Development
North Richmond is an unincorporated community in West Contra Costa County and is almost completely surrounded by the City of Richmond. The idea of annexation, or integration, of North Richmond into the city has been raised for decades. In 2017, it came up once more and residents are currently discussing the possibility.
In U.S. District Court on Tuesday, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers called the years of legal battles over the scenic stretch of shoreline called Point Molate, “a tragedy for a city like the city of Richmond.” But still, Rogers said, she was inclined to allow the court case challenging a recent settlement between the city and casino developers to proceed because, “the law requires that i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed, and it’s not clear to me that that was done.”
As rents and home prices continue to skyrocket across California, a major ballot fight is brewing between tenants and the real estate industry over the state rent control law Costa Hawkins. The law prohibits cities from implementing rent control on single family homes as well as homes or apartments built after 1995 (or the year the city passed it’s rent control law, which, in Oakland, is 1983), resulting in 100% or more rent increases for tenants in these dwellings. The…
Three volunteers slosh through John F. Kennedy Park in Richmond as they do each school day. The sounds of hail hitting the thin tin roof of the pavilion almost drown out the soft, squeaking sound of the trash pickers pinching packages of blunt wraps and flattened cans of beer. The brief, but heavy, downpour adds a dramatic flair to the garbage collection session. “We make sure over the wild weekend, there are no needles left here,” says Bendrick Foster as…
Last year in June, East Bay-resident Dieudonné Brou graduated from UCLA in African American studies. During his commencement speech, he revealed himself as formerly incarcerated. Even though higher education offers chance to break the cycle of recidivsm, barriers like financial difficulties and social stigma are high for former incarcerated people.
After almost eight years of grinding litigation that has brought proposals to develop Richmond’s controversial Point Molate area to a halt, the city and the developer who sued it over a plan to build a casino have finally reached a settlement. This means 13 years of political fighting since Richmond officially acquired the 270-acre parcel of land and former fuel depot from the Navy in 2003 may finally give way to a unified plan to make economic use of the…
The Home Team, a collaboration of design firms and community organizations, is working on a proposal to reduce the risk of rising sea levels in Richmond. The project is part of the Resilient by Design challenge, a 10-team competition to create the best model for addressing climate disasters in the Bay Area.
Proposition 64, which voters passed in November 2016, not only legalized the adult use of cannabis, but also established protocols for reducing, dismissing and sealing old marijuana-related convictions. That means Californians convicted of cannabis crimes can wipe them away—if they file a petition.
To commemorate Black History Month, the news teams from Oakland North and our sibling site, Richmond Confidential, spent a morning observing some of the spaces in our two cities that have been important to the East Bay’s black community—past and present.