Out with the green, in with the heat

When I visited the Hickory Hill Community Center last week in Richmond’s Southside, the first thing I noticed was the pervasive presence of the Richmond Fire Department. RFD vehicles filled the parking lot and a polite, fresh-faced young fireman ushered me into the red brick building that, in its previous life, was the first high school for African American students in Chesterfield County (annexed by the city in 1970). 

Navigating the narrow hallways of the building, which until now has been used as a recreational and educational space for residents of the area, I encountered several more firefighters, some attending a training session in one of the classrooms. Outside, a hulking fire engine leaked fluid onto the pavement near the center’s playground, community garden and a small park space dotted with benches. There are no children in sight, only a few Parks and Recreation employees; when they notice my camera, they tell me I can’t take photos and ask me to leave – despite the center being a public facility – as more fire crew members stroll by.  If I didn’t know any better, their attitudes would lead me to think I was trespassing at an official fire department facility. 

But it isn’t an official fire department facility – yet.

Hickory Hill has been embroiled in a firestorm of controversy sparked by the fire department’s December 2022 proposal to install a fire training facility on its grounds. The facility would consist of a two-story burn building made of shipping containers that would simulate live infernos firefighters could practice extinguishing. It would also swallow up two acres of Hickory Hill’s grassy grounds in the process. 

Therein lies a glaring contradiction of the city’s stated plans to add, not subtract, green spaces in a mostly Black and Latino part of town that sorely lacks them.

Adopted by Richmond City Council in 2020 under the leadership of Mayor Levar Stoney, the Richmond 300 Master Plan lays out an impressive array of goals and envisions a “welcoming, inclusive, diverse, innovative, sustainable, and equitable city of thriving neighborhoods.” One of those goals is the development of more parks and green spaces so that by 2037, “100% of Richmonders live within a 10-minute walk of a park.”

I am not the best with math, but I do understand that subtraction cannot equal addition. How can the city aspire to add more green spaces in one breath and in another suggest deleting a green space from an area of the city that needs it most?

Hickory Hill sits smack dab in the middle of an urban heat island, defined as an area of a city that is hotter than less densely populated and greener outlying areas.

Heat islands are also an equity issue, as explained by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, whose data have found that “people of color and community members with low incomes are more likely than other groups to live in historically redlined neighborhoods that are present-day intra-urban heat islands.” People living in urban heat islands also experience more heat-related health challenges, such as asthma driven by breathing ground-level ozone and smog.

In Virginia and U.S., urban heat islands and past redlining practices may be linked, study finds

Southside ReLeaf, a volunteer environmental justice group, has since 2019 planted and given away over 500 trees in Manchester, Blackwell and other areas of Richmond’s Southside to combat the effects of local urban heat islands and improve the quality of life of people living in them. Amy Wentz, the organization’s co-founder, said the group worked with Hickory Hill leaders to mitigate the impact of extreme heat in the neighborhood by planting over 100 trees there earlier this year. 

When I spoke with Wentz, she pointed out that the fire department’s proposed burn building runs against not only the Richmond 300 plan, but also the city’s RVAgreen 250 plan, billed by the Office of Sustainability as “Richmond’s equity-centered climate action and resilience planning initiative.” The latter promises to slash and eventually eliminate the city’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and, in the meantime, “help the community adapt to Richmond’s climate impacts of extreme heat, precipitation, and flooding.”

“How the hell are you gonna make these pledges and plans and then, when it comes to adding this burn building at Hickory Hill, you present almost like a direct retraction from all the things you said you were going to do?” Wentz asked Stoney and his administration.

Groups like Southside ReLeaf aren’t the only ones concerned. Richmond’s Urban Design Commission recommended the project be denied back in March. The city’s Planning Commission in April denied the fire department’s request for the project, citing the “removal of greenspace,” the “adverse impact on the neighborhood” and “environmental concerns” among its reasons for the rejection.

Despite that, Stoney and the councilmember for the district where the site lies, Reva Trammell, trumped the recommendation of both bodies by introducing a joint resolution in May to “overrule the decision of the City Planning Commission denying approval of the City’s application to relocate the Department of Fire and Emergency Services training facility to the Hickory Hill Community Center.” City Council then passed the resolution, allowing the project to move forward.

“It makes absolutely no sense to take away from this neighborhood’s already-limited green space to build a fire facility, period, and we expect better from our administration,” Wentz said.

Monica Esparza, a local resident who played on Hickory Hill’s grounds as a child and now serves as a trustee of the Hickory Hill Preservation Committee, agrees with that stance. Though the city owns Hickory Hill’s building and grounds and both are managed by the Parks and Recreation Department, she says she and other members of the preservation committee worked in tandem with officials for years to ramp up community programming and resources at the center – until the fire training facility proposal surfaced. Now, Esparza said there is less overall cooperation from the city, and its support of the fire department’s push for Hickory Hill’s green space feels like a hostile takeover.

 

“Many community members don’t feel welcome anymore when they come here,” she said while leading me on a tour of the grounds in the sweltering summer heat. The Parks and Rec employees working the center’s front desk wouldn’t allow us to meet anywhere inside the building; if community members get the same treatment, I don’t doubt at all that they feel as unwelcome as I did at Hickory Hill. 

If the fire training facility materializes, it would bring “problems with water runoff, chemicals from the burning building polluting the area, and other environmental problems,” Esparza said. “This is just not the right place to put a burn building, and I think deep down, they know that but they just don’t care.” 

On its face, the fire facility proposal may not seem harmful. After all, don’t we want our local fire fighters to receive the proper training so they can provide the best services possible? Everybody loves firefighters, those public servants who risk their lives to save others’ lives and property, those men and women who personify heroes in the minds of children and adults alike. 

But the opposition to this particular fire facility isn’t rooted in dislike of or disrespect for fire departments; rather, it’s about holding our leaders accountable for their promises of environmental equity. It’s about defending a part of the city that, historically, has been marginalized, under-resourced and ignored time and time again. Yes, the city’s fire department needs a training facility, but why does it have to be at Hickory Hill? I don’t know the answer to that question because the fire department didn’t respond to my interview requests.

The next steps for the burn building remain to be seen; as of publication, a building permit had not been issued for it. Maybe the city’s real goal is to transform all of Hickory Hill into a fire department facility, and community members will just have to find another space to play soccer, learn crafts and build the bonds of fellowship that strengthen and sustain neighborhoods and neighbors. If that happens, local civic associations will lose access to their meeting space, the center will likely no longer be a voting precinct, and Southside – which has already lost so much through the years – will lose, once again.