U.S. Naval Housing Annex Negishi, seen here on April 2, 2026, about 10 miles north of Yokosuka, Japan, will be officially handed over to the Japanese government by June 30, 2026. (Akifumi Ishikawa/Stars and Stripes)
YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — A former U.S. Navy housing area in Yokohama — home to Navy families for nearly 80 years — will be returned to Japan this summer as part of a long-running U.S. base realignment in Kanagawa prefecture.
The United States will return Naval Housing Annex Negishi to Yokohama by June 30, Japan’s Ministry of Defense announced March 12. The annex was once home to as many as 2,000 people in about 400 homes.
“We are extremely pleased that this long-cherished desire will finally be realized,” Yokohama Mayor Takeharu Yamanaka said in a city news release on March 12.
Washington first agreed with Tokyo to return the property in 2004, and it has been vacant since 2015 when the last residents moved out, a South Kanto Defense Bureau official told Stars and Stripes by phone March 26.
The handover is part of a broader $500 million initiative between the U.S. Navy and the Japanese government. In exchange for the return of Negishi, the Japanese government is helping the Navy build 13 facilities throughout Kanagawa— including a new food court and parking garages at Yokosuka Naval Base.
U.S. Naval Housing Annex Negishi, seen here on April 2, 2026, about 10 miles north of Yokosuka, Japan, will be officially handed over to the Japanese government by June 30, 2026. (Akifumi Ishikawa/Stars and Stripes)
U.S. Naval Housing Annex Negishi, seen here on April 2, 2026, about 10 miles north of Yokosuka, Japan, will be officially handed over to the Japanese government by June 30, 2026. (Akifumi Ishikawa/Stars and Stripes)
The return of the property is “of great significance” and advances the reorganization of U.S. military facilities in the region while “maintaining the necessary deterrence under the Japan-U.S. alliance,” Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said during a news conference on March 13, according to a transcript posted on the ministry’s website.
The subsequent development of Negishi will “contribute to the future of the local community,” he added.
The 106-acre hilltop property was used as Navy housing beginning in 1947 and ultimately fell under Yokosuka Naval Base, the home of the U.S. 7th Fleet about 10 miles southeast of Negishi.
Taiyo Reimers, a former Negishi resident, in 2023 produced “By Fair Winds (a story of Negishi Heights),” a 25-minute documentary on the history of the housing annex that incorporates interviews and archive photos. The video has garnered more than 15,000 views on YouTube.
About one-third of the property is privately owned. The remaining two-thirds belong to Japan’s national government and will be either sold or given to the city for free, depending on its intended use, the defense bureau official said.
Yokohama has not finalized plans for the site, but options under consideration include dividing the land into educational, residential and park zones, according to Atsushi Adachihara, an official at Yokohama’s Urban Development Bureau.
The city is also considering local opinions, Adachihara told Stars and Stripes by phone March 26.
“The Ministry of Defense will work in cooperation with Yokohama city and other relevant municipalities, carefully listening to the voices of the local community, to ensure that the returned land is used effectively and appropriately,” Koizumi said at the news conference.
