Military Base Closure Process and the Impacts from the Closure of the Naval Training Center, San Diego (NTC)
This paper will discuss the closure of the Naval Training Center (NTC) at San Diego and the redevelopment of the site for civilian use. The first part of the paper will describe the history of military base closures in the Twentieth Century, focusing upon the laws and regulations which were enacted during the 1970s and 1980s to facilitate the closing of military bases during times of military spending cutbacks. The second part of the paper will discuss some of the impacts of base closures and the federal agencies which were created to help communities minimize these adverse effects. The third part, and main focus, of the paper will examine the closing of the NTC, describing the reasons for its closure, the reuse planning process as it applies to the NTC closure, and the economic implications of the closure to the San Diego region. The main emphasis will be on the economic implications and the possible solutions to these problems.
The intent of this study will be to examine the base closure process and how it will affect San Diego with regard to the closure of NTC. The federal laws and regulations concerning base closures were enacted because communities feared the closure of nearby military bases; they felt that the Department of Defense gave little consideration to the effects closures had on communities and that the federal government did not provide any sort of assistance to these communities. The laws which were initially passed, however, swung the pendulum too far back: individual members of Congress were effectively able to block the closure of particular military bases, giving them a veto power over what the Defense Department felt were purely national security decisions. The laws which established the Base Closure and Realignment Commission in the late 1980s and 1990s found a middle ground. The Defense Depa...