Regret Voiced Over Plans to Close Tustin Base : Defense: City officials say high cost of land and of housing troops made the decision inevitable.

City officials on Sunday spoke of the imminent closure of the Tustin Marine Corps Air Station with regret.

“We love the Marine Corps,” said City Councilman Richard B. Edgar, who served as mayor when the city annexed the 1,680-acre base in 1976. “They’ve been great for our community and they could stay as long as they want.”

Still, it was only a matter of time before escalating land values and the high cost of housing troops in Orange County would persuade the military to close it, civic leaders said. That is why they did not actively oppose closing the base, the city’s largest employer with 4,100 military and civilian workers, and home to two giant blimp hangars that are listed as national landmarks.

“We didn’t fight it because we just didn’t think we had a chance,” Councilman Jim Potts said. “They’re really an integral part of the community. They’re part of the economy. Their kids go to school here.

“Even the noise isn’t that bad,” he said, referring to the helicopter training flights that have long been a source of irritation to area homeowners. “Irvine (residents) complain more than Tustin. But we thought trying to save (the base) was a losing battle.”

Now that the Pentagon’s Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission has acted, city officials said the challenge ahead is to ensure balanced development of the 1,200 acres of base land that may be put up for sale or swap. But City Council members were hesitant about a proposed land exchange, an idea raised publicly for the first time during Sunday’s hearings on base closures in Washington, D.C.

“That’s something we’re going to have to study,” Tustin Mayor Charles E. Puckett said.

Whether sold or swapped, city officials said they intend to make their mark on development plans. The council already has approved a $25,000 in-depth study to explore possible uses for the land, as well city needs for jobs, housing and tax revenue.

“I’m not prepared to just blindly say give it to a developer whose only motive is to make a profit,” Edgar said. “We want a pattern of things . . . that are going to be beneficial to the city.”

No developer has emerged as a potential buyer for the property, valued at $682 million to $785 million, according to city officials.

The Tustin base was first leased by the military in 1942 as a home for surveillance blimps patrolling the California coastline during World War II. In 1943, two giant blimp hangars were completed at a cost of $2.5 million each. They remain the world’s largest free-standing wooden structures and have been a $1-million-a-year maintenance headache.

The plan approved by the federal commission Sunday calls for moving the base’s employees and 125 helicopters to a Marine base at Twentynine Palms. Another 480 acres of the base, where a chapel, base housing, bowling alleys and a military exchange are located, would be held for use by troops from the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

The shutdown could take until 1997, and would not occur until after the Marine Corps cleans soil and ground water contaminated with toxic fuel and solvents.

Closure costs are expected to range from $500,000 to $600,000, including toxic cleanup and relocation of other Marine helicopters now based at Camp Pendleton in San Diego. The commission added a sale condition Sunday that would require any buyer to build millions of dollars worth of comparable military facilities at Twentynine Palms or elsewhere, besides recouping moving and cleanup costs.

There already has been a flurry of suggestions--mostly from folks outside of Tustin--that the land could be used for a much-needed county jail, a regional airport or housing for the homeless. But officials say local government agencies would never be able to pay the fair-market value of the land.

Councilman Potts prefers a mix of homes, commercial development and high-technology manufacturing on the land, perhaps even a tourist attraction in the hangars, which measure 178 feet high, 300 feet wide and more than 1,000 feet long--enough to hold three football fields end to end.

“If you had an attraction such as an airport museum in the hangars, we could keep them and pay for their upkeep,” Potts said.

Times staff writer Jeffrey A. Perlman contributed to this report.