Zoned Out ACTIVISTS WORRY ABOUT LOSING THEIR NEIGHBORHOODS
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ucked among other news roiling our lives is a growing drumbeat about environmental justice. President Joe Biden has promised his administration will keep it “in the center of all we do.” Health and Human Services director, former California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, spoke often about environmental justice. Becerra joined residents in San Bernardino to oppose plans to expand the airport for Amazon’s logistics needs. And now, for the first time and as required by state law, there’s an environmental justice element in Sacramento’s 2040 General Plan—a component that calls for “an equity lens” when drafting development goals and policies.
GD By Gary Delsohn Building Our Future
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What does environmental justice mean? And how might it shape Sacramento’s future? Put simply, environmental justice— EJ for short—is about correcting the longstanding practice of neighborhoods with large minority and disadvantaged populations bearing the brunt of air and water pollution, noise and other adverse health effects from infrastructure projects. As the California Department of Justice defines it, EJ “means the fair treatment of people of all races, cultures, and incomes with respect to the development, adoption, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.” In a meeting of the city’s Planning and Design Commission, Commissioner Lynn Lenzi applauded Sacramento’s newfound religion. “It’s been a topic of conversation for many, many, many years,” she says, “and it’s so great to see that it is now in the forefront of planning and that it actually will be incorporated into project discussions and hopefully in staff
reports and conditions for approvals of many projects that are going in. I’m glad to see how far this has come and (that it’s) now in the forefront of our planning moving forward.” Good intentions to right past wrongs. But some community activists I met have a different perspective. For Oak Park resident Erica Jaramillo, a state employee and spokeswoman for the group Sacramento Investment Without Displacement, one EJ issue overrides the rest. “Housing is the cornerstone of environmental justice,” she says. “And it can really set up someone to thrive or it can lead someone on a path through chronic homelessness and an inevitable encounter with drugs, sexual
exploitation, violence. Then people are labeled at that point and it becomes really hard to get out of that.” Others who reached out to me for a Zoom meeting addressed what EJ means to them. Chris Jones is a health care and IT project manager from Colonial Heights. He’s president of Hope for Sacramento, an organization pushing solutions for Sacramento’s homelessness crisis. He took exception to a column where I promoted the city’s plan to allow duplexes, triplexes and four-plexes in neighborhoods historically zoned for single-family residential. The controversial open zoning proposal is supposed to promote racial diversity in places such as Land Park
WHAT DOES ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE MEAN? AND HOW MIGHT IT SHAPE SACRAMENTO’S FUTURE?
