In a rural part of California’s Solano County, between the cities of the Bay Area and Sacramento, rumors have been swirling for years about the “Flanneries,” a mysterious company that buys mostly undeveloped land.
At a shooting range in Birds Landing, an unincorporated community accessible by two-lane highway or a gravel road through grassy foothills dotted with wind turbines — many of them more than 200 feet tall — an employee asked if why would anyone want to buy land in a quiet area.
“There are sheep farms, there are cattle farms, and guys who farm hay and safflower,” said employee Ashley Morrill, 40. “That’s what they do. There are pets, and things to feed the animals.”
Solano County’s rural roots are still front and center in an area where a company backed by tech industry billionaires is buying up land to create what it envisions as a city of the future. That company, Flannery Associates, committed about $900 million to secure thousands of acres of farmland, court documents show.
The cities of Vallejo, Fairfield and Vacaville, home to most of Solano County’s 450,000 people, are not too far away. But this part of the county, covering nearly 900 square miles in all, has more in common with the farms of California’s Central Valley than with the corporate campuses of Silicon Valley. And the prospect of big changes has shocked some families who have lived in the area for generations.
Down a two-lane road a few miles from the range is Collinsville, an unincorporated community of essentially a mile-long, dead-end street with about a dozen houses, farms and silos along it. It returned to a swamp near the mouth of the Sacramento River. Property owners in the neighborhood said they were approached by the mysterious Flaneries, and some who left apparently sold their land.
On a warm Sunday afternoon, as the air began to smell of swamp, Lacey Miles was helping her retired father, Tom, unload his car in the driveway of their single-family home. Across the street was a recreational vehicle with a yellowed sign that read “For Sale” in the middle of a five-foot tall patch of hay.
Mr Miles, 71, said he was concerned buyers were trying to change the countryside he had lived in and enjoyed for decades. The only sound behind him was the faint hum of wind turbines turning several miles away.
“That’s why we’re here, the quiet community,” he said. “Make love here.”
Ms. Miles, 42, who owns a housekeeping business, lives a few miles away. He heard about plans to build a “private city” on Facebook, and he was opposed to the changes it would bring.
“I came out here to escape the city,” he said. She grew up near Collinsville, then moved and returned 14 years ago with her husband to raise children in the countryside.
said Ms. Miles said that people who did not sell their land were likely to be opposed to any political push to create a new town. But he said with a sigh, “Anything is possible when you have money.”
In nearby Rio Vista, a town of about 10,000 people, most residents who spoke to The New York Times knew that a coalition of Silicon Valley investors was buying up farmland on the outskirts of town.
The mystery shoppers have been a topic of discussion in town for the past few years, with theories ranging from further development for wind turbines dotting the surrounding hills to an attempt to build another Silicon Valley to some foreign interests who do who knows what.
Downtown Rio Vista is just a stone’s throw from a tractor shop, a recreational vehicle repair shop and a walkway along the river where people fish from the wee hours of the morning. It’s a stretch of several blocks lined with American flags and a street art project with different colored ceramic sheep.
Pickup trucks and sedans are parked in roadside spaces. Some drove down the street playing country music with the windows down. Old people in cowboy hats gather at Raul’s Striper Cafe, which is filled with 1950s memorabilia.
More residents gathered at Foster’s Bighorn, a watering hole that displayed hundreds of wall-mounted animal heads, including a moose, a buffalo, a giraffe, a lion and a snow leopard.
Some residents said they were relieved to learn the identity of the land buyers. Others are still concerned, and don’t want the area to be flooded with techies. A bartender at Foster’s Bighorn said that whatever this new type of city is, it will price out existing residents — just like all Bay Area cities in the south.
