As the City of Oakland prepares to select developers for the former Oakland Army Base, the national Partnership for Working Families unveiled a new report on June 25 showing that most military base redevelopment efforts fail to create sufficient family-sustaining jobs and address poverty and other critical community needs.  The report also highlights ways that communities can better harness investment in public land at military bases to create good-paying jobs for residents, affordable housing and other community benefits.

Titled, Rebuilding the Base: Lessons from Four California Communities' Efforts to Reuse Closed Military Installations, the report offers an alarming picture of how communities are devastated by base closures and are often unable to replace the number or quality of jobs lost.  California has been hard hit by base closure, losing 93,546 military and civilian jobs by 1995, over half of the total jobs lost in base closures nationally.  While base redevelopment offers an opportunity to revitalize local economies, California communities have often failed to capture its benefits for residents.

Rebuilding the Base recommends concrete measures cities planning for base reuse (like Oakland) can take to ensure that the use of this public land improves residents' lives. Recommendations include requiring living wage jobs and community benefits,  targeting strategic industries that offer good-paying accessible jobs, and meaningfully engaging residents in shaping reuse plans.  The Oakland Army Base, one of the case studies examined in the report, is in the midst of redevelopment planning, giving Oakland an unprecedented opportunity to jumpstart the local economy. In January 2008 the City of Oakland released a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for 108 acres of the base. The city has received thirteen bids, and is expected to narrow the pool to three or four developers in July, 2008.

"Policymakers planning for base reuse today can learn from the outcomes of early efforts," said Kathleen Mulligan-Hansel, primary author and Research Director for the Partnership for Working Families.  "In the first rounds of base closure, public officials were really just trying to figure out how to cope with the huge blow to their economy. Today, we can all insist on high standards for reusing this public land: higher quality jobs, local hire requirements, and other community benefits."

Click here to download a copy of the report.