Development
There has been a decades-long battle over Point Molate, a picturesque parcel containing hundreds of acres on Richmond’s shoreline, about a mile north of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. The city, state and Guidiville Rancheria tribe have laid claim to all or part of the property. Soon the sourthernmost portion will be turned into a state park, which the tribe has begrudgingly agreed to. Last month, the State Coastal Conservancy granted $36 million to the East Bay Regional Park District to…
District 1 City Council candidates fielded questions Wednesday night on quality-of-life issues ranging from public safety and clean streets to economic development and how to spend the $550 million windfall the city is set to receive from Chevron. About 50 people attended the candidates’ night at CoBiz Richmond, hosted by the media outlets Richmond Confidential, Richmondside, The Contra Costa Pulse and El Tímpano. Journalists and residents asked Jamelia Brown, Mark Wassberg and incumbent Melvin Willis how they would promote business…
Richmond City Council voted in a special meeting Friday to back a $40 million sale of Point Molate to the East Bay Regional Park District, ending years of discussion about how to develop the sprawling coastline property that once was a Naval depot and a winery. “Twenty plus years of community organizing, continuously bringing to the forefront the hopes and dreams of our residents for a major park at Point Molate, have once again demonstrated that with hard work and…
Looking inward from the tip of Point Pinole, it is hard to imagine that much of the gradually sloping expanse that is Richmond’s 32-mile shoreline could someday be transformed into a bulwark against global sea level rise. In September, the city issued a request for proposals from contractors to author a strategic document that could guide Richmond’s response to the foot or so of ocean water expected to inundate coastal cities the world over. In addition to requiring a detailed…
It will be quite some time before any new homes are built in Keller Beach. Since January 2022, property owners in the small Point Richmond neighborhood have been barred from obtaining building permits, owing to a city moratorium on new connections to the Keller Beach Sanitary Sewer, which stretches for just over a mile along the area’s coastline. City officials tagged the line in November 2021, according to records, because of “severe internal corrosion” and sand deposits in portions of…
When Kathleen Clancy and Bob Keller moved their houseboat into the Point San Pablo Harbor 33 years ago, the first person they met was a man they remember by his license plate, “CPTBLUD” (Captain Blood). “It was like walking into an old western,” Clancy said. She remembers the day was gray, and the place was deserted. Decades before the couple moved in, John Wayne shot his 1955 film “Blood Alley” at the harbor. Now it is home to around 35…
Zeneca Inc. will begin a series of “groundwater injections” next month at the controversial Campus Bay project site in South Richmond, setting off a nine-month process to break down hazardous compounds underlying the 86-acre patch of coastal land. According to Zeneca planning documents, contractors will pump thousands of gallons of city water, reactive iron, microbes and microbe food into about 400 wells that dot the 86-acre site, which lies due west of Richmond’s Panhandle Annex neighborhood. The idea, California Department…
In January, Mayor Tom Butt will leave office, and a majority of the Design Review Board may follow him. The City Council rejected Butt’s proposed appointments of two new members to the DRB in a 3-3-1 vote at the Nov. 15 meeting. Vice Mayor Eduardo Martinez and council members Claudia Jimenez and Gayle McLaughlin voted against the appointments. Council member Melvin Willis abstained. “I’ll tell you a little secret,” Butt told the council. “We’re not going to have a quorum…
Point Molate, a scenic stretch of San Francisco Bay shoreline, has faced one legal battle after another over its ownership and development potential. A new lawsuit, filed on May 27 in Contra Costa County Superior Court, seeks $20 million from the City of Richmond and threatens to tie up the 425-acre plot indefinitely. Winehaven Legacy LLC, a subsidiary of developer SunCal, has accused the city of breaching its contract and breaking the Brown Act, which governs public meetings in California. …