Land Use – Enviro Updates

Sonoma County greenlights $5.1 million for airport projects

September 15, 2026

Jeff Quackenbush, NORTH BAY BUSINESS JOURNAL

‘When do we plan on embarking on some new community engagement-driven planning process?’

Sonoma County supervisors on Tuesday approved millions of dollars in consulting and pavement work at Charles M. Schulz–Sonoma County Airport while calling for broader public discussion about future airport growth, flight operations and the county’s authority over them.

The Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 to approve $4.6 million in professional consulting task orders with BKF Engineers, Mead & Hunt Inc. and RS&H California Inc. a range of engineering, planning, design and environmental services at the north Santa Rosa facility in coming years. Supervisor James Gore, whose district includes the airport, abstained.

The largest individual task order is $1.35 million for design of the replacement rescue and firefighting facility. Other work includes a $585,438 terminal area study, $496,231 for engineering on later phases of terminal apron reconstruction and $355,101 to study relocating airport administrative offices. The airport is pursuing a 15-year expansion and modernization program.

Stout said many of the task orders concern airport infrastructure and landside planning rather than aircraft operations.

“These task orders are not related to the flight path or the noise policy issues,” Stout said. Those matters are set to come back to the board as early as Nov. 3.

Complaints have soared into the tens of thousands in the past several months after the FAA changed aircraft routes over West County and the number of flights has grown. That has led to alternative-route proposals in the past few months to the federal regulator from airport officials and a group of rural residents.

Land Use, Transportationairport, airport expansion, noise

California Forever housing plan sidelined as shipyard and manufacturing proposal advances

August 21, 2026

Laura Waxman, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

After weeks of frantic last-minute lobbying in Sacramento, billionaire-backed real estate development project California Forever could emerge from the current legislative session with permission to fast-track thousands of jobs — but not housing — in Solano County.

The legislation is expected to be introduced in the coming days and involve two lawmakers who represent Solano County, Assembly Member Lori Wilson, D-Suisun City, and Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, D-West Sacramento, according to a source who was briefed on the negotiations Thursday. It was outlined in a Solano County Board of Supervisors agenda released Friday. The board is being asked for its position on the bill Tuesday and could seek amendments or protections.

The Chronicle could not immediately reach Wilson or Cabaldon on Friday.

Exact details of the bill are not yet known. The agenda item only says that the board will “discuss and provide direction” on the county’s stance “regarding potential State legislation related to shipbuilding and maritime manufacturing development” in the Collinsville area, which is where California Forever’s shipyard is planned. It also notes that the legislation remains under “active development” and could be formally introduced ahead of Tuesday’s board meeting.

Land UseCalifornia Forever, Delta, development of open space, farmland loss, housing, Solano County

California Forever warns: No jobs without streamlined housing in Solano County

August 5, 2026

Nick McConnell, PRESS DEMOCRAT

California Forever cannot afford to follow through on its promises to bring jobs with its Solano Shipyard and Solano Foundry proposals if the residential elements of its unpopular Suisun Expansion Specific Plan are not streamlined and permitted, according to a blog post released by the company Tuesday afternoon.

“Some elected officials have voiced support for a faster permitting pathway for the Solano Shipyard and the existing Lambie Industrial Park, but not for the Suisun Expansion,” the blog post reads. “The Suisun Expansion includes the Solano Foundry, an evolution of Lambie Industrial Park, located further away from Travis AFB to protect its airspace, as well as new neighborhoods, homes, shops, schools, and parks. This is a mistake. Narrow legislation that excludes the Suisun Expansion will not bring major employers to the county.”

Approval of a “shipyard and foundry only” plan would not be a compromise, the company said, but “a guarantee that these employment centers are approved on paper but never get built.”

Land UseCalifornia Forever, Delta, development of open space

Solar makes sense to farmers as water supplies dry up

July 20, 2026

Blanca Begert and Ian James, LOS ANGELES TIMES

“Growers are feeling pinched,” Caitlin Peterson, associate director of the PPIC Water Policy Center, said. “Solar is one of the potential options for folks that are having to take land out of production that has the potential to be fairly lucrative.”

California’s Central Valley is one of the country’s richest farming regions, blessed with fertile soils, sunny days and a massive man-made system of irrigation canals and reservoirs.

But as climate change intensifies, droughts deepen and water restrictions kick in, growers in much of the valley are getting less water for their fields. They also face new limits on how much they can pump from underground, forcing them to leave hundreds of thousands of acres dry in the coming years. Some are turning to an answer they never thought they’d embrace: solar.

