Other Voices: Action today will protect Langley tomorrow

If the recent events surrounding Oceana weren't the shot heard 'round the world, the boom certainly has been heard here in Hampton Roads. As a Navy pilot, I flew out of Naval Air Station Cecil Field from 1970 to 1976. In the context of the Cold War, that airfield was vital to national defense and its closure was literally unthinkable. Twenty years later Cecil Field was no more, and now Oceana faces the same fate. So, what are we to do about Langley Air Force Base?

It's a two-part problem: land use and military value.

Much has been rightly said about the shopping centers and the AMC cinema complex built immediately under the flight path. The city must tighten our zoning ordinances and stick to a Langley-friendly land use plan, no matter how enticing a future development deal looks. The policies we put in place now must have procedural safeguards built in. The military leadership at Langley must be actively involved in the city's land-use decisions when those decisions potentially encroach on flight operations. Finally, this can't just be a Hampton show, it must include the participation of all communities on the Peninsula.

But we could have an A+ land-use program in place and still lose Langley in a military value argument. Fort Monroe was not closed because of encroachment; it was closed because it was no longer of use to the Army. Inclusion on the 1988 and 1993 BRAC lists foreshadowed the inevitable. Changes in the way national defense is conducted made the "Gibraltar of the Chesapeake," with its thick, moat-protected walls and high-maintenance price tag, an anachronism.

Likewise, we observe tremendous change within the realm of air warfare. The concept of a "blended" defense establishment conducting joint operations has become more than just an esoteric concept floating around the war colleges. More-capable weapons systems are more-expensive weapons systems, so we tend to buy fewer of them. This leads to thoughts of consolidated facilities to better share expensive support capabilities.

The emergence of increasingly capable unpiloted aerial vehicles also raises serious questions about future airbase requirements. Finally, there is the public-private melange of warriors and contractors that develop, field and operate modern airborne weapon systems and drive the composition of the community surrounding an airfield like Langley. The community's focus must no longer only be on zoning; it must also take an increasingly sophisticated and complex view of economic development that looks to help the military activities get their job done.

I do not know what the future BRAC criteria will be, what evaluation rubric will be used to determine which facilities are no longer needed. What I do know, however, is that preparing for another BRAC 2005 is a fool's errand. We must have appropriate land-use plans and policies, but we must also have an understanding of future defense requirements that allows us to take actions today that will make sense a decade from now, and we must begin immediately.

Sapp is a councilman in the city of Hampton. Send e-mail to ChasSapp@ aol.com.