Housing officials report renovation progress at town hall meeting

  • Published
  • By Joe B. Wiles
  • 71st Flying Training Wing Public Affairs
VANCE AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --  "We have made progress," said Col. Tim Gibson to more than 35 people attending the base housing town hall meeting held Jan. 20 in the Vance Collocated Club. "For all the issues we need to fix, the solutions will come from the people in this room."

Colonel Gibson, the 71st Mission Support Group commander, was referring to Kent Davis, the community director for Pinnacle housing on base, Janet McGowan, military housing manager, and senior military leaders at Vance.

The meeting's agenda included the housing renovation plan, the method for moving families out of affected structures and the survey designed to make moves less painful.

One hundred fifty-eight of the existing homes in Pinnacle housing will be renovated when the project is complete in May 2011. The 18 two-bedroom homes will be demolished.

Moving families out of homes designated for renovation into renovated, military constructed or Pinnacle's newly constructed homes is a complicated puzzle. In an effort to make the moves as fair and easy as possible, Pinnacle sent out a survey to all the housing residents to gather data like graduation dates, permanent change of station dates, permanent party or student status and other relevant information.

"We need accurate information for relocations to work best," said Colonel Gibson. The objective is to minimize the chaos inherent in these kind of changes, he said.
According to Mr. Davis, only about 50 percent of the surveys have been returned. He stressed the importance of residents returning the surveys to reduce the impact of forced moves during the renovation project.

The information from the surveys is put into a database for use with the current rules for housing occupation to meet the needs of residents. This new decision-support tool will assist Pinnacle in managing the remaining renovations.

For safety and health reasons, a duplex cannot be renovated one side at a time. When one side becomes available, the occupant of the other side will be given a 30-day notice to move. Between 10 and 14 days before the move, the resident will be provided with an available choice, or choices, of homes to move to. The resident has 48 hours to accept a home.

The housing management office works with the resident to arrange a military-funded move or a do-it-yourself move. Cleaning requirements for the resident includes completely cleaning all appliances and window blinds, sweeping all floors and clearing trash from outside areas.

Residents will have seven days to complete the move once a lease has been signed.

To assist residents in planning how to fit their belongings into a new residence, Pinnacle has posted floor plans and a tool to help with furniture placement on their Web site -- http://vance.pinnaclefamilyhousing.com.

The Pinnacle staff has researched the fees for transferring services to the new resident. According to Mr. Davis, DIRECTV waives its service transfer fee for residents who have had six or more months of service. Dish Network does not charge residents to transfer service.

SuddenLink does not charge a fee to transfer service at this time, but that is subject to change, said Mr. Davis. He said AT&T has not responded to Pinnacle's call.

Renovations to base houses will include a garage, new water heater, central air and heat, new doors, counter tops, lighting, flooring and carpet, modern baseboards, bathroom vanity cabinets, a new kitchen sink and garbage disposal, ceiling fans and much more, said Mr. Davis.

Mr. Davis discussed maintenance calls during the meeting. He explained that maintenance crews respond to emergency calls within one hour and stay until the emergency is resolved. Urgent calls have a four-hour response time with 24 hours to complete the repair. Routine maintenance calls require a 24-hour response and 72 hours to complete.

Challenges to maintenance include problems with contacting the resident, availability of parts and materials and scheduling sub-contractors and vendors, said Mr. Davis. Warranty repairs in the newly constructed housing area are handled by Hunt Construction, he said.

Several residents attending the town hall meeting reported the carpet in the newly constructed homes isn't holding up very well. Mr. Davis said in February the construction company will begin inspections of the new homes to find problems. He recommended residents have a list of any deficiencies they have found in the new housing to help inspectors find all the problems.

"When you have challenges with base housing, your first stop should be the Pinnacle office," said Colonel Gibson. "If you're not satisfied with their answer, go to the military housing office. They are both in the community center in the new housing area," he said. "But don't go to the Hunt construction company or the contractors. They don't have the authority to help you," Colonel Gibson said.

The telephone number for Pinnacle is 234-0498. Military housing management can be reached at 213-7949.