“We still want to farm, but taking the chance that water will be here was too risky,” said Todd Tracy, a fifth-generation farmer, as he drove through his groves of green pistachio trees about a half-hour west of Bakersfield.

In 2021, he optioned about a third of his family’s 8,600 acres to a solar developer, Avantus. The company is planning the largest solar-plus-storage project in the country, called Buttonbush. Its panels will eventually cover almost 12,000 acres and link up to a substation near the tiny town of Buttonwillow, before sending two gigawatts of electricity, enough to power 1 million homes, across the state.

Agriculture/Food System, Climate Change & Energy, Land Useag water use, Central Valley, groundwater, large-scale solar, SGMA, solar, water scarcity, Williamson Act

Judge tosses lawsuit against Petaluma in a victory for Lafferty Ranch park

July 11, 2026

Austin Murphy, PRESS DEMOCRAT

Getting sued in December 2024 took some of the luster off the holidays for Matt Maguire and Larry Modell.

Upon being subpoenaed, recalled Modell, “I had to tell my wife that our home and retirement savings were at risk, which was not a lot of fun.”

Maguire and Modell are longtime advocates for public access to Lafferty Ranch Open Space, a rugged, 270-acre preserve high up on Sonoma Mountain, several miles east of Petaluma, which has owned the park since 1959 and declared in a 1996 ordinance that it “shall be made available for passive use by the public.”

Efforts to make that happen, however, have been strenuously contested by a group of neighboring landowners on Sonoma Mountain Road. On Dec. 23, 2024, six of those landowners sued the city of Petaluma — and Maguire and Modell — alleging, among other causes of action, “public nuisance,” “private nuisance,” “trespass” and “infliction of emotional distress.”

Days after the suit was filed, Petaluma indemnified Modell and Maguire. “They brought us under their excellent legal representation,” said Modell, “so much of the worry went away at that point.”

Land UseLafferty Ranch, Petaluma

California Forever pushes Newsom to ease hurdles for proposed new city

June 25, 2026

Laura Waxman & Sophia Bollag, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

Backers of the plan to build a new city in Solano County say they are in talks with Gov. Gavin Newsom over legislation that would ease regulatory hurdles for the company’s planned development of a dense, walkable city and a shipbuilding facility along the county’s waterfront.

Newsom’s spokespeople did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the Chronicle about the talks, but the billionaire-backed California Forever project has hired two longtime Newsom allies, which appears to signal that the group is serious about seeking legislation to help circumvent local opposition and curtail CEQA opposition.

In recent months, former state legislative leaders Darrell Steinberg and Bob Hertzberg have been hired to continue rebranding California Forever’s proposal to build an urban enclave in rural Solano County as a conduit for economic growth by bringing new manufacturing and shipbuilding jobs to the region.

Land Useag land, California Forever, CEQA, Delta, development, wetlands

California Forever wants a CEQA exemption for their new city

June 25, 2026

Jim DeKloe, SIERRA CLUB SOLANO GROUP

As you likely know, a group of Silicon Valley billionaires now known as California Forever secretly bought up about 100 square miles of Solano County and also sued the family farmers who wouldn’t sell to them. They say that want to build a new city on this unincorporated farmland currently zoned for agriculture. This proposal is big – 175,000 new houses and 400,000 people – it would be an Oakland/ Minneapolis/ Tulsa/ Bakersfield sized bedroom community and bigger than Cleveland, Cincinnati, Honolulu, Anaheim – it’s big. If it existed today it would be the ninth largest city in California and would be larger than the largest city in nineteen states – it’s big. And a giant city has giant environmental impacts.

Last week it became clear that California Forever is using the influence that its money buys to try to gain special treatment from the California government – they are trying to have the Governor’s Office exempt the entire project from CEQA review. And Go-Biz, the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, seems willing to do it. It’s likely that they will accomplish this by adding a rider bill to the state budget like they did last year for the advanced manufacturing exemption.

The California Forever scheme has many moving parts and it isn’t clear which parts a special interest bill would cover. Besides the 175,000 houses, California Forever’s stated plans include an industrial area called “the Solano Foundry” and the proposed Collinsville 7,500 acre boat-building facility. A group out of Texas called Saronic that makes drone boats that deliver explosives to other ships shares investors with CF. It is likely that the “shipbuilding” facility will likely go to Brownsville TX – their Commission voted this week to give Saronic a 20 year 95% tax break. And the City of Rio Vista believes that their unstated plans include a massive data center. Each of these components would have a gigantic impact on the environment, on the quality of life of existing residents, and on the continued operation of Travis Air Force Base.

Land UseCalifornia Forever, CEQA, Delta, development, wetlands