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Navy may sell
Barbers Point
golf course
Proceeds would be used
By Gregg K. Kakesako
to fund a redevelopment
project on Ford Island
Star-BulletinThe Navy is considering selling or leasing the 18-hole golf course at what was once Barbers Point Naval Air Station to help finance a $500 million Ford Island redevelopment project.
Under special federal legislation adopted by Congress last year, the Navy hopes to use private developers to finance and build 500 homes on Ford Island during the next 12 years.
Plans also call for building restaurants, stores, parks and a museum on 75 acres of the island.
In addition to the golf course and other property at Barbers Point, the Navy is considering selling or leasing family housing at Iroquois Point and Puuloa, as well as excess land at Pearl Harbor and Ford Island itself.
The Navy used a similar financing plan to build the mile-long Ford Island bridge. In January, 1992, the city paid the Navy $109 million for 108 acres at Manana and 14 acres at Pearl City, under a law authored by Sen. Daniel Inouye.
Everything is still preliminary. The Navy plans to hold two meetings next month "to inform the public on what we plan to do and how we hope to do it," Navy spokesman Don Rochon said.
The meetings will be held 7 p.m. May 2 at Washington Middle School and 7 p.m. May 4 at Makalapa Elementary School. Speakers will be limited to three minutes.
The meetings will fulfill requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act.
Rochon said the notice filed today in the Federal Register announces the Navy's intention to prepare a programmatic environmental impact statement, which would provide an overview analysis of Fort Island and what development could do to it.
The impact statement will address cultural and historic resources, and impacts on the USS Missouri and the USS Arizona Memorial; biological resources and habitat in the Pearl Harbor area; soils and geology; traffic and noise; public health and safety; and hazardous wastes and materials.
The Navy will seek input from the private sector through "request for expressions of interests" in order to obtain expertise in developing the area, Rochon said.
