Richmond General Plan must protect shoreline

Richmond is getting ready to write a new General Plan. The General Plan is the blueprint for the city's future, and could be the city's best opportunity to protect its many miles of undeveloped shoreline.

Now is the time for all of us who are concerned about protecting Richmond's shoreline - and making sure that all of Richmond develops in an environmentally conscious way - to send in our comments.

The Sierra Club is urging the city to create a Shoreline Protection Zone to preserve all the undeveloped lands west of the Richmond Parkway in North Richmond, the UC Field Station, and the south shoreline. Lands now zoned light-industrial should be redesignated as open space; the owners can receive transfers of development rights to build in other parts of the city outside the Shoreline Protection Zone.

The General Plan also offers many opportunities to ensure equitability and smart growth in its policies on land use, housing, economic development, transportation, and community health. When the plan is written, the Sierra Club West Contra Costa County Group will focus attention on all these aspects.

WhatYouCanDo

Write to:

Richmond City Council and Planning Department
c/o Sierra Club San Francisco Bay Chapter
2530 San Pablo Ave., Suite I
Berkeley, CA 94702.

Urge Richmond to use the General Plan to focus development and growth in a way that promotes its natural shoreline beauty

To work with the West County Group on the Richmond General Plan, contact Chapter conservation organizer or call (510) 848-0800, ext. 312

Norman La Force, chair, West Contra Costa Group