Port Hueneme OKs Transferring Navy Land to Harbor : Council: The vote ends five months of negotiations and was a major hurdle in the effort to add 33 acres to district.

The City Council unanimously approved a plan to allow the transfer of 33 acres of Navy land to the Oxnard Harbor District at a special meeting Wednesday morning.

The vote came just days before Sunday’s deadline set by the Department of Transportation, the federal agency arranging the transfer.

“Right now we’ve got an agreement that works for the harbor district and at the same time protects the interests of taxpayers in Port Hueneme,” said Councilman Jonathan Sharkey.

The council approval follows a similar vote in support of the land transfer by the harbor district’s board of commissioners a week ago. State law requires the city to approve the acquisition of any land by the harbor district.

Authorities originally expected the agreement to be hammered out in August, but a five-month debate ensued over how much compensation the city would seek from the port for increased city expenditures to provide services to the property, such as police protection and road repair.

The city currently receives 5% of port revenue, about $400,000 last fiscal year. With the newly approved agreement, the city will receive an additional 1.25% to 3% based on increases in the harbor’s gross operating revenues--giving the city the potential to earn more than $1 million from the port by 2007, Sharkey said.

The land now belongs to the Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory, which the Navy is planning to relocate to Port Hueneme’s Naval Construction Battalion Center in April 1996.

Under the transfer agreement, 21 acres of the property will be given to the port for cargo use and the remaining 12 acres will be divided into two parcels to be used by the city for marine research facilities and public access.

The city also plans to convert an old lighthouse on the site into a visitor center and build a promenade. The new property is nearly half the size of the 70-acre port.

The land-strapped port is eager to get its hands on the adjacent property and expand its operations. Currently, the port’s operations have been growing at about 6% a year, and the new land would make room for customers the port previously had to turn away.

“We could make use of the property today,” said Kam Quarles, manager of marketing and trade zone services for the Port of Hueneme. “We would not want the growth that’s occurred at the port to stop because we’ve run out of land.”

But before the land transfer is complete, several supplementary agreements will need to be ironed out with federal agencies, said Tom Figg, the city’s director of community development.

“There’s no question that this is an extremely important step and clearly the most significant agreement of several that are set to come,” Figg said.

Though the port has strived to meet every federal requirement and deadline, officials said that nothing is certain.

“We have no guarantee at this point that the application will be granted,” said Ray Fosse, president of the port’s board of commissioners.

This transfer of surplus military property to a commercial port is the first of its kind in the country and many are looking to it as an example, Quarles said.

City officials said they will work closely with the port to help facilitate the transfer.

“It’s been a long five months trying to negotiate,” said Port Hueneme Mayor Robert Turner. “In the end, I think it’s a win-win situation for everybody.”