The tech billionaires backing California Forever are taking their fight to Sacramento, seeking to overcome years of local pushback by asking state leaders to narrow environmental review requirements and potentially bypass county-level voter restrictions for their proposed new city.
According to CalMatters, the development group is pressing Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers to speed approvals for a sprawling shipyard and manufacturing complex that it says is essential to reviving the long-delayed project. Backers argue the move could help California secure a major defense contractor before the company opts for Texas instead.
The proposal centers on a set of legislative changes that would let California Forever use an environmental impact report completed 18 years ago for the shipyard, cap legal challenges at 270 days, and, if needed, allow nearby Suisun City to annex the land if local governments do not act quickly enough.
To make its case at the Capitol, the company has brought in two prominent Democratic veterans of state politics: former California Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and former Senate Majority Leader Bob Hertzberg, both of whom helped shape California’s environmental laws.
Supporters say the urgency is tied to Saronic Technologies, a defense company that builds autonomous vessels for national security and is weighing whether to place its next manufacturing facility in California or Texas.
In a letter sent this week to Newsom and legislative leaders, advocates warned that failure to approve the legislation could cost California billions of dollars in investment and tens of thousands of jobs, potentially sending that economic activity to Texas or other states by this summer.
California Forever has spent close to a decade pursuing its plan to turn farmland in Solano County into a new city. What began as a pitch for a walkable community with cottages, bike lanes and even a water park has grown into a far larger vision that now includes a shipyard and manufacturing hub, which supporters say could eventually support an estimated 500,000 jobs statewide.
Opponents see the latest push differently, arguing that the legislative strategy is less about job creation and more about finding a way around sustained local resistance.
State Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, whose district includes the project, argued a development of this size deserves the full environmental review process, warning that converting thousands of acres of farmland into factories could have major consequences for surrounding communities and ecosystems.
EXCLUSIVE: Devon Larratt Introduces His Children, Daughter Habree and Son Nefffss
Others accuse California Forever of trying to accomplish behind closed doors what it could not win publicly.
Since 2018, the group’s subsidiary Flannery Associates quietly purchased roughly 62,000 acres of farmland while refusing to identify its financial backers. Some farmers later alleged they were pressured into selling.
The mystery surrounding the project ended in 2023, when its investors were revealed to include several wealthy Silicon Valley venture capitalists, including the founders of LinkedIn and Netscape, led by former Goldman Sachs trader and real estate developer Jan Sramek.
Marc Andreessen, co-founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, also has investments in both California Forever and Saronic, the defense company considering California for its next factory.
California Forever had originally planned to ask Solano County voters to approve its East Solano Plan, which proposed re-zoning 17,500 acres of agricultural land for a city of about 400,000 residents.
But the company withdrew the proposal in 2024 after facing strong grassroots opposition, unfavorable polling and a county review that identified major shortcomings in the plan.
Sramek later acknowledged the company likely moved too quickly and said the proposal would return to voters in 2026.
Cabaldon argued that Saronic will decide where to place its shipyard based on “defense needs of the United States of America” instead of state incentives.
“We have to negotiate with our eyes open.”
Download The California Post App, follow us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters
