Billionaires fighting to build new Californian ‘utopian city’

Billionaires trying to build a new city in rural California claim there will be more jobs than households when the first 50,000 people move in.

California Forever has bought up 50,000 acres worth almost $1 billion in an area of Solano County, about 60 miles northeast of San Francisco.

Led by former Goldman Sachs banker Jan Sramek, it was wants to turn the land into an ‘old-fashioned,’ walkable city that could grow to 400,000 residents.

Imagined as a largely middle-class utopia with safe neighborhoods and high-paying jobs, the group claims it already has eager businesses lined up.

California Forever said a dozen companies were committed to bringing jobs if the project, which has fierce local opposition, ever gets off the ground.

They include aerospace and defense manufacturer Hadrian, and Serve Robotics, which makes self-driving robots that trundle down the footpath to deliver food.

Another is Living Carbon, which grows plants that absorb more carbon than regular plants, and indoor vertical farming company Plenty, and Cover, which builds custom-designed granny flats.

None of these votes of confidence are binding, but Sramek argued they showed business was interested enough in the project for it to work.

High-end sport facilities are also on the agenda, with the group already committing $500,000 to the planning stage.

Facilities for baseball, football, basketball, soccer, volleyball, tennis, gymnastics, and swimming would be included, and could host players from around the county.

Sramek, who moved to Fairfield last year, said local parents told him: ‘We are spending too much time driving our kids to sporting events in Sacramento and the Bay Area.’

Despite opposition from every local politician and environmental and farming organizations, the project cleared its first hurdle.

California Forever first has to ask voters to allow an exemption from the county’s Orderly Growth ordinance.

The ordinance requires all urban development take place within the county’s seven cities: Vallejo, Fairfield, Rio Vista, Vacaville, Suisun City, Dixon and Benicia.

The East Solano Homes, Jobs, and Clean Energy Initiative required 13,500 signatures to get on the ballot, and amassed about 20,000.

This forces the project on the Solano County Board of Supervisors agenda next month ahead of a vote on the exemption in November.

The board is expected to order a study of how the project would affect local traffic, pollution, and environmental damage – among other considerations.

Sramek and his group present the land ‘some of the worst for agriculture in Solano County. Land where for years, nothing much has been able to grow’.

But the Solano Land Trust, which owns and manages 25,000 acres of open space, voted to block it, arguing it would have ‘a detrimental impact on Solano County’s water resources, air quality, traffic, farmland, and natural environment’.

‘The associated pollution will be harmful to both our community and environmental health,’ it said.

‘Contrary to some of California Forever’s marketing messages, the area proposed for development is not a wasteland or landscape of no value.

‘In fact, it is home to self-reliant farmland and ranchland where farmers and ranchers have grown local food for centuries.’

California Forever expressed its disappointment with the Trust’s position, and insisted it took the ‘stewardship’ of the land it acquired seriously.

“We are proposing a compact, sustainable community where there is no ecological habitat, on poor soils, with low fire risk, according to official state and county maps,” it said.

Artistic renderings of the city feature lush green landscapes with Mediterranean-style homes clustered on hillsides and shorelines.

Clean energy also features heavily through the artists’ impressions, with proposals for solar farms to help power the city.

The renderings also portray the city as noticeable car free, instead dominated by pedestrians and cyclists.

Sramek said he hoped to build a ‘walkable’ city like the town in the Czech Republic where he grew up, where ‘people can live close to shops’.

Other proposed features include commercial buildings and parks, with one image showing people kayaking through a nature reserve. 

A survey previously circulated by the group indicated support for 10,000 acres of green open spaces.

The plans also contain proposals to plant 1million olive trees, as well as orchards. 

The development plans to commit $400 million in funding for down payment assistance for Solano County residents to buy homes in the new community, according to its published proposals.

‘Funding can also be used to help build affordable homes for low, very low, extremely low, and special needs households, including veterans, seniors, and agricultural workers,’ the group said. 

Other sweeteners include a proposed $70 million in funding for scholarships for college and vocational training, or to start or grow small businesses in the new city. 

The group pledged $200 million in developments in renovating or building new homes and commercial property in other cities in the county. 

