A clandestine investment group that spent nearly $1 billion on land near a Californian Air Force base has been outed as a consortium of wealthy Silicon Valley investors.
The group, known as Flannery Associates, acquired nearly 54,000 acres around the Travis Air Force Base in Solano County, California since 2018.
Who Are Flannery Associates?
Despite initial speculation that the investors were Chinese, Flannery Associates maintained that the group was primarily made up of U.S. citizens.
Federal officials, after an eight-month investigation, were unable to confirm or deny these claims.
Building a New City for Silicon Valley
The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle recently revealed that the group aimed to build a new city from scratch to accommodate the expanding demands of the tech industry.
The proposed city could potentially help alleviate congestion, housing shortages, and high living costs in the Bay Area. However, the project has sparked mixed reactions from locals and government officials due to security concerns around the proximity to the Air Force Base.
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Security Concerns and Legal Battles
Democratic California Rep. John Garamendi expressed his concerns over the potential security risks posed by the development. He also criticized Flannery Associates for suing local farmers who had sold their land at a higher price to the group, accusing them of conspiring to inflate land values.
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