Policy & Advocacy Campaigns
We participate in local, regional, state and national coalitions that are working to make the rules more favorable for a non-extractive relationship to land and historically excluded and marginalized peoples.
BIPOC communities and every day people have been historically and chronically marginalized from governmental processes that influence our lives. Through organizing, advocacy efforts, and active participation in planning processes, Richmond LAND makes sure community voices are heard and our needs are represented, from our city to our state, from the neighborhood block to Sacramento. We have been involved with co-creating the Contra Costa General Plan, zoning changes to support tiny home villages, and updating Contra Costa’s housing element to advocate for anti-speculation and anti-displacement policies. Learn more and join us in shaping the rules that govern our communities and acquiring the resources we need to bring our visions to life.
CAMPAIGNS:
Advocacy letters:
July 5, 2022 – Housing Element Presentation with Greenbelt
In order to share more broadly with members of the community about what the housing element is, we teamed up with Greenbelt to do an overview of the fundamentals of the housing element. This sessioned centers Contra Costa’s Housing element as a policy document that must be adopted for effective implementation of housing policies across the County.
February 7, 2022 – Housing Element letter
When RL began to seed the vision of the Tiny House Eco Village, we saw that the zoning type required to build the type of community we wanted was not possible due to Contra Costa County’s zoning policies. Contra Costa’s housing element was so outdated, it did not reflect the current needs of the community. So we engaged with our members to advocate for Housing Policies such as anti-speculation and anti-displacement.
March 26, 2021 – Environmental Justice Goals, Policies, & Actions to Sustainability Committee & Commission (Citizen advisory board) letter.
The general plan is a comprehensive collection of goals, policies and actions that guides future land-use, development, conservation. Once we began to create innovative project ideas sourced by local residents, we needed to understand whether planning rules and regulations would allow us to enact our vision of land-use and housing justice. General plan advocacy is about ensuring ___as a would have long term policy impacts on our community so Richmond LAND’s membership got involved with the first element that the County undertook. This was our introduction to the general plan process and how our membership saw EJ goals as vital to housing and home.
Public land in community hands CAMPAIGN
Richmond LAND believes the desires and needs of the community of North Richmond should be centered in the disposition of public housing land known as Las Deltas. Since late 2020, Richmond LAND has raised awareness about the upcoming disposition process, provided spaces for residents to meet and discuss their desires and hopes for future development on scattered sites, and provide popular education about the community land trust model as a tool for ensuring community-held transformation of the 42 Las Deltas scattered sites.