As Flood Risk Grows, Suisun City Weighs Annexing California Forever Land

Becky Carroll’s earthy yellow ranch-style home faces a vast marshland filled with migratory birds and boaters. She lives in a quaint, waterside neighborhood on the edge of Suisun City, where streets have names like Dolphin Court.

Even though Carroll lives right on the water, she isn’t worried that her property will flood. It hasn’t in the nearly 20 years since she and her husband moved in. And, she has faith in the marsh’s natural ability to soak up the water like a sponge.

“We feel very safe,” Carroll said. “We have our boat right outside our back door, so it’s perfect.”

But this neighborhood, and a large swath of the marshy city, is located in what climate scientists call one of the Bay Area’s top sea level rise hot spots.

Suisun City, a working-class community on the edge of San Francisco Bay, faces a slow-moving crisis: rising seas could swallow parts of the town within decades. It also faces an imminent budget crisis threatening insolvency.

Among other solutions, city leaders are eyeing a controversial fix — annexing thousands of inland acres from California Forever, a tech billionaire-backed company — a move that could raise tax revenue and secure higher ground, but risks fierce fights over growth, climate adaptation and the city’s future.

For years, city officials have debated how to prepare for climate change. Suisun City Mayor Alma Hernandez, who grew up in a tan apartment blocks away from the waterfront, said that point hit home a few years back, when she hiked up a hill nearby and saw how the marsh — the largest brackish wetland in California — seemed to dwarf her tiny city of about 30,000.

“My city will be affected by flooding, and no one really knows about it,” Hernandez said.

City Hall and restaurants like Bab’s Delta Diner are right on the water. Hernandez is worried that the area — considered the city’s playground — could be inundated in the coming decades.

She wonders whether the annexation deal with California Forever could help solve both the budget deficit threatening the city’s stability and climate-induced flooding.

The company, which did not respond to KQED’s request for comment, is proposing to build a mega-development with tens of thousands of homes several miles inland. Unlike Suisun City, the land where California Forever wants to build does not face risks from rising seas.

“If we didn’t have the annexation opportunity, we would know that we would be a shrinking city over time,” Hernandez said. “And we would have nowhere else to go.”

Annexation of California Forever’s land could present at least two sea level rise solutions: tax revenue from future residents could help pay for potentially expensive adaptation efforts, or the project could provide housing for displaced residents.

But climate experts argue that annexation isn’t a guaranteed fix for the city’s climate issues. Mark Lubell, a professor of environmental science and policy at UC Davis, said that while the opportunity sounds “juicy,” the development might cost too much, it may not set aside homes for displaced residents and the city might not choose to spend the tax revenue on protecting flood-prone areas.

“I don’t think there’s any way in which you could ever consider California Forever as a solution to Suisun City’s climate risk, either in terms of revenue generation or as a place that could be an escape hatch for climate migration,” Lubell said.

Last year, California Forever released a report, claiming its project would generate billions of dollars in revenue for the county. Days later, county staff released their own study, which showed the project would cost more than it would generate.

Suisun City is a sea level rise hot spot

Suisun City has a long history of flooding dating back to the 1800s. During winter months, king tides — caused by a stronger-than-normal gravitational pull when the sun, moon and Earth align — can cause the marsh to spill into the city, flooding sidewalks and roadways.

Those stronger tides foreshadow a far wetter future as human-caused climate change drives sea level rise. Since the 1880s, oceans have risen globally by about eight inches on average.

State regulators have mandated that every coastal city and county develop vulnerability assessments of what’s at risk and lay out potential solutions, telling places like Suisun City to expect nearly a foot of sea level rise by 2050, in a “most likely” scenario, and up to 6.6 feet in a worst-case scenario by the end of the century. Coastal communities also have to contend with storm surges and shallow groundwater rise.

Jaclyn Perrin-Martinez, climate adaptation planning manager with the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, said the state agency’s maps show that with two feet of sea level rise, there will be “significant overtopping” and flooding in Suisun City, which could happen by 2050.

That would put much of the area south of Highway 12 under water, flooding a middle school, City Hall, downtown businesses and a rail line, impacting “some of the most vulnerable members of the community,” Hernandez said.

Local leaders have begun to plan for sea level rise. They’re working on a regional adaptation plan with potential solutions from Vallejo to Suisun City. The Fairfield-Suisun Sewer District leads it.

