Japan Press Weekly

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2012 February 22 - 28 [US FORCES]

Small part of US base will be returned to city, partly at the city’s expense

The Japanese and U.S. governments on February 23 agreed on the return of a part of the U.S. Tokorozawa Communications Station (Tokorozawa Transmitter Site) to Tokorozawa City in Saitama Prefecture.

However, the land to be returned amounts to only about 0.94 hectares out of the 97 hectares the site occupies, far from Tokorozawa citizens’ demand for the full return of the U.S. base to the city.

Associated with the partial return, the city government will bear the cost of about 400 million yen to relocate affected U.S. facilities. The national government will also pay about 1.3 billion yen of the relocation cost.

The U.S. base in question is located in the middle of Tokorozawa City, separating the city into east and west and disturbing citizens’ cross town access. The planned return site will be the land needed for an east-west connecting road.

The relocation burden to be placed on the city was at the center of the controversy, recalled Japanese Communist Party member of the Tokorozawa City Assembly Hirai Akemi.

Hirai said that the assembly focused on a government response to JCP Dietperson Shiokawa Tetsuya, which the government had admitted that no local governments have ever shouldered the expense for relocating a foreign military facility, and that the city reduced its out-of-pocket burden from the initial 1.1 billion yen to 400 million yen.

The JCP assemblyperson said, “We will continue to struggle with the residents for the full return of the U.S. base to Tokorozawa.”