Battle over fate of Point Molate continues
on September 11, 2018
Following the settlement which ended a years-long legal battle between casino developers and the city of Richmond over the fate of the scenic Point Molate, several activist groups have filed suit to block the development of housing in the area.
12 Comments
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Richmond needs housing. With 60% open space, this is a very fair deal. Get out of the way NIMBYs! Yes in my Backyard! Stop costing the city of Richmond money with your obstructionist lawsuit!
Lynn Miller – How do you know this is a good deal? Can you tell me what the maximum possible damages the City might have faced if it had gone to trial and lost? No, you can’t, because Upstream and the Tribe have never had to prove damages. Can you tell me the value of what was given to them – 50% of the proceeds in a development sale? No you can’t tell me that either. So how can you possible say this is a good deal? And BTW, the “open space” is just about all vertical.
I am a Richmond resident and I love Point Molate. I love its landscape and seascape. I was astonished when the City announced it had settled the lawsuit; I and others had no foreknowledge this was going to happen, let alone given any input. The City indeed violated the Brown Act. May it be put to rights now.
The idea of “preserving” a former industrial area as open space when our region is facing an unprecedented housing crisis is incredibly perverse and speaks to the privilege and selfishness of the groups opposing this development. It certainly has nothing to do with progressive values.
My only complaint with the current development concept is that a minimum of 670 units is orders of magnitude too low. The unit count floor should be in the tens of thousands. That is the only way to make this now isolated site both self-sustaining and anything more than a gated wealthy enclave.
What’s selfish about preserving open space? It’s scarce and benefits all. Let people, rich and poor, stroll along the beach if they want.
I have to think that John hasn’t been to Pt. Molate and doesn’t realize the traffic challenges. Nor does he know that part of this site has original native plants on the land and in the bay. If he had been, he wouldn’t have made those comments…
Point Molate should be left as is, it’s already enough that there is a huge ongoing housing project down the street that will only benefit the millionaires living in that small area. The park should be accessible to all Richmond residents.
I have been to Point Molate and I understand the various development challenges of the site. Issues like topography and access are frequently brought up by the overwhelmingly white and wealthy opponents of housing projects in our region. In the same way as preserving open space they are used to maintain the status quo for those already comfortably housed while denying shelter for others.
There will still be plenty of beach to walk at Point Molate after it’s developed. We’ve done a fantastic job of preserving beaches in this state but we’ve done a terrible job building enough housing for everyone that needs it. Millionaires worry about their next trip to the beach. The rest of us worry about whether we have a roof over our heads.
Don’t kid yourself . Regular folks will not be able to afford the housing proposed for Point Molate .
For any project idea to merit further consideration by the City Council, it must meet this set of criteria:
♦ Financial feasibility. Both implementation and operation of the idea must be financially feasible, either through objectives specified in the Base Reuse Plan for Point Molate
and satisfy the federal legislation authorizing the transfer of the Base to the City of Richmond.
♦ Jobs. The idea must result in the creation of jobs for Richmond residents.
♦ Parks, open space, and trails. The idea must supply and provide for the operation and maintenance of the required shoreline trail, shoreline park,and hillside open space as stipulated in the Land Disposition Agreement.
♦ Historic buildings. The idea must include an economically feasible means to preserve, rehabilitate, and reuse the buildings that make up the historic district.
One of the favorite truisms of anti-housers is that all new housing is unaffordable to anyone but the rich and therefore no new housing should be built. Circular hypocrisy at its best.
Anti-housers many of whom live in single family homes which were market rate at the time of construction have successfully blocked so much new market rate construction in this state over the last 50 years that we now find ourselves with massive artificial housing scarcity.
These same tireless “progressives” have bullied their local governments into both downzoning large swaths of their communities to SFR only zones and creating a massively complex entitlement process that drastically drives up the cost of both SFR and multi-family housing construction.
All of the above leads to a market in which not nearly enough new high end SFRs and units are fought over by far too many people needing housing. And then the anti-housers comfortably ensconced in their pre-war spanish revivals with artisan cucumber patches and bridge views say see we told you so. The hypocrisy is so thick you can chock on it.
We need a reasonable and balanced approach at Point Molate. Anyone who argues for one extreme or the other is not facing reality. There can be some public open space/preservation and desperately needed housing.
On the housing front, we must stop development that isolates rich and poor communities. Nimbys should be ashamed of themselves, especially in a “Progressive” city like Richmond, for suggesting no housing be built.
Let’s start requiring developers to create socioeconomically integrated neighborhoods with multi-family housing amongst single family residences. Let’s bring different people together in our neighborhoods so that we can learn to work together to improve our city and our region. We need new ideas to bridge the yawning gap of understanding between “others” based on their wealth. Let’s be a leader and Influence positive change in our society. Let’s be better.