The move to build a new city in rural California has reached a major milestone after it qualified for the proposal set to go before local voters in November.
But the group backing the plan, called California Forever, must convince voters to back their plans to turn 50,000 acres in Solano County into a city.
Led by former Goldman Sachs banker Jan Sramek, California Forever wants to turn the country into an “old-fashioned”, walkable city that can grow to 400,000 residents.
Envisioned as a largely middle-class utopia with safe neighborhoods and good-paying jobs, the group claims that eager companies are already lining up.
The group must now convince voters to back their ideas, which is already facing opposition from local leaders, environmental groups and locals.
New images of lenders show the lives of residents and the hopes for the city.
Opponents point to a recent poll they conducted that showed 70 percent of respondents were skeptical of the measure.
Former Solano County Supervisor Duane Kromm shared LA times that “there is a litany of reasons” to oppose the project.
Kromm said one of those is the county’s longstanding commitment to keeping development limited to existing cities.
While Rep. Mike Thompson wrote an op-ed against the project in his local newspaper.
Thompson, a Democrat, wrote: “I strongly support efforts to increase the number of good-paying jobs, implement clean energy, and bring opportunity to our region.
“But these efforts require sound public policy that works with our community, not lavish promises that may never be realized.”
On Tuesday, Sramek said the question before Solano County voters is now “a referendum on what we want the future of California to be.”
He added: ‘The number of people saying yes to this is increasing every day, you can see that in the figures. And that is also reflected in the support for the initiative.’
Led by former Goldman Sachs banker Jan Sramek, California Forever wants to turn the country into an ‘old-fashioned’, walkable city
The investor group, whose identity was eventually revealed in late August, acquired about 814 additional hectares in October, according to provincial data, meaning it now owns more than 53,000 hectares in the region.
Pictured: An early artistic rendering of the proposed city from the California Forever website
The East Solano Homes, Jobs, and Clean Energy Initiative needed 13,500 signatures to get on the ballot, and collected about 20,000.
This forces the project onto the Solano County Board of Supervisors agenda next month, ahead of a vote on the waiver in November.
The board is expected to order a study into the project’s impact on local traffic, pollution and environmental damage, among other things.
California Forever has said a dozen companies are committed to creating jobs if the project ever gets off the ground.
These include aerospace and defense manufacturer Hadrian, and Serve Robotics, which makes self-driving robots that roll along sidewalks 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.
High-end sports facilities are also on the agenda, with the group already setting aside $500,000 for the planning phase.
Facilities for baseball, football, basketball, soccer, volleyball, tennis, gymnastics and swimming would be included, and would accommodate players from across the province.
Sramek said local parents told him, “We spend too much time driving our kids to sporting events in Sacramento and the Bay Area.”
The ad also promises $400 million in down payment assistance for residents and 15,000 new jobs with “good wages in manufacturing and technology.”
Clean energy also features heavily in the artist’s impressions, with proposals for solar farms to power the city.
The renderings also portray the city as noticeably car-free, dominated instead by pedestrians and cyclists.
Sramek said he hoped to build a “walkable” city like the one 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.
Other sweeteners include proposed $70 million in funding for college and vocational training scholarships, or for starting or growing small businesses in the new city.
The group pledged $200 million in developments to renovate or build new homes and commercial properties in other cities in the province.
California Forever proposed solar farms in 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 nearby Travis Air Force Base.
Images shared by the group show rolling landscapes with families enjoying a picnic among a stand of trees, while young people cycle
The company described the area as “one of the worst areas for farming in Solano County.” Land where not much has been able to grow for years’
Images shared by the group show rolling landscapes with families enjoying a picnic among a stand of trees, while young people ride their bikes.
The street scene is dominated by pedestrians and cyclists, while terraces fill the town square and no cars are in sight.
The size of the project, which covers more than 50,000 hectares, is truly enormous.
For comparison, San Francisco itself is only 30,000 hectares, while the Manhattan borough of New York is only 14,500 hectares.
The Villages, the massive planned retirement community in Florida, covers approximately 51,200 acres, or more than 50 square miles.
Jan Sramek, the leader of California Forever, is a 36-year-old financial prodigy who made his name and fortune as an emerging markets trader in the London office of Goldman Sachs in his early 20s.
As a secondary school student in York, Sramek broke the British record for A-level tests by scoring 10 As in a varied range of subjects, and went on to graduate from the London School of Economics.
In 2009, when he was just 22, Sramek became the youngest financier ever named to the annual Financial News list of 100 “Rising Stars.”
Days after his 24th birthday, Sramek mysteriously left Goldman Sachs and disappeared from the spotlight.
Sramek has since moved to the Bay Area and appears to have been quietly working on his plan for California Forever since 2017.