The California Forever plan to construct a new city in eastern Solano County, northeast of the San Francisco Bay Area, has qualified for inclusion on the November ballot, according to published reports. Known as the Homes, Jobs and Clean Energy Initiative, the measure asks Solano County voters to approve zoning for a city of up to 400,000 people, which its backers call the “East Solano Plan.” 

The San Francisco Standard reported that the county Board of Supervisors will consider formally placing the initiative on the ballot at its June 25 meeting. It could also instead order a report to assess the plan’s impacts before putting it on the ballot. 

California Forever’s investors, who include Andreessen Horowitz cofounder Marc Andreessen, began releasing a list of benefits from the proposed project earlier this year, reported the Los Angeles Times. Among them are a pledge to create at least 15,000 jobs and $500 million to assist with down payments for housing, scholarships and other benefits for residents. 

Rendering courtesy of California Forever.

The California Apartment Association (CAA) warned members about an upcoming statewide ballot measure, the Justice for Renters Act. If approved, CAA said, it would represent “an existential threat” to rental housing providers and “from a ballot measure that could overturn the state’s most important rental housing law and “unleash widespread and unbridled rent control at the local level.”

Spearhead by activist Michael Weinstein, the Justice for Renters Act seeks to overturn the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, which exempts single-family homes and properties built after 1995 or earlier if they were in cities with rent control when Costa-Hawkins passed. The exemption “has been important by encouraging the development of new rental units throughout the state, particularly in communities that have rent control,” according to CAA.

“If the Justice for Renters Act were to pass, it would invite a return to extreme rent control policies, like those observed in cities like Berkeley, San Francisco, and Santa Monica before Costa-Hawkins,” CAA said. “This would reduce the availability and quality of rental units and deter the development of new rental housing and any additional private investment in upgrading and maintaining quality units.”

The association will lead a campaign to defeat the measure, as it had done previously with Propositions 10 and 21, and is urging rental property owners and industry stakeholders to join the effort.