Richmond LAND is a member-based organization led by women of color dedicated to creating pathways for everyday people to organize, acquire, and co-steward land and properties as community assets to build staying power, now and for the future. 

We decide, Create & Control together.

Richmond LAND’s mission is to build grassroots power for community-controlled land through community organizing, land acquisition, development, and stewardship of land and affordable housing for lasting community benefit.

As a community land trust, we work together to take land and housing out of the for-profit market so that local residents — not private developers – are in control of critical community assets, permanently. We protect our communities from gentrification by supporting displaced residents to return and making sure existing residents can stay.

We disrupt extractive real estate forces, promote lasting affordability, protect and develop homes for working class residents who would otherwise be priced out of the market, conserve land for long-term community needs, and build collective wealth for generations to come.

We keep Richmond rooted by placing land in trust and Governed by community members committed to transitioning Richmond and nearby areas to abundant and whole communities that collectively care for our homes, our neighborhoods, and each other.

We believe our community has everything it needs to flourish. 

When community members join together to control resources like land and wealth, we can reclaim our built environment, sustain homes and community institutions, and determine the future of our neighborhoods.

Richmond LAND builds staying power Through:

TRANSFORMATIVE REAL ESTATE

Real estate efforts and development projects keep people, culture, and collective economic vitality at the center of our community. We reject the idea that homes and neighborhood assets are commodities. Instead, we are building a viable alternative to the extractive status quo by taking land off the private market and stewarding it in trust for community benefit by Richmond residents.

COMMUNITY CO-DESIGN

Collaboration with Richmond residents through events and programs to design, research, and bring to life real estate development, housing, and community improvement project concepts.

We help grow the power of homegrown residents to engage and subvert conventional planning, real estate, and development practices to combat displacement and put forward equitable growth of our neighborhoods and built environment.

ADVOCACY & POLICY

Advocacy and policy efforts transform the very systems that govern our lives and create the conditions that support our shared vision. We elevate resident voices to influence decision-making processes that shape the housing industry. We host events, workshops, presentations, and public demonstrations to increase community/resident activation around neighborhood stabilization, dignified housing, and just budgeting initiatives.

STORYTELLING & CULTURE KEEPING

One of the dangers of losing our city is the erasure and whitewashing of our cultural legacy through the displacement of our people. We use cultural strategy to protect and grow our cultural sovereignty as a way to deepen our relationship to home and each other.  Culture is how we create change. We nourish and showcase our creative roots and spark illuminating visions expressed through word, song, film, art installations, mixed media and more.

About Us

We are women of color led, strengthening homegrown leadership, and combining a unique mix of place-based knowledge, relationships, and cross-sector expertise.

Read more here