Army says housing tight here
By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
Army officers assigned to Hawai'i are being advised that military housing is full and finding a place to live in the civilian community will be difficult.
A statement released to military members by Army Garrison Hawai'i's Director of Public Works advised officers to keep the housing problem in mind before deciding whether their families should move to Hawai'i with them or wait until until the officer has found an apartment or house.
"As a result of the deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq," the statement reads, "and a stop-loss program in Hawai'i, officer housing will be extremely scarce this summer."
"Off post housing may be the only alternative," the statement reads. "The off-post rental vacancy rate is normally 3 percent or less ... New homes for sale in popular near-by communities are often sold by a lottery-type arrangement."
The stop-loss program freezes military members in certain specialties or units from being reassigned or from retiring. It has been applied to various groups of military members, in Hawai'i and the rest of the country, since the U.S. wars in the Middle East began.
Pat Simoes, a spokeswoman for U.S. Army, Hawai'i, said yesterday that for incoming lieutenants and captains, the wait for on-post housing is nearly a year.
Higher ranking officers wait about three months.
Figures for enlisted military members were not available yesterday.
Charlie Ota, vice president for military affairs of the Chamber of Commerce of Hawai'i, said there are about 17,500 units of military housing for all services on O'ahu.
The majority of them, he said, need to be renovated or replaced.
"Many are vacant because they can't be used," he said.
In 1996, Congress passed a bill allowing for the privatization of military housing, which Hawai'i officials hoped would help to solve the military housing problem. The movement toward privatization, however, has been slow.
A hui of companies under the name Hawai'i Military Communities LLC recently signed a 50-year agreement to build, renovate and manage 1,948 Navy homes on O'ahu.
Actus Lend Lease LLC, a Napa, Calif., firm is scheduled to renovate or build 7,700 Army housing units here, a project worth $6.9 billion over 50 years. The Army deal became controversial when the Actus asked to be exempted from paying the state's general excise tax and city and county property taxes.
Actus also won a $1.1 billion Air Force housing contract last year.
There isn't enough money available to renovate and repair the aging housing without privatization, Ota said.
"There is a serious rental housing problem on O'ahu," he said.
Acceptable military housing, he said, is needed to attract more military to live on base, freeing up rentals for civilians.
Reach Karen Blakeman at 535-2430 or kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.
