LANGLEY AFB, VA. –
Anyone who has been around Langley long knows it’s a place that’s always changing and growing.
Yet, when you’re in certain places on base, you might feel as though you’ve been transported back to the past. In particular, when entering the Langley Field Historic District, you find yourself surrounded by buildings and landscapes that remain much the same as they did in the early years of American military aviation.
This was when Langley AFB was Langley Field, one of the United States’ first Army Air Corps stations. It is sometimes described as one of the birthplaces of American Air Power.
Among the buildings in the Air Combat Command Campus are some of the oldest permanent buildings ever constructed for American military aviation purposes, to include the Air Force’s oldest housing units, administration building and hangars.
The Tudor revival-style construction and idyllic setting inspired by early American urban planning concepts create a peaceful, human-scale environment that stands at a contrast to the harried pace of work inside the buildings.
Facing challenges
Working with today’s technologies within a historic landscape carries with it its own challenges. Since Langley is home to more than 240 historic buildings, structures and sites eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, the Air Force is required to consider the impact of its actions on these facilities through something called the Section 106 consultation process.
For each project that could impact a historic facility, the base consults with the State Historic Preservation Office to determine if the action will have an adverse effect on the Langley Field Historic District.
Positive impacts
Most of the time, the Air Force’s actions have no adverse effects on the district and often have a positive impact. Consider recent projects to rehabilitate building 442 near the King Street circle. This building was once a gas station and has been renovated and returned to its historic appearance, while serving as a new home for the inspector general and military equal opportunity.
Old barracks buildings in the ACC Campus area have easily converted to house administrative offices, while the chapel annex building has been converted from an old elementary school to house chaplain offices.
Unavoidable obstacles
Sometimes, however, impacts that would be classified as adverse are unavoidable. For example, in preparation for the arrival of the F-22A, three 1930’s era hangars were demolished because the new aircraft’s requirements could not be accommodated in the existing facilities. Though the hangars were demolished, the new F-22 hangars were carefully designed to be compatible with the rest of the buildings in the historic district and even incorporate features from the older hangars.
Careful attention to new construction in the district, and avoiding demolition when possible, help the historic district to maintain its identifying character. Thus its eligibility for listing on the National Register.
Expanding missions
Growing mission requirements for the installation, such as the beddown of the Virginia Air National Guard, and new missions relocated to the base as part of base realignment and closure, such as the Logistics Support Center, have driven Langley to consider the impacts of future construction on the historic district.
New study, new findings
This spring, Langley began a new study to look at the impacts of recent, future and reasonably foreseeable developments in the Langley Field Historic District.
Perhaps the first study of its kind in the Air Force, the report will help analyze the cumulative impacts of multiple projects occurring in and around the historic portion of the base. It looks at new projects proposed in the installation’s General Plan, a 20-year plan for the future of Langley, to include several new area development plans approved and under review by the installation’s base planning board, the Air Force equivalent of a city planning commission.
The cumulative impacts report will look at the impacts of new projects ranging from a new 1st Fighter Wing Headquarters facility at the current Langley Federal Credit Union site, to a new administrative campus in the area of the horse stables, and consideration of a campus parking garage.
It will also offer an opportunity to look at the combined effect of many projects at once, rather than the project-by-project approach typically utilized, and will help better meet requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act.
Future impacts
Considering the impact of future development decisions on the district well ahead of when they actually occur will ensure that future mission requirements can be met in such a way that the character of what is perhaps the Air Force’s most historic base remains intact.