ICMA ON BASE REUSE

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@igc.org>]

 International City/County Management Association (ICMA)
 Base Reuse Consortium
 Policy Statement on the Military Base Reuse Process
 July 18, 1997

 Recently, Secretary of Defense Cohen recommended two new rounds of
 military base closures and realignments to reduce the overall 
costs of
 supporting unnecessary military infrastructure. The goal of this
 action would be to permit force modernization and readiness
 improvements. As the Department of Defense (DoD) considers closing
 additional facilities, there is an increasing urgency for local
 governments to improve the current base closure process. Affected
 communities recognize that the base reuse process has improved
 dramatically since the initial 1988 round. Though fully appreciating
 the progress made, communities have indicated a need for more
 improvements to the procedure for converting former military
 facilities to job and tax revenue producing properties.

 At an ICMA Base Reuse Consortium meeting held in June, 1997, community
 representatives focused on identifying ways to improve the Base
 Closure and Realignment (BRAC) process. With current and future
 closures in mind, the Consortium offers the following recommendations
 to make the process less cumbersome for communities struggling with
 the difficulties of base redevelopment. These suggestions are
 intended to foster cooperation and trust among all local, state, and
 federal parties involved in military base closures and realignments.
 The issues and suggestions listed herein are the top five priority
 areas of the Consortium's members. The recommendations are intended
 to build upon previous successes in redeveloping and reusing military
 assets no longer needed by the federal government.

 This consensus statement was prepared by the International City/County
 Management Association (ICMA) Base Reuse Consortium. The Consortium
 brings together local governments contending with base closures and
 realignments to share information and experiences, to discuss recent
 developments in the base closure and realignment arena, and to 
play a
 constructive role in improving the base reuse process. The Consortium
 has over 150 members from 90 different base closure communities.

 For further information, contact:

 James Connell
 Project Manager,
 ICMA Economic Development
 202-962-3645
 jconnell@icma.org

 Property Transfer Process
 At almost every facility, communities have a good relationship with
 base commanders and base transition coordinators and are grateful for
 their good work and commitment. Many base closure communities feel,
 however, that property conveyance negotiations with the military have
 boiled down to exchanges in which the communities make a
 well-documented offer for a piece of property, and the military
 counters with a higher figure, occasionally refusing to produce
 supporting documentation. There is no set process for agreeing on the
 terms of a transfer. In order for local communities and the military
 service branches to be successful in these critical economic
 redevelopment efforts, the service branches must understand the
 importance communities place upon speedy property transfers which are
 similar in nature to private sector real estate transactions. Many
 cities often find it difficult to arrange meetings with high ranking
 DoD officials or to sustain progress without political intervention.
 Though political pressure is effective to an extent, some communities
 are wary of the possibility that such measures may offset cooperative
 relations between the military and local communities.

 Some ICMA base Reuse Consortium members have the perception that the
 Air Force is the only military branch which has a specific base
 closure organization dealing with the affected communities. The Army
 and the Navy have no set structure for dealing with property transfer.
 They deal with each military facility individually, and thus pass
 important decisions up and down the chain of command. All important
 decisions are made in the Service Secretaries' offices in Washington,
 D.C. This lack of structure results in officials at the highest
 levels of a service branch spending time on issues that could be
 better addressed at the Engineering Field Activity level.
 Furthermore, the military branches have at times given separate
 communities differing information regarding the property transfer
 process, causing some to wonder whether the services are giving
 consistent information to all municipalities.

 Recommendations:
 The Department of Defense (DoD) should formalize the decision-making
 structure for the reuse process within each Military Department. The
 military must uphold and be held accountable for its decisions.
 DoD has spelled out a property transfer process in its Base Reuse
 Implementation Manual (BRIM). The BRIM encourages site-specific
 solutions and broad use of discretion in pursuit of the overall goal
 of economic revitalization. To avoid confusion, the military services
 should have a similar framework for implementing the BRIM and should
 follow it closely. At the same time, the flexibility incorporated
 into the process over the years to compensate for site specific
 problems has been greatly appreciated and should be encouraged within
 this framework.
 The military services should set deadlines and timetables for every
 stage of the base reuse process. They should be required to convey
 property either six months after operational closure, or six years
 after the base closure decision, whichever is earlier.

 Valuation of Surplus Property
 The Military Departments seem to have unrealistic expectations as to
 the value of real and personal property at closing military 
bases. In
 many cases, it seems that the Pentagon's perception of property value
 has replaced appraised value. At times, it appears that the military
 services reject the idea of appraising property in terms of the
 community reuse plan. In addition, the services seem to object to all
 reuse plans which realistically assess the costs of economic
 redevelopment. While communities seeking an economic development
 conveyance are required to submit confidential information in the
 Business/Operational Plan, the military services often do not provide
 the same information to communities, and an adversarial relationship
 may replace cooperation.

