City, Harbor at Odds on Fee for Free Navy Land : Property: Port Hueneme wants more money if the Oxnard district gets the 33 acres and expands. But a deadline looms.

The federal property is free, but money is causing a hitch after six months of negotiations between Port Hueneme and the Oxnard Harbor District over transferring local Navy land to the port.

With time ticking toward a Dec. 31 federal deadline, city and harbor district negotiators will meet in the next few days to try to work out how much the port should pay to win the city’s permission to take the land and expand.

The harbor district, which owns the commercial Port of Hueneme, pays the city a cut of its yearly profits to cover expenses such as fire and police protection. If the port gets the Navy property and expands its operations, the city wants a bigger annual fee.

Port authorities say they are willing to increase the sum but not as much as city officials would like.

City officials say the sum Port Hueneme currently receives doesn’t cover all of the costs generated by the port’s industrial activities. Adding the 33-acre Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory parcel to the port, they say, will increase the cost to the city, and the City Council is unwilling to approve a transfer that could end up causing the city to lose money.

The Navy is making the land just south of Silver Strand Beach available for transfer to local ownership in April 1996, when it moves its research and engineering operations to Port Hueneme’s Construction Battalion Center.

The port hopes to apply for the Navy property through the federal Department of Transportation, which would act as a go-between for the Navy and the harbor district. But before the application can be filled out, California law requires the port to secure city approval.

Other issues included in the negotiations have been settled by staff and the committees, leaving money the key concern.

City Manager Dick Velthoen pointed out that costs to the city from the port’s industrial activities would be much higher than those from the naval laboratory’s research programs. He said the $350,000 to $400,000 the city receives from the harbor district can fund about four or five police officers in the city’s 21-member department.

Kam Quarles, marketing director for the port, says the money the harbor district pays the city represents 35% of the port’s profit margin and that the negotiations should take into account the increased business and jobs the port brings to the area.

Bill Buenger, the port’s executive director, said any money the city receives is an added benefit since Port Hueneme gets no revenue from the Navy for its use of the land.

“Anything we provide through the agreement with the city is positive. It’s something they don’t have,” he said. “We’re saying that there’s a limit to what we are able to give them.”

Tom Figg, the city’s director of community development, said the issue is more complex than just choosing a dollar amount or percentage of the port’s intake.

“We have a resolve to make sure the city comes out whole in this process,” he said. “Regardless of the financial success of port-related uses of the NCEL, the city needs to be compensated for those very uses.”

Both sides feel a sense of urgency in their negotiations, and the most recent meetings have been the most productive ones, Figg said. However, he said he couldn’t guarantee that they would have an agreement by the end of December.

“We started this process in May. In retrospect, you can say we should be much further along in this process than we are,” he said. “But I think there’s a renewed commitment to finish the process.”

Meanwhile, the port is proceeding with plans for the property. The harbor district hired Vickerman, Zachary and Miller, an Oakland-based port development firm, to determine how the land can be used most efficiently, Quarles said.

The current design designates 25 acres for port activities and preserves a strip of land along the sea wall as a public access route.