THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 12, 1995 TAG: 9504120398
SECTION: MILITARY NEWS PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines
It may be small solace to Navy families that have been waiting up to three years or longer for government homes around Hampton Roads, but the Pentagon says it has some new ideas for solving the military's housing crunch.
Don't look for that help any time soon.
In appearances before House and Senate committees, senior defense officials outlined a package of reforms designed to encourage private developers to build new homes, or refurbish existing ones, at and around military installations nationwide.
The changes, all being refined and many requiring congressional action, include land-for-housing swaps, rent and mortgage guarantees, and public/private development partnerships, said Joshua Gotbaum, assistant secretary of defense for economic security.
All the ideas, Gotbaum told a House National Security subcommittee, aim to leverage government dollars by using them to stimulate private investment.
With a land-for-housing swap, for example, the government might give away a parcel it owns far from any military installation in exchange for a builder's agreement to construct government housing on base. The developer would get valuable land for development and the military would get new homes.
To be successful, several lawmakers told Gotbaum, the military must reduce the risks that now make many builders and lenders shy away from projects on base or geared to military families. Particularly as the services shrink, those who develop rental units on private land around a base risk seeing their market disappear due to base closings and realignments.
``There is no single `magic bullet' to this problem . . .'' Gotbaum said. ``Approaches that work in one location can fail dismally at another.''
The Pentagon also is looking to simplify procedures and regulations that have discouraged many developers and increased their costs. The military now spends about $6,700 annually to maintain each family residence and $135,000 per unit to build new homes.
At those prices, given current budget projections and building cycles, it could take up to 40 years to wipe out the military's housing deficit, Gotbaum conceded.
``Our biggest problem is in our own practices,'' Gotbaum said. Under current procedures, developing a military housing project can take eight to 10 years.
``Many private developers with alternatives will choose not to wait. And our servicemen and women shouldn't have to,'' he said.
Vince Napolitano, a Virginia Beach-based builder who heads the state homebuilders association, said a plethora of government regulations and restrictive building codes have helped keep him away from military projects. He and other developers would take notice if the regulations were simplified and incentives like the land-for-houses idea were implemented.
In and around Hampton Roads, the Navy alone now operates more than 5,000 housing units, with 320 more on the way in the rebuilding of the Ben Moreell complex at Norfolk Naval Base.
But more than 800 of those units are rated inadequate by the service, meaning it would cost more than $15,000 each to bring them up to standard. Still, that's better than the national picture: The Navy estimates that 42,000 of its housing units, or 57 percent of its inventory, are substandard.
Whatever the Pentagon does, one advocate for military families says it's time for a change.
Across the services, ``military families are signing for government quarters and moving into them to find linoleum floors that are buckled, carpet that is stained and torn, walls with peeling paint, light fixtures broken, doors coming apart and malfunctioning smoke detectors,'' said Sydney T. Hickey, an associate director of the National Military Family association.'' ILLUSTRATION: COURTESY OF U.S. NAVY
Drawing
The new Ben Moreell Navy housing units in Norfolk, shown in an
artist's rendering, will have landscaping and jogging paths that
make them more appealing than the World War II-era complex they
replace.
Graphic
NAVY PUBLIC HOUSING
Average age 34 years
Total family units 74,000
Substandard family units 42,000
Added units needed by 1999 14,700.
KEYWORDS: NAVY HOUSING MILITARY HOUSING by CNB