Maizuru accepts Japanese navy plan for new fuel tanks and ship moorings at its base

The city of Maizuru in Kyoto Prefecture has formally told Japan's defence ministry that it accepts a plan to build new Maritime Self-Defense Force facilities on its waterfront. Mayor Kamoda Akitsu handed a written reply at city hall on Monday 19 October to Gomi Kenji, head of the ministry's Kinki-Chubu Defense Bureau, and to Nishiwaki Masashi, the commandant of the navy's Maizuru District.

The reply covers the continued use of the Hama and Higashiyama areas, which the navy already occupies on Maizuru Bay, and the construction of new facilities there. The ministry made its request on 21 July, saying it was needed to strengthen Japan's defence capability, and the city assembly adopted a resolution backing the plan by a majority vote on 5 October.

Under the plan as reported in August, the ministry would newly acquire about 4.1 hectares of state-owned land on the Higashiyama hill north of city hall and combine it with about 4.6 hectares of neighbouring seaside defence land. Existing navy facilities there would be moved elsewhere, and outdoor fuel tanks, ship moorings, an administration building and a supply warehouse would be built, with completion targeted for around fiscal year 2034. City officials said the ministry told them that fuel storage is in short supply across the country. The Hama area now houses a repair and supply depot, while Higashiyama hosts a fleet base unit.

In accepting the plan, the mayor attached four requests: help in developing a roughly triangular plot next to the city's Akarenga Park, a tourist site across the inlet; support for local development, including a study of opening the former air defence command post site at Higashiyama to the public; strict safety during construction; and timely, appropriate information. Gomi thanked the city, calling its answer a very weighty decision, and said the ministry would consider the four requests in good faith.

The decision ends a land arrangement that dates back more than three decades. Under a 1992 memorandum between the city, the then Defence Agency and the navy, the agency was to relocate and consolidate navy facilities in the two areas and help the city carry out its own plans for the site. Maizuru had hoped to build a resort with convention facilities there under a prefectural development scheme from 1989, but the project never went ahead. Buying the land would have cost about 1.4 billion yen at the market prices of the time, and a survey two years after the memorandum found an underground space beneath Higashiyama once used by the former Imperial Japanese Navy for air defence command, along with weak ground that made building on the hilltop difficult.

Kamoda told assembly members in August that the city had been unable to put the land to use for 30 years and, given its finances, could not expect to do so in future. He later told reporters that adding military facilities usually hampers urban development, but that the Hama and Higashiyama land had no other use, so that concern did not apply. The city plans to seek larger government grants and wider support for local development in return.

According to the city, military base land in Maizuru covered about 260 hectares at the end of March and is expected to grow by about 3.1 hectares once the new facilities are finished. Removal of navy facilities from the triangular plot, which is about one hectare, is due to be completed this fiscal year, after which the city wants to turn it into a gateway to Akarenga Park.

The assembly resolution in October said the plan should be accepted after weighing the current security environment and the city's financial situation, while urging the national government to take special care so that national security and the city's development can go together. At the same session the assembly declined to adopt a petition calling for plans involving Tomahawk cruise missiles to be withdrawn.