Southern Indiana Business Report
LOOGOOTEE — The White River Military Coordination Alliance (WRMCA) has been awarded nearly $500,000 for a Military Installation Resilience Review (MIRR) grant through the Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation (OLDCC) Installation Resilience program.
The Southern Indiana Development Commission (SIDC) was the sponsoring partner for the submission. MIRR grant funds will be used to implement two initiatives in the southern Indiana region.
The development of the Regional Resilience Master Plan will work to identify issues on shared community infrastructure that may impact mission readiness and help to understand shared vulnerabilities and risks both inside and outside Naval Support Activity (NSA) Crane and Lake Glendora Test Facility boundaries.
In addition, a housing coalition will be created to grow the pool of local development talent to increase residential options for those living near the local military installations. The resilience planning program will integrate infrastructure planning, design, construction, and maintenance to identify regional solutions to natural and manmade-related risks that may impact the base.
Additionally, it will identify a diversified set of financing tools for advancing targeted actions that result in increased resiliency for both military installations and the surrounding communities.
“Nearly all of the people who work on NSA Crane live in the surrounding community,” said Brianne Jerrels, WRMCA president. “Supporting the installation’s needs is not just about growing and developing inside the fence line, but includes strengthening the community’s resilience and programs that impact residents such as housing, infrastructure, emergency services and more.”
The rural housing coalition will implement programs that focus on the rural small-town redevelopment of underutilized downtown properties for both housing and commercial use surrounding NSA Crane and Lake Glendora. The region’s newer housing developments are located predominantly outside of the base’s adjacent rural communities, and most existing housing in this area is more than 50 years old.
Part of the planning grant includes finding ways to increase housing options for Crane employees, which has been identified as a requirement to continue to increase defense employment and develop a stronger workforce in southern Indiana. The committee will include nonprofit developers such as Habitat for Humanity, tax credit housing developers, local units of government, and economic and community development professionals.
“OLDCC funding could not come at a more opportune time for the region,” said Greg Jones, executive director at SIDC. “Changes in the climate as well as job growth will ask communities to make better, more informed decisions on infrastructure. These funds will assist in making the region more resilient to future vulnerabilities.”
OLDCC’s Installation Resilience program presents states and communities with the opportunity to partner with their local installations and the Military Departments to support installation resilience. It merges previous installation resilience and compatible use (formerly a Joint Land Use Study, or JLUS) elements into one broader program.
Both WRMCA programs will specifically focus on assessing risks and vulnerabilities, and prioritizing mitigation actions of shared infrastructure and services between NSA Crane, Lake Glendora and the surrounding communities.