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| A 2007 aerial photo of Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach shows the Oceanfront strip in the background. (Bill Tiernan | The Virginian-Pilot file photo) |
Military and civilian personnel are scheduled to leave Suffolk or be transferred to another command in Hampton Roads in a year.
The same issue surfaced in Virginia Beach in 2005. That city reacted with a plan to keep the U.S. Navy’s air base, Naval Air Station Oceana, from leaving.
Suffolk is still reeling from the announcement by the Department of Defense to shutter the U.S. Joint Forces Command by next fall. Reactions have ranged from surprise to incredulity.
The loss could amount to a worst-case scenario of $1 billion in income and 6,000 civilian and military jobs.
Property owners are seeing empty space in the 1 million square feet occupied by contractors working for JFCOM and JFCOM itself.
Worse, they are wondering if they can backfill the space with tenants in a soft real estate market because of zero or declining job growth.
The two localities have a common thread: They are heavily dependent on defense dollars to drive the tax base.
But they diverge on the outcome.
Virginia Beach has managed to keep the dollars flowing through its economy while Suffolk officials are seeing the city’s economy tank – not good during an election year when four city council seats are up for grabs.
But Suffolk officials have formulated a plan with the slogan “reject, retain and replace.”
Suffolk City Council was scheduled to hear the plan to keep thousands of jobs and millions of dollars last week.
Because Virginia Beach took action, the Association of Defense Communities recognized the city with the Active Base Community award for its work to keep NAS Oceana at the association’s annual convention in San Francisco, Aug. 8-11.
The association, composed of communities where military bases are located, private contractors, real estate firms and developers, has 1,500 members and has existed for 30 years.
Previously, it went by the name of the National Association of Installation Developers.
The group and its members are all about keeping military bases and the incomes associated with the personnel attached to the bases. The group also works to redevelop areas that have lost a military base.
Tom Rumora, chairman of the 10-member awards committee, said this is the first time Virginia Beach received the award.
The association gets 30 to 40 applicants a year for the award, Rumora said, but it doesn’t hand out an award every year.
“We don’t take this lightly,” Rumora said. “You have to win on your merits. We are not obliged to give this award if they are not a meritorious candidate. It’s an honor. It’s not just a rubber stamp.
“We like communities that take action,” he said. “They didn’t just meet, they didn’t just talk and they didn’t just do reports. They took action.
“Virginia Beach has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt they have decisive, extraordinary and compelling action,” he said.
Faced with losing NAS Oceana, Virginia Beach officials developed a plan to redevelop properties and relocate businesses that were prohibited within the accident zone of the base.
The city was faced with a possible loss of 16,000 jobs with a total payroll of more than $1.18 billion, producing more than $400 million each year in goods and services, according to figures supplied by Virginia Beach.
Basically, the city rezoned property, bought property and relocated businesses that didn’t conform to the regulations to another area of the city and enticed businesses that did conform to properties surrounding the air base.
Execution of the plan took money, though, exactly $16 million a year, half of which the state funded, with the city funding the other half.
Virginia Beach said it has bought or reached agreement to buy 447 dwelling units through its residential property acquisition program.
It has also eliminated 385 residential dwelling units in zones where homes are prohibited, APZ-1 and the Clear Zones.
It also launched YesOceana.com, a plan to relocate businesses to other areas of the city and conforming businesses to APZ-1.
The city is luring suitable firms with grants, waiver of a conditional use permit, a rebate on local business taxes and fees, and a partial exemption of property taxes.
Posted to Inside Business on September 3, 2010 by Philip Newswanger
For more on the relationship between Oceana and Virginia Beach from The Virginian-Pilot, click here.