Sunday, March 19, 2006
Va.: Oceana battle may take years
Oceana battle may take years
If Virginia Beach's plans to save base are rejected, appeals, suits may follow
BY BILL GEROUX
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Sunday, March 19, 2006
VIRGINIA BEACH The city has to declare by March 31 how far it will go to prune back the suburbs from Oceana Naval Air Station to keep
its jets and jobs. City leaders and their representatives in Congress conferred last week in Washington.
But even if Virginia Beach's plans are rejected by the Department of Defense's inspector general's office, the city appears to have appeals available - including a federal lawsuit - that could go on for several years.
And the threat of losing the jets to Jacksonville, Fla., lost credibility last fall, when the Jacksonville City Council announced that the city did not want the noisy jets after all.
The struggle over Oceana's jets is without precedent in the base-closing process, said Gary Comerford, a spokesman for inspector general's office, which has never before been called upon to decide such a case. "We're completely new turf."
Virginia Beach's save-the-jets plan, developed with the state and the city of Chesapeake, includes new ordinances to halt development in the primary crash zones near Oceana's runways; tax incentives for businesses that move out of the area; more restrictive zoning in areas of loud jet noise; and the purchase of land and development rights to land under flight paths between Oceana and the outlying Fentress landing field in Chesapeake.
This is an interesting and difficult problem for the elected officials of Virginia Beach. Clearly they gain much from having the U.S. Navy's jets based at the NAS Oceana base. But do they really want to order people and businesses away from places where some of them have been for decades?
If Virginia Beach's plans to save base are rejected, appeals, suits may follow
BY BILL GEROUX
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Sunday, March 19, 2006
VIRGINIA BEACH The city has to declare by March 31 how far it will go to prune back the suburbs from Oceana Naval Air Station to keep
its jets and jobs. City leaders and their representatives in Congress conferred last week in Washington.
But even if Virginia Beach's plans are rejected by the Department of Defense's inspector general's office, the city appears to have appeals available - including a federal lawsuit - that could go on for several years.
And the threat of losing the jets to Jacksonville, Fla., lost credibility last fall, when the Jacksonville City Council announced that the city did not want the noisy jets after all.
The struggle over Oceana's jets is without precedent in the base-closing process, said Gary Comerford, a spokesman for inspector general's office, which has never before been called upon to decide such a case. "We're completely new turf."
Virginia Beach's save-the-jets plan, developed with the state and the city of Chesapeake, includes new ordinances to halt development in the primary crash zones near Oceana's runways; tax incentives for businesses that move out of the area; more restrictive zoning in areas of loud jet noise; and the purchase of land and development rights to land under flight paths between Oceana and the outlying Fentress landing field in Chesapeake.
This is an interesting and difficult problem for the elected officials of Virginia Beach. Clearly they gain much from having the U.S. Navy's jets based at the NAS Oceana base. But do they really want to order people and businesses away from places where some of them have been for decades?
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