Already, king tides push brackish water into a sewage treatment plant, minorly disrupting its operations. “The problems that we begin to see at king tides would be likely more frequent and likely more severe,” said Jordan Damerel, the local agency’s general manager.

Damerel said the group could complete the assessment as soon as next year, and a list of potential solutions could come in 2027. Even with Suisun City’s marshland absorbing water, rising seas could someday drown large parts of the wetland and flow into the city. Local leaders said solutions could range from sea walls to levees to pumps.

Damerel wants an “everyone wins scenario” where communities, businesses and sewer infrastructure are safe from floodwaters.

But that plan is separate from discussions around annexation. Officials from the sewer district said the vulnerability assessment would only consider Suisun City’s existing boundaries.

The complicated process of moving inland

Even in public discussions around the potential annexation, Suisun City officials rarely talk about flood risk.

During a public meeting in January, City Manager Bret Prebula, wearing a bright blue suit, briefly mentioned sea level rise in his plan to fix budget issues. He argued annexation could help the city become an attractive candidate for federal funding.

“If we do not create an area in both downtown and expansion that is worth saving, it is going to be a difficult conversation years down the line with the federal government,” Prebula said.

He then pointed to an even bleaker possibility: adaptation efforts might not work, and the city may not be able to stop flooding, meaning some residents and businesses may have to relocate inward.

Lubell, the UC Davis researcher, said that in the future, there may “have to be some retreat there given the extent of the flooding.”

The strategy, called “managed retreat,” is often regarded as a last resort for cities imminently facing sea level rise. The complicated process involves residents leaving their homes, often receiving government compensation for their property and moving to higher ground.

While Charisma Acey, an associate professor of city and regional planning at UC Berkeley, is not opposed to the strategy, she said it is often politically charged and can be “a dirty word,” especially in a country with strong property rights.

“If people don’t see the water rising right now, they’re thinking the government is just trying to take land below fair market value,” Acey said. “And take their communities away.”

Acey added, when communities discuss how to adapt to climate change, often the most vulnerable residents are left out because participation requires time and effort, a scarce resource for people working multiple jobs or commuting long distances.

If managed retreat is seriously considered, Acey said city officials will have to regard solutions equitably, for homeowners and renters alike. According to data from the 2023 American Community Survey, nearly 40% of Suisun City residents rent their homes.

‘We absolutely need to look for higher ground’

Involving California Forever in talks about solutions could further complicate the debate.

Hernandez admitted that sea level rise had not been a central issue in discussions with the company because the city’s budget crisis is “taking priority,” and the threat of insolvency is more immediate.

But she added, while she has the company’s attention, it’s time to address the risk of flooding as well.

Many residents and advocacy groups, however, do not trust California Forever to work in their best interests, partly because of its rocky history of quietly acquiring land, suing farmers and pushing — and then pulling — a ballot initiative last year.

Residents, including Carroll, still have questions about how the project would affect the county’s existing infrastructure and are concerned that newcomers would further crowd Highway 12, which Carroll said is already “a disaster” to drive on.

And she questions whether it would ever be necessary to leave her dockside home — even if seas rise.

“Even with a tsunami coming through,” Carroll doesn’t believe her property could flood because San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta would take the brunt of high water. It would then have to go through the marsh before reaching her backyard dock.

Nate Huntington, a resilience manager with the environmental advocacy group Greenbelt Alliance, said the way Suisun City chooses to adapt to sea level rise should center on what residents want for their future. His organization is part of the local community coalition, Solano Together.

“It shouldn’t be a decision that’s dictated by a development group that doesn’t have the land zoned how they want it right now,” he said.

Hernandez argued that with annexation, the city actually holds the power. Earlier this summer, she and other officials signed an agreement that allows them to exit negotiations, no strings attached. If the annexation deal is approved, she said Suisun City will have the ultimate say in what gets built, not the developer.

She is eager to look for other solutions, but with annexation on the table, retreat could be worth exploring too — even if it’s a last resort.

“It’s really hard to hear the same individuals tell us that our downtown will be flooded in 50 years [and] also tell us, ‘But don’t look for higher ground,’” Hernandez said. “We absolutely need to look for higher ground.”