Poll shows opposition to Suisun expansion for California Forever development

SUISUN CITY – A new poll of Suisun City voters indicates strong opposition to expanding the city’s boundaries to accommodate the billionaire-backed California Forever proposal to build a new city and industrial facilities. 

The survey of 400 Suisun City voters, conducted by the research group FM3, found that 58% of those polled opposed the expansion plan while only 19% supported the plan and 23% remained undecided. 

The poll found that opposition to the plan remained firm even after survey participants were presented with arguments in support of the development. When survey participants were presented with both supportive and opposing arguments, opposition increased to 65%. 

“Voters are well-aware of the California Forever development in Suisun City,” the research group noted in a statement on the survey results. “That familiarity has yielded remarkably broad, strong and durable public opposition.”

The Suisun City plan proposes to expand the city eastward to include 22,873 acres, including 15,737 acres west of Rio Vista where California Forever hopes to build a new city that would accommodate 400,000 residents by 2071.

California Forever spokesperson Julia Blystone said in an email that the survey incorrectly stated that Suisun City would be responsible for certain development costs. 

"The leading question in the push poll materially misrepresents both what the Suisun Expansion Plan is and who would pay for infrastructure and services,” Blystone said. “If you ask a false question, you can expect a false answer.” 

She argued that the Suisun expansion would create over 10,000 new jobs and $89 million in new local tax revenues in its first few years.

California Forever originally sought voter approval for the zoning changes required for the project in 2024 but then withdrew the initiative after a county report cited environmental concerns and found that the development project would lead to as much as $200 million in county and agency deficits. 

A survey of Solano County voters that year, also conducted by FM3, found that nearly 70% of respondents planned to vote “no” on the initiative. Both of the FM3 studies were commissioned by the Greenbelt Alliance, a partner of the local organization Solano Together that was formed by county residents opposed to California Forever’s development plans. 

Suisun City began to explore the possibility of annexing the California Forever-owned land east of its current boundaries in January 2025. The annexation process does not require voter approval but it does require approval from the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission which is a five-member commission made up of two county supervisors, two city mayors and a public representative. The expansion project will also require Suisun City’s certification of an environmental impact report.  

In June, the Suisun City Council approved an agreement with California Forever to reimburse the city for its costs to complete the annexation. The agreement included public benefit payments totalling $10 million that California Forever would pay to Suisun City in stages: $3.5 million upon the city’s certification of the environmental impact report and $6.5 million after annexation approval by the Local Agency Formation Commission. 

California Forever has also proposed a Solano Shipyard project to develop 7,500 acres into a heavy marine industrial terminal near the town of Collinsville. 

California Forever and Mare Island developer the Nimitz Group submitted a request earlier this month for the federal government to select the California Delta region as a Maritime Prosperity Zone as part of an effort to renew the U.S. shipbuilding industry. 

Last week, California Forever announced it had signed a 40-year labor agreement with the Napa/Solano Building Trades Council and the Northern California Carpenters Union that “mandates that the majority of construction—including all infrastructure, public works, major commercial, office, retail, industrial, defense, and energy projects—be built using union labor through individual Project Labor Agreements.”

California Forever’s announcement cites a report from the Bay Area Council Economic Institute which estimated that the Suisun expansion plan and the Solano Shipyard could bring as many as 17,000 construction jobs. The announcement states that the majority of those jobs will fall under the labor agreement and union workers will earn wages averaging $108,000 annually. 

Solano Together and other groups are holding a march and rally on Saturday in opposition to the Suisun expansion plan. Participants will leave from the Suisun Walmart at 2 p.m. and march to the Suisun Harbor where the rally will begin at 3 p.m.