Fort Ord on the Monterey Peninsula covers the same square mileage as the city/county of San Francisco. There are hundreds of these barracks and many other buildings being allowed to stand useless. A few years ago a few buildings were sold for $1 to churches and other foundations. Those buildings have been restored, painted, and landscaped and are beautiful as well as functional. Why, why, why do we continue to pave over open land, reduce fertile land for farms in order to build more and more housing units? The Fort Ord Reuse Agency could sell the units for that same $1 with a stipulated time limit for improvement and habitability and lease the land the units are on. These building would make terrific townhomes, studios, and businesses. Across the road is a shopping center. Access to Highway 1 is only a few hundred feet down the road, and the view is the Monterey Bay! There is a high school right in the center of all of these derelict buildings and believe me, the kids have no trouble getting inside these places. Doors stand wide open, windows are shattered and signs of less than legal activity is everywhere.
There they stand on their hill overlooking the bay and the new shopping center. The barracks and other abandoned buildings go on for miles along paved roads winding maze-like over the vast expanse of the former military base. They need to be restored and re-used and we need to reduce the waste of land that once gone cannot be brought back.
In bocca al lupo. m & v
Oh, good for you ~~ Fine example of photo journalism. Right on!
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