Plans are under way at Fairchild Air Force Base to have a private contractor take over, rehabilitate, and dramatically shrink in number the homes available for military personnel on base in coming years, meaning that many more military families here will be looking for homes elsewhere in the community.


The possibility of such a privatization of military housing here was announced by U.S. Air Force officials in 2004 as one option for dealing with declining military housing funds and a growing need to rehabilitate on-base housing, but now the decision has been made to go ahead with the privatization plan, which could get under way as soon as spring 2008.


The plan calls for having the Air Force contract with a private developer to build and remodel homes on-base, rather than spending federal military construction funds to do that, says Meryl Briggs, project manager for the program. The developer likely will construct new housing units at Fairchild, but the total number of homes on base will drop significantly as a result of the privatization plan, Briggs says. Consequently, roughly 500 military households will be looking for housing off base in the greater Spokane area during the coming decade, and will have nearly $5 million a year to spend on that housing, he says.


Also under the plan, the developer will buy from the federal government a total of 85 acres of land and about 250 vacant military housing units located in two West Plains areas, one in Cheney and the other in Geiger Heights. The developer could develop those properties further as housing options or selling the property.


The developer also will build homes at Travis Air Force Base, in Fairfield, Calif. The Air Force has grouped the two bases together for the project, Briggs says. The contract will be awarded to a developer from outside the Spokane area, but companies here likely will be awarded subcontracts for the work done here, he says. The overall project is simply too large for a company here to handle, he says.


Privatization


To provide insight into the scope of Fairchilds portion of the project, Briggs says it would have cost the military nearly $230 million to construct the homes the Air Force believes are needed on base to replace the aging inventory there.


Under the plan, a developer will build or remodel housing on the base, then own and maintain it. The Air Force in turn will lease the homes there from the developer for its personnel and their families, and will retain ownership of the land without charging the developer for using the property. The U.S. military is using privatization to improve housing on bases militarywide because federal funds for military housing have dwindled while the need to eliminate old, undesirable homes on bases has increased, Briggs says.


In Fairchilds case, the private developer that gets the contract will manage the on-base housing for 50 years, says Lee Paul, engineering flight chief at Fairchild.


The developer also will have sole ownership of the roughly 85 acres of land and vacant military housing units it will buy from the government, at a price that hasnt yet been determined. That land is located both just south of Eastern Washington University, in Cheney, and at the southeast corner of Grove Road and Hallett Road, in Geiger Heights, about two miles south of the Interstate 90-Geiger Boulevard interchange, he says.


Fairchild plans to issue a request for proposals for the project in June, and expects that about five companies will compete for the contract, Briggs says. The Air Force plans to hold a forum here in July so companies and individuals here can meet the developers that have submitted bids. The military hopes to select a contractor and sell the West Plains land by August 2007, he says. Construction probably would start the following spring, and the project is expected to take about eight years to complete.


If people here are interested in being involved in the project, they should get in touch with us, Paul says. They also will need to become familiar with the larger contractors, which is partly why were holding the forum.


The planned project is the result of a housing requirement the federal government set for the base a few years ago, Briggs says. In 2003, the U.S. Department of Defense conducted a housing requirement and market analysis study at Fairchild and determined that the Spokane area provides adequate, affordable housing options to military personnel and that only about 600 homes are needed on base.


Currently about 1,077 living unitsmostly single-family homes but some duplexesare located on base, not including dormitories, Briggs says. The homes range in size from 1,000 square feet to 1,900 square feet of space and in age from six years to more than 50 years.


Last year, the Air Force grouped Fairchild with both Travis and McChord Air Force Base, in Tacoma, for a privatization program. It has since decided to remove McChord from that group, although that decision hasnt been made official yet, he says. The military bundles bases together for privatization programs because money thats used to lease homes from private developers comes from the allowance that the government gives to military personnel to spend on housing, he says. Thus, combining Air Force bases creates a larger pool of money from which to draw for construction projects, he says.


Fairchilds grouping with Travis is a boon to the base here because personnel at Travis receive larger housing allowances than do personnel here, which means more money will be available for the project, he says.


The Air Force gives military personnel at Fairchild an average of between $800 and $1,300 a month to spend on housing, depending on their rank, he says.


Although the developer will have leeway when deciding how to achieve the housing requirement at Fairchild, Briggs says he expects about 570 units will be torn down or removed, the remaining units will be renovated, and about 90 new homes will be constructed. The developer can build and manage more than the required 596 living units on base, but the military only will guarantee leases for that number of homes, he says.


Paul says that although the current timeline for the project calls for it to be completed by August 2015, that timetable could change.


Contact Emily Brandler at (509) 344-1265 or via e-mail at emilyb@spokanejournal.com.