A group of landowners say a Silicon Valley-backed company trying to build a sustainable city northeast of San Francisco used unfair and “strong-armed” tactics to force farmers to sell their land, including pitting family members against each other, court documents show.
The details emerged on Friday as part of a lawsuit the company, Flannery Associates LLC, filed in May in District Court in Sacramento, alleging various farmers conspired to inflate the value of their land by $170 million. The landowners deny the claim and are seeking to dismiss the suit.
Flannery has spent about $800 million to purchase at least 52,000 acres of agricultural land, becoming the area’s biggest landowner.
Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The latest allegations, contained in a report on a ...
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