Atchison Village, Richmond, California

Atchison Village is a community in Richmond, California which was originally built as housing for defense workers from the Kaiser Shipyards. Constructed by the Richmond Housing Authority in 1941 as Richmond's first public defense housing project, it is the only project funded by the Lanham Community Facilities Act that still exists in Richmond, and one of the few in the nation not destroyed after the war.. It is one of 20 public housing projects built in Richmond before and during World War II. The village was sold by the government to its residents for $1.5 million in 1956, and it remains a mutual housing cooperative to this day, under the name of the Atchison Village Mutual Homes Corporation. The village is currently valued at approximately $17 million as of January 2007, and is covered under Proposition 13 as a single unsold parcel, thus limiting tax increases to 2% plus individual memberships sold.

Description

Atchison Village includes 450 apartments of five styles in 97 one story buildings, and 65 two story buildings. The grounds are landscaped, and include a large park, with separate soccer and baseball fields with bleachers. There is also a small children's playground, completely upgraded with modern Big Toys and soft ground.

All streets have sidewalks and street lighting, and are patrolled by the Richmond Police Department. There is a large laundromat and small supermarket nearby, and Point Richmond is a pleasant walk away, and has two supermarkets, a post office, bank, and library.

Every unit has ground level access both front and back, and fenceable backyards. Each unit has a dedicated parking space, and there is ample on-street parking near each unit on the public streets near the apartments.

As of January 2008, units generally cost from $60,000 to $130,000, do not seem much affected by the housing bubble or foreclosures, since the present share certificates cannot be liened.Template:Contra Costa Franchise Tax Board printout Their low price is largely attributed to the fact that title to the property is not transferred, but only the real property interest in it, making it difficult to take out a loan to buy a Right to Perpetual Use. However, the Atchison Village Credit Union will loan a significant sum against the purchase if the buyer has a co-signer with real property in California.

Changes are currently in process to rewrite the rules of the association using a Deed of Trust and Recognition Agreement to enable a lending institution to use the Membership Certificate as collateral for a loan of up to 95% of purchase value, with normal rates. Keep in touch. 510-234-9054 Administration office.

The entire neighborhood is on the National Register of Historic Places and is part of the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historic Monument.

The Atchison Village housing project is an example of the local-federal collaboration that provided much-needed housing and domestic support for defense workers and their families.

The modest, wood-frame buildings clearly reflect the constraints of time, money, and materials placed on publicly-funded housing construction during the period, simple in design, although they have full-dimension clear fir framing, and heavy interior plaster. Water, electric and roofs have been recently upgraded at a cost of more than two million dollars.

Reserves for such replacements are replenished through a dedicated portion of the monthly assessments, to avoid the sometimes catastrophic assessments other condominium association levy when they ignore the need for maintenance of large structural elements.

Just prior to and during the war, the Lanham Community Facilities Act of 1940 provided $150 million to the Federal Works Administration, which built approximately 625,000 units of housing in conjunction with local authorities nationwide. These were highly sought after and company managers were the most likely to be able to procure housing in Atchison Village.

Due to racial discrimination, minorities fared very poorly in gaining housing. They often lived in shacks, in the crates that brought the raw materials to the city, in trailers, or in automobiles. They and other lower income earning workers were lucky when they were able to move to barrack-like dormitories constructed for the mass of WWII workers.

Atchison Village is now very diverse, with an increasing Latino, Asian and African American population.

Most of the dormitories and other low income housing of WWII are gone. Atchison Village, well-built as permanent housing, and now handsomely landscaped by its members, remains as a historical monument to simple, solid housing, now available at extraordinarily low costs for Bay Area housing. Because many of the original residents stayed on, there are many vacancies due to normal attrition from aging.

Location

Atchison Village is located in the Iron Triangle. Although this area is known as the highest crime area of Richmond, within Atchison Village the crime rate is actually fairly low, partly due to traffic control gates that separate it from the greater Iron Triangle community, with only one entrance/exit, and partly due to a very active citizenry, many of whom have lived in the village for fifty years, and an excellent Crime Watch and citizen patrol in the evenings.

The new Richmond police chief, Chris Magnus, has been very helpful in increasing police reaction speed to reports of suspicious activity, and patrol officers are frequent drop-ins to Atchison Village meetings, which feature amazing homemade cookies and coffee.

Facilities

There is an administration building (510-234-9054) with a large assembly hall with commercial level cooking facilities, a stage, the Credit Union, the offices and the maintenance department, which handles the exterior and structural maintenance included in the ~$250 monthly assessment (which also covers garbage, water, insurance, taxes, which are proportionate to share purchase value, and sewage.)

Atchison Village is governed by an 11 member board of directors, elected at large from the membership, and is currently financially stable and is steadily building structural reserves. Member disputes are largely handled by private hearings and mediation. Members may, however, be expelled for gross infractions of rules included in the contract. This happens very rarely, however, averaging less than one incident in three years for 450 memberships.

Since it is a Mutual Homes Association, there have been legal challenges to its inclusion under the Davis-Stirling Act (certain sections of the California Civil Code which cover Common Interest Developments.) Currently, the Corporation lawyer advises that the Corporation include it under the Act, although in a court case, DeForrest v. Atchison village, the Superior Court judge ruled that technically, the Village is not included therein. Most corporate decisions made by the Board do include consideration of current D-S regulations, however.

Transit

Atchison Village is served by the AC Transit 72M bus line, which runs east from Atchison Village up Macdonald Avenue to San Pablo Avenue, and then south along San Pablo Avenue to downtown Oakland. At San Pablo Avenue and University Avenue in Berkeley one can transfer to the AC Transit 51 or 52L line and travel to downtown Berkeley and the University of California campus.

There are connections in Point Richmond for buses to Marin and points north and south, and the 72M stops at the combined Richmond BART and train station to Davis, Sacramento and beyond.

Atchison Village is a low-cost housing choice for University students, although the Village is more interested in long-term residents, to improve community cooperation.

Environmental Concerns

A Chevron oil refinery is about one mile west across Garrard Boulevard, the BNSF railway Intermodal switching and loading yard, and the Richmond Parkway. A recent accident at the refinery on January 15, 2007 revealed defects in the community notification system and several members of the community were affected by fumes. Richmond City Councilman Tom Butt has undertaken to make sure this does not happen again.

Prevailing winds are from the southwest, off San Francisco bay, but air quality is not high [citation?], due to commercial activity nearby. Freeway access E+W I580 is excellent down one mile of parkway.

Currently there is much community environmental activism concerning a plan by Chevron to add facilities to process heavier grades of crude oil with more sulfur content (sour crude).

Crime

In November 2006, there were two outdoor drug-related shootings in Atchison Village on two consecutive weekends at the same location. Mayor-elect Gayle McLaughlin endorsed the idea of a "beat cop" to be assigned to the Village at a subsequent resident meeting about violence in the neighborhood, in line with new policies promulgated by the recently hired Richmond Police Chief Magnus, assigning beats throughout Richmond. The Village itself has acted to control unlawful behavior, since it does have the power to expel residents by cancelling their membership for such gross violations. (However, after the Board voted to rescind membership of the family involved in the shootings, the President of the Board overrode this decision, and as of November 2007 the individuals involved in the shootings still reside in the Village. No further incidents involving this family have occurred 4/1/2008.)

External links

• Wikimapia aerial view
• Atchison Village at the American Home Owners Resource Center website
• Wartime Housing
• Atchison Village Credit Union
• Atchison Village at the Online Archives of California
• Berkeley Daily Planet regarding Atchison Village