The University of California Board of Regents approved a plan last week to develop a new research campus in Richmond by 2050, raising concerns with some residents about its potential economic impacts on the community.
The campus will provide space for the growing research and educational needs of both the UC Berkeley and the federal, UC-run Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said Terezia Nemeth, the development manager of the project.
Costs for the project may go up to hundreds of millions of dollars, but there are currently no funding sources identified, Nemeth said.
The site will be a replacement of what is currently the Richmond Field Station, which the UC purchased in 1950 to facilitate research for the UC Berkeley College of Engineering.
Tentatively called the “Richmond Bay Campus,” it is expected to go into a full operation by 2050, with 5.4 million square feet of research and operations space and 10,000 employees, according to an Environmental Impact Report on the project.
Located about five miles northwest of the Berkeley campus, the new campus will be developed on 134 acres of land currently owned by the University near the southern shore of Richmond. The University plans to preserve about 25 acres of natural open space, including the site’s marshlands and coastal grasslands.
In recent years, laboratory space at Lawrence Berkeley, established adjacent to the Berkeley campus, has reached full capacity. The institute has been leasing space from various locations around the Bay Area to accommodate its activities, with more than 20 percent of its employees working off-site, according to the Richmond Bay Campus Long Range Development Plan.
Representatives from both UC Berkeley and the lab said plans for future construction of the campus depend on research needs and available funding.
Richmond residents have expressed mixed reactions to the proposed campus, especially regarding its potential socioeconomic impacts on the community.
Some residents are excited about the campus project and hope the new campus will bring a much-needed boost to local economic development, said Melvin Willis, a community activist in Richmond and member of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, a nonprofit organization that has been working with the UC on the project.
“This is the most exciting development in Richmond since the shipyards were built back in 1940,” Willis said.
The city of Richmond has historically been one of the poorest regions in the Bay Area, with a largely low-income population. More than one quarter of the Richmond renters have an annual household income of less than $20,000, according to a report released by the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society.
Some residents, however, are worried that the new campus will push housing prices up in surrounding neighborhoods, forcing low-income renters to move elsewhere, said Claudia Jimenez, the lead community organizer of the Contra Costa Interfaith Supporting Community Organization, a nonprofit organization that has been leading community efforts on the project.
“The reality is that as soon as a big development like this comes into an area, displacement of low-income residents and gentrification will happen,” Jimenez said.
Nearly half of renters in Richmond are low-income and spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing needs, according to the Haas Institute report.
With high unemployment rates in Richmond, residents are also calling for the University to engage in local hiring, requiring a proportion of all employees be from Richmond to support the local economy, Jimenez said.
In response to community concerns, the UC and the lab have released a non-binding joint statement committing to support the Richmond community in four areas – education, employment and training, housing and economic development.
“We intend to work collaboratively in an ongoing basis to ensure the positive impacts are spread to the community,” Nemeth said.
The University said it would support training for the Richmond workforce and partner with local schools to educate students on science, said Jim Becker, the president and chief executive officer of the Richmond Community Foundation. The foundation is working with the University and the lab to coordinate partnerships with local organizations.
The University plans to set up a community partnership fund, which is expected to launch on July 1. The fund will support projects between the Richmond campus and local organizations, and may go up to $300,000 per year in the future, Becker said. Details have yet to be finalized, he added.
Jimenez said the most important issue for residents is that the benefits from the new campus are distributed and shared by all in the community.
“It’s a very exciting development and we just want to make sure that the community isn’t left out of the process,” Willis said.