By By Joe Taitano II Pacific Daily News

Copyright guampdn

Plans to source 1,317 off-base housing units for incoming military personnel are aimed at housing projects with at least 50 units, Joint Region Marianas Commander Rear Adm. Brett Mietus told members of the Guam Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday.

Mietus, the guest speaker at the business organization’s meeting at Hilton Guam Resort and Spa, said the military is also exploring a pilot program that would allow children of incoming personnel to attend off-base schools, in a talk about preparation for the buildup.

There are currently no plans for nuclear energy on Guam, he said.

Mietus added that the local government will have to lead the talk on bomb shelters or other civilian defense infrastructure, as the projects are not something the Department of War usually tackles.

Roughly 10,000 more active duty personnel, dependents, and government civilians are anticipated to come to Guam through the next decade, Mietus said.

Every bit of local infrastructure, from ports and roads to health care, will enable the DoW to do its job of preventing threats to Guam, he added.

Housing proposals

The rear admiral shared more details about plans to seek off-base housing for incoming military personnel and service members.

Earlier this month, the Navy put out a request for proposals from developers, seeking housing for incoming soldiers, sailors, and Marines who can’t fit into on-base units.

Mietus said he estimates it costs $1.8 million a unit for a recent housing project at Andersen Air Force Base due to strict construction requirements.

Moves to a public-private partnership for housing is meant to cut through the bureaucracy and high costs, according to Mietus.

He said they plan to work with developers for real estate that either isn’t completely built, or has zoning, permitting, and other requirements done.

“This is the best way for us to partner with the local business community and solve this housing problem,” he said.

For the time being, the Navy is only seeking proposals for projects that are 50 units or bigger, he said.

According to the Navy’s request for proposals, the federal government will only accept proposals for no more than five neighborhoods or locations.

“Our options moving forward is we could build a bunch…and keep it all behind the fence, and that way our families don’t integrate, and they’re not out in town,” Mietus said.

Real estate expert Siska Hutapea, of Cornerstone Valuation, speaking during the Chamber of Commerce meeting, suggested that the military help put in utility infrastructure that could cut down costs for local housing construction.

She said the median home price went from $245,000 about 10 years ago to $440,000, with the buildup sucking up construction supply.

School choice

Mietus said the Joint Region Marianas is also looking at a pilot program that could allow kids of service members to attend school out in the community.

He was responding to a question from Career Tech High Academy Charter School Principal Wil Castro about military kids getting a stipend to attend private or charter schools.

“There’s an executive order that was signed out early that says that this administration wants to pursue that,” Mietus said. “Shortly after getting that executive order receiving it, my predecessor sent a request for us to be able to pilot that here on Guam.”

Mietus said the response received was, “‘Hey, great idea. We just don’t have all the stuff together yet to be able to move forward.’”

He said JRM was waiting for word back, and did not know the scope or scale of the projects yet.

Bomb shelters, missile defense

Asked about a local push for bomb shelters or other civilian defense infrastructure, Mietus said this is not something the Department of War would normally do for a civilian community.

Guam Sen. Will Parkinson earlier this year introduced Resolution 7-38, which would call for the federal government to build and maintain air raid shelters and other civilian defense infrastructure for Guam.

It failed to pass a vote by senators, but did spark discussion about community readiness in the face of the possibility of a U.S.-China conflict.

“That would be an initiative that would need to come from the local government, and then figure out the best way to resource that,” Mietus said on Tuesday. “We’re not treating our soil in Guam any differently than we’re treating our soil in Hawaii or (other) places. Right now, I’m not aware of a federal program that does that.”

Mietus told the Pacific Daily News that the government would probably have to look back to the Cold War, when bomb shelters were a serious consideration, to decide whether they would be applicable today.

“I think it’s hard to say exactly what that would look like. To say whether it be worthwhile for us to resource and fund that,” he said.

During his talk to the Chamber of Commerce, Mietus said plans for Guam missile defense will include the “absolute best technology” the DoW has.

“We’re gonna do things in Guam that we’ve never done before, and that’s because we’re doing the right thing, which is to defend U.S. soil, the soil that we walk on every day here,” he said.

On the specifics of the system, he told the Chamber, “It’s tremendously complex, the details of which we’re not free to talk about. We got a memo saying, ‘hey, it’s all secret.’”

Nuclear energy, underground

There are no current plans for nuclear energy deployment or testing for the island, Mietus told the PDN.

Assistant Secretary of War for Energy, Installations and Environment Dale Marks last week said the DoW is looking at various “advanced energy technologies” for the island, which could include nuclear but also geothermal or other tech.

Mietus on Tuesday said plans for small, modular nuclear reactors in the DoW’s Project Pele program are yet to be deployed and would provide far less energy than the island needs.

“That’s one to five megawatts,” Mietus said, compared to 198 MW for the Guam Power Authority’s upcoming Ukudu power plant.

“When you’re looking at the scale…I don’t have anything on any of our programs that says those are coming,” Mietus said.

“I know that there’s a desire to be able to provide different types of energy sources, and we’ll be as transparent as we should be if a decision is made to bring those out there,” he said.

Mietus also commented on GPA General Manager John Benavente’s statement last week seeking $1.5 billion from the federal government to put much of the island’s power distribution system underground.

Benavente stressed the project would improve energy resilience for the DoW, while benefitting the whole island.

“We’ll take a look…once we get a chance to articulate what it is we need,” Mietus said Tuesday.

He said the military does have an ongoing project to deliver underground power from Piti to Polaris Point.

“Hopefully we’ll learn some things there and potentially be able to replicate it. I think we just need to understand crisply what the total deficit is in terms of number of megawatts we need,” Mietus said.

He said he couldn’t commit to anything on Tuesday, but may have a better idea in about a year.