An oral history project documenting the stories of Laotian Americans in Richmond, the housing challenges they face today and how people are working to keep the community together. Led by Building Power Fellows Brandy Khansouvong and Sary Tatpaporn.
These principles are created by Black mothers from Richmond who, through their experiences, saw a
need to develop principles, actions and measurements that can empower all people that have been
excluded from the development and planning work that shapes where we live. These principles are
meant to bring a Black Feminist lens to the process of Community Development and are informed
by our work to create safe Black spaces.
After a widely contested Point Molate settlement that accelerated the sale of 270 acres of public land along a 1.4 mile stretch of unoccupied shoreline near the Richmond/San Rafael Bridge, the newly convened board of RCDE (Now Richmond LAND) engaged in our first rapid response effort to mobilize homegrown residents' engagement around the future of Point Molate.
See our early statement on the Equitable Development of Point Molate - Richmond Community-owned Development Enterprise
Our involvement in the Point Molate fight was an important stance against the erasure of BIPOC participation in land development conversations. Pushing against the idea that the future of Point Molate was either for economic development and housing production or environmental conservation and open space. Instead we created a process for communities of color to discuss, create, and produce their desired outcomes for Point Molate and equitable development more broadly.
Key Results from our Involvement:
Raising the visibility of homegrown residents of colors participation in the city's half a million dollar community engagement process.
A parallel engagement process that yielded input from a diverse range of community members and resulted in the published report: Equitable Development of Point Molate that was adopted in the City of Richmond's RFP process.
A Terms of Commitment document that was championed by city council members during the developers public presentations and used as a template for resident engagement in future community benefit campaigns across the city.
The Point Molate Rapid Response effort taught us that while we are shifting our efforts toward community-control through land acquisition, and creation of our own development projects, there must still be a concerted effort to raise awareness and build collective knowledge in our communities about the role residents can play in advocating for their vision of development.
Stay tuned for the release of our Equitable Development toolkit that will provide community members with tools and resources to interact, respond, and mobilize for broad community benefits from development efforts in their neighborhoods.