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Who is Flannery Associates

Since 2018, a group called “Flannery Associates” invested more than $800 million on almost 54,000 acres of agriculture-zoned land surrounding the Travis Air Force base in Solano County, California, public records show.

Despite early speculation China was behind the purchases — amid concerns that companies with ties to China have been ramping up efforts to buy American farmland — legal representation for Flannery has maintained the group is controlled by U.S. citizens, with 97% of its capital coming from U.S.-based investors.

However, after eight months of investigation, federal officials were not able to confirm or deny this to be true, and were not able to determine exactly who was backing the company.

Now, reports from The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle reveal Flannery is comprised of a group of ultra-wealthy Silicon Valley investors acquiring vast parcels of land northeast of San Francisco with the mission to build a new California city “from scratch.”

According to the reports, the investors’ plan for the land involves creating a new urban center that could accommodate the growing demands of the tech industry and provide a fresh environment for innovation and economic growth.

The goal, according to the reports, is to establish a new city that caters to the needs of Silicon Valley tech companies and professionals, potentially alleviating some of the challenges posed by congestion, housing shortages and high costs of living in the Bay Area.
 
MuntCuffin said:
So they fucked san fran good and proper and instead of cleaning up their own mess, they are gonna build a new city and leave the bay for the street shitters and dope heads? What about them middle class people with property values going down the drain? Fucking locusts.
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When you want a two class system you push the middle class down….
 
This should be fun to watch.

Build a utopia city:lmao:

I bet its the next jackson, ms in 20 yrs:flipoff2:
 
Levigarrett76 said:
This should be fun to watch.

Build a utopia city:lmao:

I bet its the next jackson, ms in 20 yrs:flipoff2:
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15 minute cities See Dutch farmers. Use carbon capture and eminent domain to push ppl out of farmland. Let rural areas return to nature to price ppl out of ins. See Lahina to go after entrenched natives. Use the infrastructure bill to trojan horse the stepped up basis to kill passing businesses ect down. Everything becomes corporate grab all and utopia is achieved
 
gt1guy said:
It's next to a Air Force base. So the very first thing they'll do is to complain about the noise.
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Maybe they know something about the not too distant future fate of Travis?
 

MSN

www.msn.com


In August 2018, a mysterious company called Flannery Associates began purchasing plots of farmland in Solano County, located just over an hour from San Francisco.

Over 52,000 acres and a $1billion later, the company became the largest landowner in the area, but still no one knew who was behind the purchases. That was until a few weeks ago, when a number of top technology executives, including Steve Jobs' widow Laurene Powell, were named as the backers.

But what would a bunch of billionaires want with that much barren land? A new city, it turns out.

The first renderings for a utopian, Euro-style suburb with parks, bike paths, and “tens of thousands of homes” were released on a dedicated website called California Forever this month. In the animations, children cycle on a pedestrianized street in front of Brownstone homes and the sun shines over rolling green hills. It’s a far cry from the empty fields currently filling the rural area.
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Rumors of such a plan had run wild over the summer, as had whispers of a possible government intervention, but few predicted the scale of the project.

Among the plans are a solar energy farm, the planting of one million trees and the creation of over 10,000 acres of parkland. The goal, apparently, is to create an environmentally friendly, affordable answer to the Bay Area's housing crisis. The plots that Flannery Associates has bought up equate to a landmass more than twice the size of San Francisco.

“To date, our company has been quiet about our activities. This has, understandably, created interest, concern, and speculation,” the California Forever site reads. “Our project will create a lot of good paying jobs, as well as provide affordable middle class housing in walkable neighborhoods, green solar energy, and significant tax revenue to help the county fund efforts to reduce crime and address homelessness.”

The people backing the project, which include LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Patrick and John Collison, apparently believe that “California’s best days are still ahead." The majority of the funding is coming from the US, but 3% of the investors, like the Collison brothers, are from the UK and Ireland.


Are the plans feasible? The money is certainly there to back them, but many are expecting pushback from the local community, who will need to vote for the project to go through.

A survey was sent to over 1,400 residents in the county over the summer, and Flannery Associates has promised to create a community advisory board. The company also plans to hold town halls and open three offices to stay in touch with locals, but its secretive beginnings have gotten it off to a rough start.

It also sued several local landowners for allegedly inflating their prices in May, and farmers are worried about their properties.

In addition, commanders at the nearby Travis Air Base, which would be practically surrounded by the city if the plans went ahead, have raised concerns about security. Flannery Associates said that the project would comply with requirements enacted by Solano County for the Travis Reserve Area.

“They need to make sure that nothing they do harms Travis, puts our national security at risk, or disadvantages family farmers,” said local Congressman Mike Thompson. “The secrecy under which they operated caused consternation and concern from residents, local elected officials, and federal agencies, and while they explained their rationale, I do not believe the secrecy was necessary.

“Honesty is the best policy, and they need to begin to work with our community and local leaders if they want to advance their ideas.”

If approved, the project will realistically take many years to get off the ground, but Flannery Associates already have more ideas for the area. CEO Jan Sramek, a former trader, told Thompson in a meeting that the team wants to build up to three new cities and towns. But he wasn’t too clear on how he’s going to make that happen.

Sramek, who is from the Czech Republic and attended college in London, apparently fell in love with Solano County during a fishing trip and recently purchased a home there for his family. He founded the company in 2017 and was its sole employee for nearly six years.

“We are not proposing a pie-in-the-sky ‘utopian’ fantasy,” California Forever said. “Our vision for walkable neighborhoods, clean energy, sustainable infrastructure, good jobs and a healthy environment is not about reinventing the wheel, but rather going back to the basics that were once the norm across America, and learning from best practices to create the neighborhoods of tomorrow.”

Thompson isn’t so sure that the idea is as clean cut: “It is clear that they don’t have a plan; they have a vision. Solano County is a tight-knit community, and it is going to be a long road for Flannery to restore trust and move forward with their proposed vision.”
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Pook said:
Probably be a gated city, with their own Security or police force. Sounds like a HOA on steroids.
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sounds like a place that exists with big brother fully integrated, and you have to have a linkedin account to get in.
 
Can't wait for it to get built so Texas can start shipping migrants there to trash the place. Throw in a few dozen junkie bums and some dindu nuffins and it'll be a ghost town as quickly as it started.
 
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