Boro still has sights set on Howard Commons

BY SUE MORGAN
Staff Writer

EATONTOWN - Borough officials are still hoping they can sell the U.S. Army on a five-year-old plan to allow the conversion of an empty military housing complex at Fort Monmouth to affordable, age-restricted living quarters.

At the direction of Mayor Gerald Tarantolo, a few members of the newly formed Fort Monmouth Re-Use Committee (FMRC) are even expected to travel to Washington, D.C., late next month to convince the Army's leadership to release the apartment community, Howard Commons, from its grasp.

A Texas-based private developer had previously planned to enter into a 50-year lease with the Army to renovate a portion of the mostly abandoned 486-unit complex along Pine Brook Road to quality military housing. But the Pentagon's May 13 announcement that Fort Monmouth would shut down under the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process changed all that.

American Eagle Communities Midwest LLC, the developer expecting to purchase Howard Commons through the Residential Communities Initiative (RCI), a federal program that works with private builders to renovate military housing, could not get the financing once the proposed closure of Fort Monmouth was announced, Tarantolo said.

Along with Jim Ott, Fort Monmouth's director of public works, Tarantolo addressed Howard Commons' past, present and future during the FMRC's public meeting on Friday at borough hall.

"Just prior to the announcement of the closing in May, [American Eagle] was going through the funding process," Tarantolo told the committee. "But once the closing was announced, no bank wanted to talk to them."

The legislation to authorize the shuttering of Fort Monmouth and as many as 32 other installations nationwide under the BRAC process is still pending a vote by the U.S. Congress, which is due by early November.

Although the BRAC process is not yet officially the law of the land, the Department of the Army leadership in Washington is not voluntarily turning over Howard Commons to the jurisdiction of Eatontown or over to the private sector without a fight, Ott explained.

"We're now told that [Howard Commons] is going to be disposed of through the BRAC process." Ott said.

With the final BRAC vote pending, the Army is hesitant to begin letting go of any of its properties, including any part of the 1,126-acre Fort Monmouth, he continued.

"They don't want anything to look like it's circumventing [the] BRAC process," Ott said. "They're not allowing us to move forward."

However, U.S. Army Secretary for Housing on Installations Joseph Whittaker has told Fort Monmouth leaders that the military will speak to a local re-use committee, such as the FMRC, that has been formed with the guidance of the Defense Department's Office of Economic Adjustment (OEA) about new uses for a property like Howard Commons, Ott reported.

"Secretary Whittaker did say [that the Army is] not going to speak to anyone other than the re-use group," Ott said.

Tarantolo suggested that a subcommittee be formed from the FMRC's membership to meet with Whittaker to negotiate a possible release of Howard Commons for civilian housing.

The subcommittee, to be decided at the FMRC's next scheduled public meeting on Nov. 18, would attempt to meet with Whittaker and other Army leaders during the OEA's seminar set for Nov. 29 thorough Dec. 1 in Washington, D.C., Tarantolo said.

At that time, the subcommittee could tell the Army about the proposal that Eatontown once had for Howard Commons in 2000, when the federal government first declared the complex as surplus housing.

At that time, the borough had sought to purchase it for the construction of 131 units of affordable age-restricted housing with a small commercial component situated nearby at Pine Brook and Hope roads, Tarantolo recalled.

That plan never came to fruition because in 2003 the federal government removed Howard Commons from surplus and turned it over to the RCI program for use as upgraded military housing.

When Fort Monmouth was targeted for closing under the BRAC process, American Eagle's proposal for the complex under the RCI program came to a halt as well. But that provides Eatontown with a chance to present its original plan for civilian housing to the Army, Tarantolo said.

"We're still interested," he said. "Here's an opportunity to get a leg up on that."

"Eventually, [Eatontown] would integrate our redevelopment [at Howard Commons] into the entire redevelopment plan," he said.

The FMRC has been created to allow representatives from Fort Monmouth's three host communities, Eatontown, Tinton Falls and Oceanport, as well as representatives from the county and state governments and the private sector, to decide how to best redevelop the 88-year-old base after it closes in 2011.

One of the committee's goals is to create a local redevelopment authority that will be charged with overseeing how all of the base's land, buildings and infrastructure will be used.

On Sept. 28, the Borough Council approved a resolution to seek the assistance of Eatontown's congressional delegation in persuading the Army's leadership to support the municipality's original plan for affordable age-restricted civilian housing at Howard Commons.

U.S. Reps. Rush Holt (D-12) and Frank Pallone (D-6) and U.S. Sens. Jon Corzine and Frank Lautenberg (both D-N.J.) represent Eatontown and the areas near Fort Monmouth in Congress.

In total, the 65-acre Howard Commons community is located on both the north and south portions of Pine Brook Road. Its northern portion holds 270 empty units, and 216 units, some occupied by military personnel, are in its southern portion, according to Tarantolo.

In accordance with the Pentagon's BRAC process, most of Fort Monmouth's military and civilian personnel are expected to be relocated to the Aberdeen (Md.) Proving Ground and other installations once the base closes.