 The value of property should be based upon the community reuse plan.
 However, each service branch makes and interprets its own rules when
 valuating property, often resulting in a no-rules situation during
 negotiations. This, plus the fact that the military services
 sometimes change their negotiators unannounced, often leave
 communities wondering whether they can negotiate in good faith with
 the military. In addition, job creation seems to have been
 de-emphasized. With the advent of the Pryor Amendments, communities
 expected to receive credits, in terms of discounts to valuation, for
 job creation and economic development initiatives.

 Recommendations:
 Military departments, in developing property disposal policies and
 practices, should recognize the larger goals of avoiding operation and
 maintenance costs and reinvigorating a community that has been
 negatively impacted by a closure or realignment.

 Congress should inform the military that it is acceptable to receive
 fair market value based upon a locally-derived and consensus-oriented
 redevelopment plan. Furthermore, the true value of the base closure
 and realignment process lies not in shifting the burden of economic
 recovery squarely onto the shoulders of a smaller geographic area, but
 in the transformation of federally owned property to tax- and
 job-generating land.
 The military should always support its property appraisals with
 relevant documentation, and all three Military Departments should
 conform to a standard set of rules when evaluating property.
 DoD should re-emphasize job creation and economic revitalization.
 The laws governing BRAC should be amended to delete the provisions
 mandating that any profits earned by a Local Redevelopment Authority
 (LRA) from the sale of transferred base property be passed on to the
 military. Local communities should benefit from their efforts to
 ensure an auspicious redevelopment of a closing military base.
 Environmental Cleanup
 The environmental contamination present on military bases has been an
 impediment for implementing community base reuse plans. In some
 instances, the military appears to have influenced the alteration of
 community reuse plans due to insufficient funding for environmental
 cleanup, or to arrive at a more "politically acceptable" valuation of
 the property. The fact that the funds set aside for environmental
 remediation for DoD sites have been diverted to pay for the military's
 operations in Bosnia and other expenditures only exacerbates the
 problem.

 Recommendations
 Congress should give DoD a timetable for remedy implementation at
 its closing and realigning military bases.
 Congress must appropriate, and DoD must use, sufficient funding to
 remediate property quickly and safely to a risk level that is in
 accordance with the community's reuse plan.
 DoD should refrain from pressuring communities to accept property
 which has been remediated to a level safe for industrial use, if
 higher land uses are called for in the community's land use plan.
 The military services should prioritize cleanup of parcels by the
 economic value to the community, and not merely by cost of cleanup.
 Communities should have full access to the Base Cleanup Team
 process.

 Leases
 The process to lease military property to LRAs is not timely. 
Once an
 LRA has a lease, it then takes too long for the military to 
approve a
 sublease. Communities are at a disadvantage when marketing property
 at closing facilities because the private sector will not wait for a
 sublease to work its way through the various levels of the military's
 hierarchy. Recently, John Goodman, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense
 for Industrial Affairs and Installations, wrote that "the Military
 Departments will delegate, to the extent practicable, interim lease
 approval authority to field divisions." In addition, "...the Military
 Departments will also ensure that LRA's can approve subleases that
 conform with the negotiated master lease." Unfortunately, the
 military services have not yet followed the advice of Mr. Goodman, and
 have failed to delegate authority to field divisions.

 Recommendations
 The administrative reforms laid out by Undersecretary Goodman would
 improve upon current conditions and should be followed.
 BRAC law should be amended to include the changes laid out in HR
 1300. These changes include: giving a lessee first right of refusal
 for leased property; permitting a lessee to sublease the property for
 profit during the term of an interim lease; and erasing the mandate
 for a lessee to remove all capital improvements made to property
 during the lease.
 Disclosure
 At some facilities, the military does not communicate with base
 closure communities despite BRIM requirements for LRA consultation.
 Sometimes, the military does not disclose the details of the
 properties. For instance, the military did not inform Long Beach,
 California that the closing facility contained historical buildings
 until four years into the closure process.

 Operational decisions are made by military base commanders that have
 tremendous impact on the property's value and on the success or
 failure of a redevelopment effort. The military has taken unannounced
 actions that adversely affected the community. At Point Molate in
 Richmond, California for instance, the entire sewer system was shut
 down without the LRA's knowledge. The military also sometimes
 overlooks smaller BRAC sites.

 Recommendation
 The military should be responsible for full disclosure of all
 information and documents relating to a closing military site,
 including, but not limited to: the method and data used to appraise
 property value; the method used to conduct the environmental baseline
 survey (EBS) and its results; and the method used to comply with the
 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This is especially
 important for communities which will be affected by future base
 closures.