The Carytown Watermelon Festival takes place on August 10th.
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Category Archives: community
Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association Meeting This Tuesday Evening
ALIGN RVA Wellness Presents Community Sound Journey & Reiki At St. Andrew’s
From announcement:
Location: St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, in the Chapel, 240 S. Laurel St., Richmond, VA US 23220
Healers from Align RVA Wellness are offering the community the opportunity to rest, heal, and recover in St. Andrew’s chapel every other Friday from 6:30 until 7:30 p.m. This beautiful and healing experience features two sound healers and multiple Reiki healers.You are encouraged to sign up on Mindbody to reserve your spot and plan to pay-what-you-can at the door. If you have questions, please contact Align RVA Wellness.
Hill of Heroes Flag Installation
The Virginia War Memorial has once again transformed into a powerful display of remembrance as more than 12,000 American flags are installed across its hillside. The flags will remain until July 11th.
See more information at their website, https://vawarmemorial.org/events/hill-of-heroes-flag-installation/
Max Lot Coverage In New RA-A Zoning Threatens Neighborhood
Although many people love small things about Richmond, Richmond300 and City planners seem determined to destroy them.
In addition to previous attacks…
The newly proposed 80% maximum lot coverage in the RA-A zone would be devastating for Oregon Hill and incentivize the demolition of homes in our historic district.
As neighbors have stressed, in the RA-A zoning proposed for Oregon Hill, the maximum lot coverage must be reduced to 55% as found in the neighborhood’s current R-7 zoning. Here’s a scale drawing to illustrate just how devastating an 80% maximum lot coverage would be for Oregon Hill:
From this illustration, it’s clear that 80% maximum lot coverage would devastate the historical and environmental setting of Oregon Hill.
The neighborhood would lose its historic houses and trees as developers would be incentivized to demolish!
Oregon Hill is already one of the densest neighborhoods in the city, and it is draconian to force even more density in this manner!
This July 4th, Oregon Hill, like much of the nation, protests tyranny and readies for revolt.
“The Oregon Hill Review” – “New zine a tribute to the small things people love about Richmond”
Well, given that citizens usually celebrate the birth of this country and its independence and freedoms, and right now it is building concentration camps- can’t say ‘Happy Fourth of July’ today.
But, making a big shout out to new, local, literary zine “The Oregon Hill Review”.
Many missed the it’s release party/reading last month, but relatively new, news source The Richmonder covered it and interviewed its creators.
https://www.richmonder.org/new-zine-a-tribute-to-the-small-things-people-love-about-richmond/
“Like most things in my life,” poet Mathias Svalina said of The Oregon Hill Review, “it started as a joke.”
Contrary to the “ironic gravitas” of its title, he envisioned The Oregon Hill Review as a DIY literary zine focused on small, forgettable, beloved things.
And then “the joke turned into, ‘Oh, yeah, I should just do that,’” Svalina said. He describes the first volume as “a collection of little love letters to Richmond.”
It is worth mentioning that the name of this neighborhood, Oregon Hill, is a bit of a joke. Richmond, the city, was founded to the east of downtown in Church Hill, and the story goes that this neighborhood, when it first began, seemed as far west as Oregon, thus the name.
But it is also meaningful and touching that this zine does celebrate the small things people love about Richmond. Hopefully, this small neighborhood is among those things, and Richmond, despite attacks by Richmond300 and City planners, will continue to hold it as dear as it’s visitors and own residents do.
(It’s also pretty great that donations for the zines are being directed to the Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project (RRFP).
Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association Meeting On Tuesday
Picnic In Pleasants Park Sunday
From Rev.Turner:
You’re invited to join Pine Street on Sunday at Pleasants Park, even if you can only attend the picnic. Casual atmosphere · No pressure · All are welcome. Come as you are. Feel free to bring a chair or blanket if you’d like. We’ll sing a little, share a few hopeful words, and enjoy being together under the sky. No expectations. No strings attached. Just a community gathering in the fresh air.
City Leaders Are Again Talking About Relocating Open High
TheRichmonder online news site is reporting that City leaders are (again) discussing relocating Open High School, possibly to the vacant Clark Springs elementary building. No mention of deed restrictions on the Open High (Grace Arents School) building or its future.
