Government

No TOPA bill for Richmond, Council holds

Richmond’s City Council on Tuesday halted the drafting of a rule that would have required landlords to offer local tenants the first opportunity to buy their homes before they are put on the market or demolished.

Community learns election-district mapping in workshop by city, demographer

Richmond’s city clerk and a demographics consultant hosted a second workshop at the City Council chamber on Monday to guide community members through the process of drawing up districting maps for Richmond, which the City Council will consider during the city’s expected transition from at-large to district-based council elections in January 2020.

California backs Council, developer preference for Zeneca cleanup plan

California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) on Friday announced its selection of a cleanup plan for one of Richmond’s most notorious brownfields: an industrial site located on the city’s south shoreline, once occupied by a succession of corporate tenants including Stauffer Chemical Co. and pharmaceutical company Zeneca Inc. The plan will excavate contaminated soil and install barriers in areas where tainted soil will be left in place. It would take about eight fewer years to implement and involve tens…

Council votes on Zeneca site clean-up and development

Electrician and two-time cancer survivor Sherry Padgett could throw a baseball from her 49th Street cabling business and hit what Richmond residents call “the Zeneca site:” an eighty-seven-acre property that contains more than a century’s inheritance of hazardous waste from manufacturers including the now-defunct herbicide maker Stauffer Chemical and the European pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca. Padgett calls the chemicals on the site a “witch’s brew.” Around 10 p.m. Tuesday, the City Council voted 5-2 to reverse its support for a cleanup…