Your Life Here
There’s been a lot of curiosity about what it would be like to live in this new community. Here, we pull together everything to give you a sense of what it would be like for you or your children to live in the new community.
1. You can choose from many different types of homes
The new community is a place for everyone, for people at every stage and walk of life. To provide for everyone, the community will have both single-family homes and apartments, for sale and rental.
Maybe you start as a young person living in a small apartment close to restaurants, cafes, and bars. After working for a few years, you buy a starter home – a flat in a 4-story walkup . Later, when you start a family and have your first kid, you upgrade to a single-family home. Then one day, as your parents age, you build a “granny flat” in the backyard so your parents can live there (and help take care of your kids :).
The community will have different home types and different price points, all mixed together, which is what makes real diversity possible.
2. If you live in a single family home, you will have a private backyard
Many of the most beloved neighborhoods in cities all over America and the world are built around row houses. The reason for that is that a row house combines the convenience of being close to schools, grocery stores, and restaurants, with the privacy of having your own backyard.
That’s why our plan includes a lot of row houses. These are built on blocks that have an alley running through the middle of the block. That way, residents can have a garage off the alley, perhaps with a granny flat on top – or, if a homeowner prefers, they can just have a much bigger backyard.
3. You can rent if you want to, but our focus is on enabling homeownership
While we will have homes and apartments for both rent and sale, our focus is on enabling residents to become homeowners.
Our plan includes several key features that make this possible:
Starter homes – part of the challenge today is that few developers are building starter homes anymore. We are going to change that, by building smaller homes that allow you to get your start on the ownership ladder years sooner than you otherwise would. Being able to upgrade later within the same community makes that a really attractive option.
Multi-generational households – by creating row houses with ADUs at the back and other multi-generational living options, we make it possible for two generations to combine their incomes to support homeownership.
Car light living – our goal is to make it possible for a family to have one car instead of two or three, by making it possible for parents to work locally, and for kids to walk to school. Doing this saves the average family about $10,000 on lease, insurance, and gas, which can help pay for mortgage.
Finally, our $400 million Solano Homes For All guarantee will help thousands of Solano families with their downpayment.
4. Your kids can walk to school, and you can walk to see friends, or go shopping
Many of our streets are designated as “community streets”, which accommodate cars but only at 10 miles per hour, and greenways, which are car-free spaces. These designs turn these streets into public spaces that foster community, by making it easier and more pleasant to go for a walk, to sit on your stoop and chat to your neighbors, and to bump into your friends more often when going somewhere. Just as importantly, these streets make it possible for kids to walk to school alone, giving them more independence (and giving their parents a lot of time back!).
5. Public transit is a fast, fun, and convenient option, if you want to use it
We know that public transit is not a good option in most communities in California. But we believe that with our neighborhood design, we will be able to run a system that is fast, fun, and convenient. The plan includes small buses running in a grid every half mile, so it’s always easy to get from anywhere to anywhere in the community, with at most one stop.
The term for this kind of transit system is “bus rapid transit.” Bus rapid transit works a bit like rail, with vehicles that look similar to light rail and with their own lanes so that the buses are never stuck in traffic.
6. But if you want to drive, you can
We want to make walking, biking, and public transit good options for those who want them, but everyone needs to, or wants to, drive sometimes. That’s why every homeowner can decide to build a garage in their backyard if they want one.
We will also build some parking garages in the neighborhoods. Those can be used by visitors, by residents who live in apartment buildings – and by those homeowners who would rather park there, and keep a larger backyard.
The community will also have bigger parking garages at the edge of the community, at the end of each rapid transit line, so it’s easy to park there and get anywhere within the new community.
7. The heart of your neighborhood will be a local shopping street
We designed the community so that every home will be within a walking distance of a local shopping street. This is one of the great joys of city life: being able to easily walk to pick up groceries, stop at a coffee shop, go to the hardware store, buy flowers – or just people watch. The goal of each local shopping street is to have the few things you need most often – a grocery store, a few restaurants, a couple of cafes and bars, etc.
8. The other heart of your neighborhood is a local school
In suburban neighborhoods, schools need to be located near arterial roads, because everyone needs to drive in. In this community, because most people walk to school, we are able to locate the schools at the heart of each neighborhood, by a park, a few blocks from the shopping street. This will make life easier for young parents – you can pick up your kids from school, buy groceries, and head home – or see friends for a playdate or dinner. Schools will be public schools. California Forever is in the River Delta School District, and we are excited to contribute to it.
9. Public services will work like in other parts of Solano County
The new community will be part of unincorporated Solano County, just like other unincorporated parts of Solano County. We would pay taxes into the County, and the County would provide services such as law enforcement. Fire protection would be provided by existing fire districts, and the same for schools. When it comes to healthcare, we are already in discussions with healthcare providers, and we expect to build a range of local clinics and eventually a new hospital.
10. The entire community has mixed use, but these are flavors to them
The entire community is focused on making it easy to get conveniences of everyday life. Schools and shops near homes. Restaurants near offices. Cafes near parks. So most areas of the community permit mixing of these uses. But there are flavors to these mixes.
The Neighborhood Mixed Use zone (orange) is a place for homes, schools, parks, small businesses, and local shopping streets.
Downtown and the smaller District Center (pink) are places for major offices, cultural institutions, major shopping, entertainment, and larger apartment buildings.
Maker & Manufacturing (light purple) is a mixed-use zone modeled on the warehouse district you see in many older cities – an eclectic mix of jobs, nightlife, lofts, and small-scale manufacturing – kind of like R Street in Sacramento.
Industry & Technology (dark purple) is a place for manufacturing jobs, industry, warehouses, major hospitals, and other large uses. Residential uses are not permitted here.
Parks and Open Space are integrated across all of these zones. A few are shown in the map below, but most are not. In total, the plan requires that at least 4,000 acres of the New Community is used for Parks and Open Space – that’s about 20% of the total area!
11. Hopefully many of your friends and family will come to visit – often!
We are building a place that welcomes everyone. We hope that many Solano residents or their children move to the new community – but we also hope that everyone else comes to visit, often.
We’re investing heavily in recreation (playing fields, parks), shopping, and entertainment – we want this to be a destination for people from around the county to come have some fun.
The community is not a “private community” or a “bubble city”, it is not gated and will not restrict access to anyone. It is a new community, in Solano County and we’re excited to have you join us!