EGLIN HOUSING PRIVATIZATION RUNNING INTO OPPOSITION

MY OPINION AND EXPERIENCE: As a former Military Housing Director, it does not surprise me that the program is running into opposition. What does this mean for the private sector developers/builders? It means, as the Air Force continues to wonder what to do, the private sector needs to step up and meet the needs of the housing in civilian sector by building quality/affordable homes for the newly assigned personnel to our area. As a reminder, the Air Force started this privatization program many years ago and was trying to start in 2004. Time flies when you are having fun. Also, the military housing inventory in our area has been reduced from about 2750 homes to about 1200 homes in the last year of so. Does supply and demand come to mind to anyone? We have a reduction of homes at Eglin and a increase in demand coming with the Army and the Joint Strike Fighter Test Wing coming to town. You make the call. Any questions, give me a call.

Eglin housing plan meets opposition
By MONA MOORE
Northwest Florida Daily News 315-4443 mmoore@nwfdailynews.com   Air Force officials have met opposition from several points over their plans to privatize housing.
“And it wasn’t just in places like your Spout Off column and online comments,” Eglin Air Force Base spokesman Mike Spaits told a reporter. “They came up at each of the scoping meetings.”
About 200 people attended the three meetings that reviewed possible sites on Eglin’s land to build homes. The same misunderstandings came up each time, Spaits said.
Two issues are proving to be points of confusion, said Larry Chavers, chief of Eglin’s Environmental Analysis Section.
At the scoping meetings, some people thought that privatizing military housing was just throwing money at big corporations. They also believed the Air Force’s goal was to build housing off base property, Chavers said.
Shalimar resident Christina Larson opposed any housing off base, calling it “environmental mayhem.”
“I support adequate housing for everyone and therefore endorse the upgrade of military housing as need be but only on base where infrastructure already exists or damage to the natural environment has already occurred,” she said.
With the exception of the homes that will be built at FAMCAMP, Hurlburt Field will build and renovate military housing on existing sites.
The family camping area will be moved to land off Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Other proposed housing sites are on and off Eglin’s main base. Many residents have argued the base should improve existing homes as Hurlburt plans to do rather than develop a new site.
“No decision has been made on where housing will be built,” Chavers said. “NEPA (the National Environmental Policy Act) requires that we study a ‘reasonable range of alternatives.’ Therefore, we are looking at a broad range of siting alternatives to give the decision makers the most robust collection of potential locations possible.”
NEPA also requires the Air Force to hold public scoping meetings and perform an environmental assessment.
Chavers called privatization the best and fastest way to get adequate housing for service members, citing information from the Web site of the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
“Congress established the Military Housing Privatization Initiative (MHPI) in 1996 as a tool to help the military improve the quality of life for its service members by improving the condition of their housing,” Chavers wrote in an e-mail to the Daily News. “The MHPI was designed and developed to attract private sector financing, expertise and innovation to provide necessary housing faster and more efficiently than traditional military construction processes would allow.”
Chavers said the only motivation for the proposed housing was to find a solution to the poor housing and a shortage of quality affordable homes.
The DOD has authorized the armed forces to enter into agreements with private developers selected in a competitive process to own, maintain and operate family housing through 50-year leases.
Larson said the arrangement violates NEPA. She said a key responsibility of the Air Force under NEPA, 42 USC 4331, Sec. 101. (b) (1), is to “fulfill the responsibilities of each generation as trustee of the environment for succeeding generations.”
“Keep in mind that Eglin Air Force Base, Hurlburt Field and Duke Field occupy Choctawhatchee National Forest, which was set aside by presidential decree,” Larson said. “No one, not even the military, has the right to construct private housing tracts in our national forests.”