General Plan Campaign
The City of Richmond releases draft General Plan
The city of Richmond released a draft of the city's General Plan and REDI partners, community members and technical assistance partners have evaluated it. Our campaign work clearly impacted the draft, especially around green jobs, job training, and air quality monitoring. Still, there are many opportunities for our recommendations to be stronger and for some that are totally absent to find inclusion.
NEXT STEPS
- Attend the December 9, 2009 Planning Commission Meeting to advocate for our recommendations.
- Conduct delegation meetings with Richmond City Council members and the Mayor to hold them accountable
The city plans to adopt the final General Plan in March, 2010.
For more information email Michael Katz at michael[at]urbanhabitat.com
Click here to see REDI's General Plan recommendations
Click here to see Richmond's draft General Plan
CAMPAIGN HISTORY
The City of Richmond in 2006 embarked upon a two year process to update their General Plan, a policy framework that expresses a city’s development goals, policies, and objectives for the next 10-15 years. It is designed to guide the day-to-day decisions of local elected officials, such as the city council, city staff, and local boards and committees such as the Planning Department.
The way a city is planned can greatly impact our lives. Planning influences what types of businesses and housing can be built in specific neighborhoods and how close industry can locate next to your homes. A General Plan can help decide where new parks and recreational facilities will be located and where buses and new roads will go.
REDI sees the General Plan as an opportunity to incorporate policies that can lead to among other things a healthier community through affordable housing, reliable and safe public transportation, quality, living wage jobs, a cleaner environment and greater community ownership. REDI brings together a diverse collaboration of people who want to create and realize a common vision for an equitable Richmond.
uses a zoning map to locate important place to him in relation to land use.
Richmond News via RP&E
Chevron Tries Sacramento End-Run Around CEQA
Chevron is trying to use Sacramento lobbying to bypass environmental protections for Richmond.Negotiations are still going on between environmental groups, the city of Richmond and Chevron about protections for restarting the Chevron expansion project. But Chevron is now lobbying the state legislature to sneak through a special exemption which allows the giant oil company to do its project without having to file an Environmental Impact Report and reach agreement with the city about environmental protections.
“Peace” is her middle name
Like many African American families, Mary “Peace” Head and her brood migrated to the Bay Area from Louisiana just before WWII in search of work and opportunity.
She would go on to work as a welder in the Richmond shipyards during the war. Head, who is now 83, later became one of the early residents of Parchester Village. She’s been a leader in this small housing development since the 1950s, playing an instrumental role in securing funding for a neighborhood community center and acting as a quasi-guardian to generations of local kids.
She is called “Mary Peace” by neighbors and others throughout the city, a name she earned by flashing her customary “peace sign” with her right index and middle fingers.
In 1950, Parchester Village, named for wealthy developer Fred Parr, opened on land beyond the border of northwest Richmond.
It was billed as a community for “All Americans,” but the idea was ahead of its time.
Good news for North Richmond’s jobless
The median household income in unincorporated North Richmond is $8,763, less than half the federal poverty level for a family of four. In Richmond proper—itself considered an economically disadvantaged town—it’s a little more than $50,000.
It’s this stark divide that reminds you that however economically bad things are in Richmond, where 17.5 percent of the city’s residents are unemployed, things just to the north are even worse.
