Wilson Offers Land to Keep Air Force in El Segundo : Aerospace: The proposal is intended to ease a housing shortage the service cites as a reason for leaving.
Gov. Pete Wilson has offered the Air Force 2 1/2 acres of California National Guard property in San Pedro for housing in an effort to dissuade the service from moving its high-tech Space Systems Division out of El Segundo.
In a letter sent Wednesday to Air Force Secretary Donald Rice, Wilson said the offer is intended to help ease a housing shortage the Air Force has cited as a key reason for studying relocation of its space division, possibly out of state.
The guard property includes an office building used by the guard. It is contained within Ft. MacArthur, an Air Force housing facility off Pacific Avenue.
Wilson, calling the space division a linchpin in Southern California’s aerospace industry, told Rice: “The state of California stands ready to implement this proposal in whatever time frame is required.”
Air Force officials have said they need 250 more housing units for families of uniformed personnel employed at the Space Systems Division, a military space hardware procurement arm at the Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo.
Col. Glenn Perry, commander of the base, said Thursday that the National Guard property--and an adjacent half-acre already in federal ownership--would accommodate only 35 of the 250 housing units needed. But he welcomed Wilson’s offer enthusiastically.
“We’re absolutely thrilled,” he said, adding that the Air Force has already drafted tentative plans for the site. “This is the first really solid evidence we have that we’re on the way to solving this critical problem.”
Wilson’s letter said this property, together with a larger parcel the Air Force has in Hawthorne, would provide the space the service needs for housing.
A spokeswoman for Rice said Thursday that it would be premature to comment on whether Wilson’s offer will affect discussion about the relocation of the division.
The move is being considered as part of a proposal to close Los Angeles AFB. Sources say the Air Force will make its intentions known by April 15, the date by which defense officials must recommend a first round of base closings to a federal commission created to consider such proposals.
The possibility of placing Air Force housing on National Guard property was first studied by the Deukmejian Administration and mentioned in a Jan. 4 letter to Rice from Deukmejian. The property is home to headquarters of the 1st Brigade of the National Guard’s 40th Infantry Division. It consists mainly of an 18,000-square-foot office building and a vehicle storage compound, Col. Ron Cross, the guard’s director of facility engineering, said Thursday.
Cross said Wilson’s office has promised to seek funds to build a new headquarters for the brigade at the National Guard complex in Los Alamitos. “From our standpoint, it’s a matter of housing the 1st Brigade, and as long as we can do that we’re perfectly happy,” he said.
Air Force officials say they are pleased with the National Guard site because it is among 404 existing housing units for officers and enlisted personnel the service maintains there. The Air Force has 574 housing units for area personnel, all of them in San Pedro.
It is uncertain how San Pedro residents would react to Air Force use of the National Guard property, however. There is lingering political tension in the community over a controversial compromise in 1987 that allowed the Air Force to build 170 homes on 34 acres of San Pedro park and recreation land. The homes were built on two parcels on opposite sides of 25th Street near Western Avenue.
Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores said construction of housing on guard property might not meet with community resistance since it appears the development would be small.
“If we’re only talking about a few units, that’s something the community would take better than a couple of hundred units,” Flores said.
In his letter, Wilson suggested that the Air Force build the rest of the housing on property it owns in Hawthorne, about a mile from Los Angeles AFB. Air Force officials say much of that 13-acre parcel has been put to other uses. But they say construction of the remaining 215 units there is one of several possibilities they are willing to consider.
Other possibilities, they say, include land in San Pedro’s Angels Gate Park that is controlled by the Los Angeles Unified School District and a 17-acre parcel in Hawthorne currently owned by TRW.
Use of property in the Angels Gate area has the backing of Mayor Tom Bradley, who wrote the Air Force in November to endorse the proposal, but it has drawn criticism from Flores and school board member Warren Furutani. And the TRW site, since it is privately owned, would probably have to be purchased at great expense.
Despite such obstacles, supporters of more Air Force housing expressed hope Thursday that their job has been made somewhat easier with the state’s decision to offer the National Guard property.
“I think the governor’s offer is extremely encouraging,” said Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce official Ronald Lamb, who took part in the negotiations for the guard property. “We’re very hopeful that the Air Force will consider this a step in the right direction.”
