Robert Frost once wrote, "Good fences make good neighbors," but what if the neighbors involved are military installations and the civilian communities they surround? When the neighborly issues involve community growth and national security, it takes more than just a fence to help these neighbors coexist peacefully.

For the past 18 months, the city of Bremerton, Kitsap County, Jefferson County, Naval Base Kitsap, and Naval Magazine Indian Island as well as lands owned by five federally recognized Native American Tribes have been the subject of a Joint Land Use Study, sponsored by the Department of Defense, with the goal of determining actions to ensure appropriate land use activities surrounding these installations.

Military installations greatly impact their surrounding communities, bringing in billions of dollars in DoD contracts, adding both military and civilian jobs to the economy, as well as the injection of local spending on housing, services and goods. Along with that though comes the need for security surrounding bases and a reliance on a sufficient economy to support the needs of personnel and their families. Communities often thrive and grow in this situation to support those needs, but growth has to be tempered by the need for security immediately surrounding installations and along transportation routes vital to military operations. The purpose of the Joint Land Use Study is to create a planning effort between military and surrounding civilian communities to ensure both the security of the installation and appropriate development of the area.

The focus area in this case included areas surrounding all Naval Base Kitsap installations, including NBK Bremerton, Bangor, Keyport, and the Manchester Duel Depot in Kitsap County, Naval Magazine Indian Island in Jefferson County, railroad transportation routes, and portions of Hood Canal and Puget Sound. Data was collected via open community workshops in both Kitsap County and Jefferson County (with Kitsap County workshops aired on BKAT, or Bremerton Kitsap Access Television), online surveys, a public Facebook page, and the project website (www.kiijlus.com) which served as an information center for all activities and information sourced and used to complete study findings. Data collection focused on current land use, military economic impact, growth trends, and regional and transportation contexts in the study area.

Strategies and recommendations of the KIIJLUS include increased community outreach by the Navy as well as increased community awareness of the mission of the navy, continued and improved conservation programs, increased coordination among stakeholders, further land use and government comprehensive planning, and land use and development strategies. These strategic coordination plans involve representatives from the Navy, all involved townships, and Tribal governments and cover a span of up to 20 years.

Findings of the Joint Land Use Study Naval Base Kitsap and Naval Magazine Indian Island will serve as Phase I, or the planning process, of a long term process in implementing and adopting strategies to continue a strong working relationship between the Navy and surrounding communities. Phase II, the JLUS Implementation, if adopted will focus on developing tools to put into action the recommendations of the JLUS. Finally, during Phase III, or the Tools Adoption Phase, the tools and resources developed in Phase II will be presented to the relevant agencies for application and operation.

In short the Naval Base Kitsap/Naval Magazine Indian Island Joint Land Use Study will provide our community with the information necessary to maintain and build upon a cooperative working relationship between these military and civilian community "neighbors."