of pastureland in eastern Solano County" to do so.
"We want to do that by building a new community, solar farms, and a greenbelt of agriculture and habitat in eastern Solano County," according to the company's website. "Doing so would bring thousands of good paying jobs, new paths to middle-class home ownership in safe, walkable neighbourhoods, and a new source of clean power for every resident of Solano County."
"We are not proposing a fanciful 'utopian' fantasy. Quite the contrary, we believe in looking back in order to move forward."
The organisation claims that it will "help solve regional infrastructure needs, including energy, transportation, water, and wildfire protection," "protect and support Travis Air Force Base" and perhaps most importantly "protect Solano's open space and prime agricultural lands."
The group had previously raised national security concerns when it paid $800 million for land near the base.
Jan Sramek, a former Goldman Sachs trader, is listed as the group's founder and CEO on the California Forever website. According to Bloomberg, other tech titans backing the project include Sequoia Capital chairman Mike Moritz, Linked-In co-founder Reid Hoffman, and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen.
The property acquisition has been going on for years, but the media only found out about it in August. Not everyone is thrilled with the plan or the secrecy surrounding it.
The group acknowledges the concerns in the FAQ section of its website. It stated that it did not involve the community sooner because it needed "to assemble a large holding."
"The only way to avoid creating a rush of reckless short-term land speculation was to not share our specific plans until we finished acquiring the properties," according to the report. "We are now excited to move on to the real work of building a thoughtful and consensus-minded plan for eastern Solano."
Residents and local officials are concerned about the project's potential impact on the environment and the local agricultural economy, according to Bloomberg. The lawsuit filed by Flannery Associates against a group of local landowners added fuel to the fire.
The landowners, according to the group, engaged in "illegal price-fixing," which the landowners deny. According to court filings, the defendants claim Flannery Associates "used pressure tactics" to force area farmers to "sell their land against their will."
According to Bloomberg, the group has settled with three of the defendants, who sought at least $510 million in damages.
