“Screening” can be defined as a three-level process for identifying interests in federal surplus properties. The first screening process is called “Federal Screening” or “Federal to Federal Transfers.” Federal Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) law allows the U. S. Army to issue official notices of availability of real property at Fort McPherson to other Department of Defense and Federal agencies. This “Federal Screening” resulted in a request by the Veteran’s Administration for five acres and five buildings including the Lawrence Joel Health Clinic. The Veteran’s Administration will be required to pay fair market value for the property. Progress on this transfer will be posted as information is obtained.
The second screening process is called “State and Local” screening and was conducted between the dates of May 9, 2006 and September 25, 2006. A “Notice of Availability of Surplus Federal Property” was published in the Atlanta Journal Constitution on June 4th and June 8th. In addition, the LRA sent the availability notice by email to 402 homeless provider representatives. Notices of Interest (“NOI’s”) were solicited from State and local government entities interested in obtaining real property at Fort McPherson through a “Public Benefit Conveyance”. All NOI’s received will be considered and analyzed by the McPherson Planning LRA for possible inclusion in a comprehensive redevelopment plan. The McPherson Planning LRA is under no obligation to include the NOI proposals in the overall plan. However, if the LRA responds favorably to a proposal and includes it in the plan, the requesting agency must be approved and sponsored by a federal agency in order to actually receive the property. The requesting State or local agency may purchase the property at a price ranging from $0 (zero) to 100% of fair market value depending on the applicable federal regulation governing the transfer.
The third screening process is called “Homeless Assistance Conveyance” screening and the timetable and process are identical to the “State and Local” screening process described above. However, the McPherson Planning LRA must consider the Homeless Provider requests and enter into a legally binding agreement, acceptable to HUD, addressing homeless issues considered during the screening process. If the binding agreement includes the transfer of property located at Fort McPherson, the property will be conveyed at no cost to the requesting organization(s).
Prior to the September 25th deadline, the LRA conducted two “Homeless Service Provider/Public Benefit Conveyance Workshops” attended by 24 representatives representing 17 organizations and has conducted many private tours of Fort McPherson.
On September 25th, the LRA received twenty-eight Notices of Interest for properties located at Fort McPherson. As of this date, the LRA members have not read these documents and several weeks will be required to review and analyze the public benefit and homeless assistance requests. Once the requests have been sufficiently identified and clarified, the initial consideration process will be shared with public stakeholders and the proposals that show promise will be included in the overall public outreach process. As stated above, the LRA is under no obligation to include a specific NOI proposal into the overall reuse plan.
