By Vicky Hoover, Norman La Force & Point Molate Alliance
Conserving 30 percent of our lands and coastal waters by 2030 is part of the action-oriented global movement to protect half of the Earth for nature — and this crucial campaign is at work right here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our Sierra Club 30 by 30 Task Force seeks to protect our local conservation priority areas to help achieve 30 by 30 in California. Already the SF Bay Chapter’s 30 by 30 team has seen one significant victory — the protection of Tesla Park against motorized vehicle use, which you can read more about here — and now the focus turns to the next top priority: Point Molate on the Richmond shoreline.
Point Molate is the last opportunity to protect an intact ridge-to-shoreline ecosystem on San Francisco Bay. With 413 land and water acres, it is also home to Ohlone sacred sites, a Chinese shrimp camp site on the National Register of Historic Places, over 200 bird species including ospreys and bald eagles, as well as over 600 plant and other animal species. According to Dr. Katharyn Boyer of the Estuary & Ocean Science Center, Point Molate includes 120 acres of San Francisco Bay’s healthiest eelgrass meadows, critical to the welfare of the Bay’s fish, crab, and other wildlife. In fact, these eelgrass beds provide eelgrass for restoration projects all along the West Coast of the United States.
Point Molate could become a world-class park, bringing natural resources to Richmond and protecting the Ohlone people’s sacred sites. As great parks always do, it would attract new families and investment to our neighborhoods and remind park-goers of Richmond’s coastal past so it can be a part of Richmond’s present and greater future.
However, Point Molate is threatened with the proposed development of a luxury housing site. Between 1,400 and 2,100 housing units would be built, with almost all at market rate aside from 67 affordable housing units. To qualify for the market-rate housing, one would need an annual income of $200,000 at today’s prices. These units would be built in the most dangerous fire zones designated by the State due to their vegetation and proximity to the massive Chevron oil refinery. The economic analysis of the proposed project showed that Richmond taxpayers would end up bearing the costs — paying millions of dollars for the infrastructure needed for this massive luxury housing project.
But the Sierra Club, with the Richmond Shoreline Alliance, members of the Confederated Villages of Lisjan (Ohlone), Citizens for East Shore Parks, SPRAWLDEF, and others, are not only challenging this project legally and politically but also identifying sources of funding to turn Point Molate into a great regional park. The Chapter’s East Bay Public Lands Committee is the lead entity on this issue, with chair Norman La Force also serving as an attorney in the legal battle to save Point Molate along with Stuart Flashman and Robert Cheasty.
On October 19th, the Richmond City Council voted 4 to 3 instructing the City Attorney to file a brief in the federal appeals court case in support of the Sierra Club and community groups that have sued the city. After opposing us, the City will now go on record admitting that it violated the Brown Act and California's land use law when it secretly approved a settlement with developers hoping to build a casino on Point Molate. This illegal 2019 agreement resulted in the proposed luxury housing project we face today. Please send a letter thanking the four councilmembers who took this courageous action: Gayle McLaughlin, Eduardo Martinez, Claudia Jimenez, and Melvin Willis. Their contact information can be found here.
You can become involved in this effort through the Chapter’s East Bay Public Lands Committee (contact Norman La Force at n.laforce@comcast.net) or our Chapter 30 by 30 Task Force. You can also find more information about this important ecosystem on the Point Molate Alliance’s website.
Our 30 by 30 team continues to fight for our local lands and waters throughout the Bay Area — you can find a full list of priority conservation areas here. This list is not final — it can evolve and grow. If you know of another local area threatened by development or otherwise needing protection, or if you wish to volunteer with the 30 by 30 campaign, please contact the SF Bay Chapter’s 30 by 30 chair Alan Carlton at carltonal@yahoo.com or our new co-chair Hannah Tikalsky at hjtikalsky@gmail.com.
This article includes contributions from Norman La Force, Point Molate Alliance, and Sierra Club California 30 by 30 Volunteer Co-Lead Vicky Hoover.
Photo credit: Point Molate warm glow by Lech Naumovich, courtesy of Point Molate Alliance.