MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan -- With the newly renovated 32 townhouse units being made available for use here Wednesday and approximately 66 townhouse units slated to undergo renovation in the following months, Station Facilities Military Housing Division has begun to implement a new family housing re-designation plan.
All station community members are invited to attend a ribbon cutting at Building 980 in the Monzen slated for 1 p.m. Wednesday.
An open house, in which attendees wishing to view the inside of the house will be asked to remove their shoes, is scheduled for Wednesday 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. after the ribbon cutting and Thursday 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The new re-designation plan, which spans station wide, provides more family housing for junior enlisted personnel and allows for field grade officers, company grade officers, senior enlisted and junior enlisted personnel to be housed in all areas of the air station.
“We are not going to move anybody right now,” said Kirby Franklin, station housing director. “We are starting to do it (re-designation) now, and we’ll work toward this plan which will take several years.”
With the new re-designation plan being based on the population percentages, more units have been allotted to junior enlisted personnel since they are the majority aboard the station.
The re-designation plan is flexible enough to change with the population if there’s a decrease in junior enlisted and an increase in any other pay grade.
The different pay grades will be housed together in the same areas of the Monzen, Mainside and Northside.
Although living in the same area, the new plan will still separate the various grades through parking lots, neighborhood blocks and housing sections, but will require them to co-mingle until the plan is fully implemented.
Sergeants might be neighbors with captains and majors might be neighbors with senior noncommissioned officers until the redesignation is fully implemented, Franklin said.
“We’re just asking everybody to kind of grit their teeth, be good neighbors and please understand the dilemma we’re in while we try to get to this plan,” said Franklin.
Family housing has worked out a system to accomplish re-designation and at the same time avoid moving people out of their present homes.
“This is our designation plan, which is going to work by attrition,” said Anita Shimada, a station family housing assignment counselor. “Say a company grade officer moves out of a house which is now junior enlisted designated, we will then move a junior enlisted in there. We are not going to be moving anybody out because of this designation plan unless they have to because of the renovation.”
Occupants of townhouse units scheduled to undergo renovation in the following months have already been notified of the move.
Some of those occupants will be moving into the 32 newly renovated townhouses.
Occupants of the newly renovated townhouses will find them outfitted with new carpet, countertops, tiles, kitchenettes, bathrooms, cabinets and dishwashers.
Another new feature is the service porch in the three- and four-bedroom townhouses has been fully enclosed to allow the washer and dryer to be moved into its space, which has allowed for more space in the kitchen area of the homes.
The open house viewing scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday is to show community members what the townhouse units will look like once renovations are complete.
Along with the new renovations and new re-designation, family housing plans to implement a new one-list policy.
This policy will offer homes by rank and family size, and will provide the first house available to an applicant regardless if he has a pet or not.
Family housing has more information on pet owners offered a house where no pets are allowed.
“The commanding officer decided if there’s adequate housing, it shouldn’t be based on people having pets; it’s for their families,” said Shimada. “We highly recommend all the members coming in not to bring their dogs because of this new policy.”
Another policy potentially making it harder for pet owners to acquire on-base housing is a new Marine Corps order on aggressive dog breeds aboard Marine Corps installations.
Station family housing is expected to send out letters to families aboard the air station regarding this new order in the following weeks once more information becomes available.
Franklin said with the new policies and changes happening within family housing he hopes people will understand both him and his staff are working hard to serve their customers.
“This housing program in Iwakuni is like a roller coaster in a hurricane,” said Franklin. “It’s going mach 9 in one direction and two seconds later it will change to turtle speed going backward. We have to see which way the wind is going to blow us the next day, so we ask for every one’s understanding.”
Anyone having questions or comments regarding family housing can call the family housing office at 253-5541.