The Air Force is planning to build about 70 new on-post homes to serve the communities around the largest U.S. military community in England.
The $36 million project will go up at RAF Feltwell and is meant to ease the housing deficit for airmen and their families at RAFs Mildenhall, Lakenheath and Feltwell, according to Lt. Col. Brian Murphy, commander for the 48th Civil Engineering Squadron at Lakenheath.
The three bases are all about a 20-minute drive apart.
The plan is in its beginning stages.
Design work must still be completed and the development must be approved by local planners before any construction can start, Murphy said last week in an e-mail.
“If everything goes well, construction will start in late 2008,” Murphy wrote.
The new homes will follow the model of Liberty Village, a housing development being built at Lakenheath that emphasizes dense unit placement and an aesthetic resemblance to a British neighborhood.
The development is tentatively slated to be built in the vicinity of Oxford and Croughton avenues at Feltwell, according to Murphy.
According to the Air Force, there’s a need for the housing. Analyses by the Air Force in the past few years have shown a deficit of 468 housing units in the area to accommodate the approximately 8,500 airmen stationed in the area, as well as their families.
Acceptable housing in the analyses must be within a 30-minute commute to the bases and have certain specifications.
The exact number of units to be built isn’t known at this time, but Murphy said they are looking to build up to 70 units.
“Construction of these units will make a significant dent in the deficit,” he said.
The advent of these 70 new on-base homes was one reason cited by the Forest Heath District Council — the local governing body — last month when it rejected an Air Force initiative to build approximately 440 off-base units near Mildenhall.
The council’s move also came against the backdrop of two factors sure to impact future Air Force housing needs in the area: The possible move of the RAF Mildenhall-based, 1,000-troop 352nd Special Operations Group; and plans for the construction of 300 homes directly outside RAF Mildenhall’s back gate.
Beck Row hotelier Anthony T. Warin is set to demolish the former Smoke House hotel and a tract of nearby businesses, and join with Britain’s biggest homebuilder to construct the houses, roughly half of which are designed to American specifications.
Warin is building the homes independent of the Air Force.
