California Forever submits final application outlining big plans for Solano County’s smallest city
By Ashley Sharp
California Forever’s billionaire-backed push to build a new Solano County city has taken a big step forward, as the group submitted its final, more than 250-page plan for annexation into the county’s smallest city: Suisun City.
The Suisun City Expansion Project application was made public Tuesday. Along with the final proposal for what the city would look like and a 20-year growth plan, California Forever also submitted a more than 200-page fire protection plan and proposed amendments to Suisun City’s general plan and municipal code to support the annexation of the proposed new city.
Bret Prebula, city manager of Suisun City, told CBS Sacramento that he is pleased with the final application put forward by California Forever. Now, the project is in the hands of city staff to dissect the proposal and decide how they want to move forward.
“‘Rising tides lift all boats’ has been a real reality that they have embraced strongly. So, that’s one. Two, the stop at 150,000 residents to check in officially, to get a further approval required to move to the second phase of the development after 20 years, is an important factor that they heard. They understand that it’s a jobs first approach,” said Prebula.
California Forever calls their project “the next great American city,” proposing to build a new, walkable city for more than 400,000 Californians that leaders say will include a downtown, entertainment district, the proposed Solano Shipyard and what is being described as the “largest manufacturing park in America.”
“The goal is really to provide a place where all of these companies that are doing incredible work in Silicon Valley can manufacture things in California, instead of sending all of those jobs to Texas or Florida,” California Forever CEO Jan Sramek told CBS Sacramento in July.
The proposed annexation would grow Suisun City by more than 10 times its current size.
In June, there was pushback when the Suisun City city council first approved exploring the annexation proposal, with all expenses paid for by California Forever.
Tuesday, Prebula says now that the city has the application they will get to work diving into the draft plans, conducting an environmental review process and putting together technical and financial analyses. This process could take several weeks or even months to complete.
Prebula tells CBS Sacramento the goal is to make sure the project meets the needs of Suisun City and its residents.
“Ultimately, if it doesn’t work out, that’s fine. But it shouldn’t be because of a lack of an effort to see how we can evolve and make this work. It should be because the project truly doesn’t pencil, because we’ve evaluated that deeply. There’s a big difference between saying no today and saying yes, but let’s validate, right? That’s what we’re doing. We’re saying, yes, we want to explore and we’re going to validate it. If ultimately it’s no, then it is what it is. But we’ll have exhausted all of the creativity together, all of the accountability, all of the oversight, to get to that point,” said Prebula.
Tuesday, Sramek posted a thread on X unpacking the application for the Suisun Expansion and explaining that California Forever’s plan has evolved since 2024, when at first the new city’s fate was going to be in the hands of Solano County voters in the November election.
California Forever pulled its ballot measure in July of 2024 and went back to the drawing board. Now, the annexation proposal bypasses voter approval. This has been a point of contention for neighbors who are opposed to the project.
“What do you say to people who don’t agree with this approach, who wish that this had been left as a voter choice on the ballot?” I asked Prebula.
“For me, it goes back to everyone said they wanted them to go through the normal process, right? We are making them go through the normal process. If they would have gotten a ballot measure passed, whether it’s now or two years from now, they would be off to the races with very little ability for oversight and control. We are putting in place oversight and control of the process,” said Prebula.
In July, I asked Sramek how he plans to repair California Forever’s relationship with Solano County neighbors who continue to oppose the project and say they will never support it.
“I think that if you look at what’s happened over the last year, there’s a real difference between what the situation was two years ago and today,” said Sramek. “You’re never going to have complete community consensus.”
Read a transcript of our full interview with Sramek at this link.
If the proposed annexation is eventually adopted by the city council and then approved by the county’s LAFCO authority, California Forever will pay Suisun City $10 million.
Read California Forever’s full statement on Tuesday’s application on their website.
The next community meeting on the California Forever and Suisun City expansion project is scheduled for Oct. 27 at The Vault.
