North Richmond Las Deltas Re-Development

HACCC has played a significant role in North Richmond since the 1950s by providing affordable housing to the community through a robust public housing program, that at its peak, offered 224 units of affordable housing across an 11.38-acre main campus, 48 scattered site duplexes, and 4 single family homes throughout the neighborhood. Las Deltas, the main campus, represented more than 20% of the neighborhood’s housing stock at the time the project was decommissioned in 2020. Decades of unsuccessful attempts to bring additional financial resources to the maintenance of the public housing portfolio resulted in the transition of the properties through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program and the Section 18 Demolition and Disposition process. Long-time North Richmond residents were relocated from 2017 – 2020 and the affordable rental funding attached to the public housing units at Las Deltas were dispersed throughout the County through the project-based voucher program.

As the HACCC releases the vacant public housing sites for sale, this process will be the single most transformative factor in determining the future of North Richmond for decades to come. It will have a significant regional impact, due to the sheer scale of the housing development within the Bay Area. This is a pivotal moment in North Richmond and creative policies are needed to support existing and displaced residents’ ability to stay, return, and thrive. This is a once-in-several-generations opportunity to integrate affordable housing preservation and production with comprehensive revitalization and community development of the neighborhood in a manner that achieves long-term community wealth-generation, integrates health equity and climate resilience.