SACRAMENTO, California — Tech investors’ effort to create a new city northeast of San Francisco in Solano County qualified for the November ballot Tuesday, bringing the billionaire-backed plan for an exurban utopia closer to voters.
The measure, officially called the “East Solano Homes, Jobs, and Clean Energy Initiative,” seeks to transform the wheat fields 50 miles northeast of San Francisco into a dense, new urbanist-style city. If voters approve the measure, 17,500 acres would be rezoned from “agricultural” to “new community,” paving the way for the new city’s development.
The community could host up to 160,000 units and 400,000 residents — roughly the population of Tampa, Florida — according to the proposed changes to the zoning code.
The initiative had been expected to qualify after the California Forever campaign pushing the measure submitted 20,473 signatures in May, far above the required 13,063 threshold. The group is backed by billionaire tech titans including the co-founders of LinkedIn and Netscape, and spent approximately $2 million in the first three months of the year.