Because Open High’s model program works so well (routinely listed as one of the best high schools in the country), the City wants to change it (instead of replicating it).
It’s not enough to build a 7,000+ amphitheater next to the neighborhood, with stages and speakers pointed at the neighborhood and river parks. It’s not enough to change land-use and re-zone the neighborhood against residents’ wishes. City leaders seemed determined to dismantle neighborhood institutions as well. This latest news is only contributing to the feeling that the neighborhood is under attack and that the City leaders care more about developers than anything else, including the views of longterm residents.
Trash/Recycling Pickup On Thursday
This Wednesday is a “Red Wednesday”, which usually means trash and recycling pickup, but because of the recent Memorial Day holiday, pickups will hopefully move to Thursday. Hopefully, because the City’s street repaving of neighborhood streets continues after Monday’s Memorial Day holiday.
Please go over what can be recycled.
NOTE: CVWMA (Central Virginia Waste Management Authority) has announced that all curbside recycling must now be INSIDE the CVWMA containers with lid closed. Items beside the container or on top of it will not be collected. In fact, incorrect setouts may not be collected at all. This is new as of July 1 for all our curbside recyclers, with the exception of townhomes/condos still using small bins. (And yes, this also applies to flattened cardboard boxes.)
Ideally, rolling recycling containers are stored and deployed in the back alleys along with trash cans. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night. More CVWMA information can be found at this link:
https://cvwma.com/cvwma-locations/richmond/
In order to take your recycling to the next level, read this: 10 ways to improve your recycling.
In local recycling news, the Central Virginia Waste Management Authority announced last week that the Central Virginia region recycled 623,451 tons, or 58.6%, of its solid waste in 2024.
Yard and wood waste, which is composted or chipped into mulch, was the top recycled material in 2024, with 240,501 tons.
Cardboard, paper, cans, bottles and containers accounted for 150,181 tons.
Metal made up 174,545 tons.
The authority is required to calculate the regional recycling rate each year and submit a report to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. The region comprises the cities of Colonial Heights, Hopewell, Petersburg and Richmond, the town of Ashland, and the counties of Charles City, Chesterfield, Goochland, Hanover, Henrico, New Kent, Powhatan and Prince George.
These localities are members of CVWMA, a public-service authority established in 1990, to help the region meet state recycling requirements. Virginia requires the region to recycle at least 25% of its solid waste each year. In 2023, the regional recycling rate was 58.1%. The statewide recycling rate in 2023 (the most recent available) was 42.5%. More information on statewide recycling activity is available at DEQ’s website.
The recycling rate is calculated by dividing the amount recycled in the region by the amount of trash generated. CVWMA uses a national estimate of 4.9 pounds of trash per person per day, multiplied by the region’s population of 1.29 million, to estimate total trash.
CVWMA collects data for the regional recycling rate from its own residential recycling programs and from businesses that provide information voluntarily.
For more information, including monthly reports on CVWMA’s residential programs, visit www.cvwma.com/cvwma-data-center/.
In national recycling news, the Trump administration has injected uncertainty into grant awardees’ ability to access federal funding and canceled certain contracts. It’s forcing recyclers to view the government differently.
This goes along with the Environmental Protection Agency having frozen and or terminated billions in funding for communities identified as disproportionately impacted by pollution. These executive orders are the latest environmental policy move prompting a spate of protests and lawsuits— and leaving community-led projects in various developmental stages hanging.
In international recycling news, global recycling rates are failing to keep pace with a culture focused on infinite economic growth and consumerism, with the proportion of recycled materials re-entering supply chains falling for the eighth year running, according to a new report.
Only 6.9% of the 106bn tonnes of materials used annually by the global economy came from recycled sources, a 2.2 percentage point drop since 2015, researchers from the Circle Economy thinktank found.
The problem is systemic, they say: the rise in consumption is even more rapid than the growth in global population, and although some companies are increasing the amount of recycled material they use, the majority ignore the issue with no apparent penalties. This means that societies generate more waste than recycling systems can handle.