California Forever proposed solar farms on the development that could generate enough clean energy to power the equivalent of 1.5 million homes.

A 15,000-acre buffer zone will separate the city from the nearby Travis Air Force Base. 

An ad, part of the $2 million on marketing spent so far, promised ‘walkable, middle class neighborhoods that we can afford’.

It also features people identified as Solano County locals who ask questions like ‘where would this city be built?’ and ‘what is it going to mean for Solano County?’ 

The advertisement also promises $400 million in down payment assistance for residents and 15,000 new jobs with ‘good pay in manufacturing and tech’. 

Images shared by the group show rolling landscapes with families enjoying a picnic amongst a cluster of trees, while youngsters are seen cycling. 

Streetscapes are dominated by pedestrians and cyclists, with outdoor cafes filling the town square and no cars to be seen. 

A survey previously circulated by the group suggested the plan included a ‘new city with tens of thousands of new homes, a large solar energy farm, orchards with over a million new trees, and over ten thousand acres of new parks and open space.’

The scale of the project, encompassing more than 50,000 acres, is truly massive.

By way of comparison, San Francisco itself is only 30,000 acres, while New York’s Manhattan borough is a puny 14,500 acres.

The Villages, the huge master-planned retirement community in Florida, covers about 51,200 acres, or more than 80 square miles.

California Forever has now submitted three different versions of its ideas so far, with critics raising concerns over the lack of answers. 

Sadie Wilson of the Greenbelt Alliance said in a statement: ‘In this third version of the initiative, there continue to be no answers for how this project will be delivered — just more questions.

‘I think we have the opportunity to come together to overcome barriers to building in our seven cities rather than count on this project to bring the solutions we need/ 

‘They have continuously failed to work with community members and public agencies and have produced an initiative that has very little substance when it comes to project delivery. 

‘We need climate-smart housing solutions now, and building a new city far from jobs and transit is not how we will get there.’

Representative John Garamendi, a Democrat from District 8, told Mercury News: ‘If this project goes forward, Solano County taxpayers will foot a large part of the bill. 

‘This is a lose-lose scenario for Solano County, and we cannot allow it to move forward.’

Jan Sramek, the leader of California Forever, is a 36-year-old financial prodigy who made a name and fortune by his early 20s as an emerging markets trader in Goldman Sachs’ London office.

As a high school student York, Sramek broke the British record for A-level tests by scoring 10 As in a diverse set of subjects, and went on to graduate from the London School of Economics.

In 2009, when he was just 22, Sramek was the youngest-ever financier to be named to the annual Financial News list of 100 ‘Rising Stars’.

Days after his 24th birthday, Sramek mysteriously quit Goldman Sachs and dropped out of the limelight.

Since then, Sramek relocated to the Bay Area, and appears to have been quietly working on his plan for California Forever since 2017.

Last December, Sramek addressed a crowd of around 150 ranchers at a heated town hall meeting. 

At the meeting at the American Legion hall, accusations that Sramek’s Silicon Valley firm – already the largest property in the county – were displacing residents were rife, with several citing their families’ history in the region. 

The company also pursuing a $510 million lawsuit against property owners, alleging price fixing on the part of the farmers. 

At the meeting, Sramek refused to stand down and remained adamant that he would not rescind his lawsuit. 

‘I believe we have been extremely reasonable in wanting to have a discussion, and it has been you and your family who don’t want to do this,’ Sramek told Margaret Anderson, who is named in the suit.

An audibly irate Anderson – who has owned a farm in area with her husband and two kids for decades – responded: ‘We are not hoping to settle, because we do not want to sell our land. We are hoping that you will drop the lawsuit.’

The sixth-generation resident went on to ask: ‘Will you commit to dropping the lawsuit against the local farmers who are not aligned with your vision, in a goodwill attempt to change the way that you are interacting with our community?’

Sramek responded by calling the sued landowners’ alleged actions – colluding to increase the price of their land – ‘illegal and criminal.’ 

The response drew jeers, as several others – including several defendants – also urged Sramek to drop the lawsuit as a show of faith to home and landowners. 

Standing silently in an unassuming button-up shirt, the stock trader-turned-philanthropist stood and listened, but remained steadfast in his vow to pursue legal action against the landowners.