Simply up the street from Oakland and Berkeley, town of Richmond is a minority and low-income group of 115,500 folks — primarily Latino, Black and Asian American — with a serious Chevron refinery whose air pollution has been an ongoing supply of battle (town simply reached a $550-million settlement with Chevron to mitigate well being and way of life results of the refinery). It’s additionally dwelling to an energetic port and shortly — lastly — a world-class park.
Level Molate exemplifies the wrestle for environmental justice in under-parked and over-polluted minority communities. Political help in Sacramento and Washington helps, however the battle to ensure the way forward for 413 acres of city-owned headlands relied on bottom-up organizing and decided citizen engagement that encompassed protests, native candidacies, poll initiatives, neighborhood conferences, bilingual mailings, public testimony, photograph and artwork reveals, billboards, website excursions and, after all, lawsuits. Democracy, in different phrases.
The headlands website, Level Molate, a former World Warfare II Navy gasoline depot largely reclaimed by nature since its closure in 1995, lies simply north of the Richmond Bridge. It deserves its tagline: “Probably the most stunning a part of the Bay Space nobody’s ever heard of.” But it was nearly misplaced to varied improvement schemes till this summer time, when the Richmond Metropolis Council voted to approve a $40-million deal to determine it as a totally protected park. The state will present $36 million (partly via Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 30×30 initiative, which like nationwide and world efforts goals to guard 30% of the state’s lands and waters by 2030), with the stability coming from the East Bay Regional Park District.
Richmond acquired possession of Level Molate from the Navy in 2003 for $1, and town shortly started bargaining over improvement rights to the location. A sliver of seashore opened to the general public in 2014, and on the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was a magnet for native households. For greater than twenty years, Richmonders fought for the opposite 97% of the fenced-off website to change into a public park.
Level Molate, initially Ohlone land, is dwelling to sea hares, bat rays, leopard sharks and river otters in its offshore eelgrass beds, one of many final wholesome nurseries for herring and Dungeness crab within the San Francisco Bay estuary. Its native grasses and forested hillsides host nesting ospreys and greater than 200 different chicken species, together with mule deer, wild turkeys, coyotes and the uncommon pipevine swallowtail butterfly. Earlier than the Navy arrived, Level Molate was famed for Winehaven, a red-brick vineyard, employee housing and a transport port constructed to maintain California wine flowing after the 1906 earthquake destroyed a lot of San Francisco. Winehaven’s buildings at the moment are on the Nationwide Register of Historic Locations.
Builders, in collaboration with a band of Pomo Indians from Mendocino County, first proposed a mega-casino for the location, with 4,000 slot machines and Las Vegas-style facilities, together with a conference middle, a high-rise parking construction and a ferry. Regardless of the promise of 1000’s of jobs and vital annual revenues, Richmond residents feared that the mission would generate crime, encourage downside playing and create fixed visitors jams. In 2010, town’s voters rejected the on line casino proposal 58% to 42%.
With the on line casino defeated, one other improvement plan emerged: a luxurious housing property — as many as 1,450 properties and condos with value tags within the $1.2-million vary, for patrons with incomes round $250,000. The median revenue for Richmond’s residents is just below $80,000. The town can be required to construct and employees a fireplace and police substation and float a $300-million bond to fund the event’s water, energy and sewage infrastructure.
As soon as once more, the group rallied. Housing advocates objected to town’s making a hefty, ongoing funding at Level Molate; they wished inexpensive, mixed-use items constructed downtown, the place infrastructure is already in place and housing is desperately wanted. Richmonders, environmental teams and others — together with industrial fishermen — joined collectively within the Level Molate Alliance (full disclosure: I’m a member), which took the lead within the effort.
The coalition held group conferences, testified at Metropolis Council conferences and, with pro-bono authorized assist, filed a California Environmental High quality Act lawsuit arguing that the developer’s environmental affect report didn’t account for the results of constructing on a delicate website, with no provision for safeguarding Ohlone sacred websites and no evacuation plan for an space the state categorized as a “Excessive Hearth Hazard Severity Zone.”
In June 2024, the California Court docket of Appeals unanimously sided with the group activists’ CEQA go well with, ruling that the posh housing EIR was fatally flawed and needed to be rescinded, successfully canceling town’s obligation to the builders.
Apart from the declare of the Guidiville Rancheria Pomo, who had been a part of the unique on line casino plan. In July, the tribe and its developer accomplice agreed to the $40-million settlement supply from town, state and park district.
“Level Molate Park Now!” T-shirts have gone from protest gear to collectibles. The final approval wanted, from the California State Coastal Conservancy, is predicted by November, when the East Bay Regional Park District can start to take down miles of fencing and open the park to the general public. Neighborhood members plan to work with the district to see soccer fields, mountaineering trails and a house for the annual Richmond Powwow established there within the close to future.
When the folks lead, the leaders comply with. Cussed, vigilant group activism received a tangible victory at Level Molate that may be repeated in different under-parked communities. Bear in mind: River otters and herring can’t signal petitions. Butterflies can’t vote and mule deer can’t testify at Metropolis Council conferences. It’s as much as us people.
David Helvarg is a Richmond resident; government director of Blue Frontier, an ocean coverage group; and co-host of “Rising Tide: The Ocean Podcast.”
