Hampton's Plans

Now that the week-long public planning process of the Hampton Federal Area Development Authority (FADA) is over, what has it shown us?

First, Fort Monroe matters passionately to many people. On July 22 the main hall of the Hampton Convention Center was filled with

citizens collaborating on detailed visions of Fort Monroe's future.

Second, as the group presentations and informal reports from participants indicated, these passionate citizens were primarily interested in historic preservation and education, environmental conservation, plenty of open green space, and access to the seawall walk and the beaches.

Third, the Hampton FADA considers Fort Monroe a Hampton project. Victor Dover of Dover, Kohl, and Partners, the planning consultants hired by the FADA, asked the workshop participants to unfetter their imaginations, and then undercut his own request by saying that their focus should be on the "what" and not the "how" -- on the details of transformation instead of on the transformer. As a result, talk of a national park at Fort Monroe was inhibited and sometimes actively discouraged. And although the national park concept still made its way into the group reports, it didn't figure in Mr. Dover's July 27 summary presentation. On the other hand, the FADA's connection to Hampton carried the implication that Hampton would be the "how." The force of this unspoken idea was evident in the assumption of some participants that their vision for Fort Monroe must include an economic benefit to Hampton in the form of commercial and residential development. And in the FADA's own overview of the proceedings, posted on its web site, that assumption is very close to the surface: "Another consideration is the negative economic impact the fort's closing will have on the city and the region." The Hampton FADA is all but admitting that it wants ownership of Fort Monroe to strengthen the city's economy. It is perhaps no coincidence, then, that all three of the plans presented by Mr. Dover include some significant amount of development, and two of the three stress more rather than less development.

Fourth, in its insistence on the "what," the Hampton planning process evaded the central issue of jurisdiction. Who is best suited to shape and control Fort Monroe's future? This is the question that should have been answered first. Otherwise, there is no guarantee that the "what" of even the most attractive plan, from the standpoint of public use, will ever be realized -- or if realized, maintained.

Citizens for a Fort Monroe National Park believes that the answer to the question is the federal government. Declared a National Historic Monument in 1960 and a National Historic Landmark District in 1966, Fort Monroe richly deserves a national park status that will preserve its historic and scenic treasures. We believe, too, that through appropriate re-use of existing buildings and the imaginative enhancement of historical education, Fort Monroe will become partly or fully self-sustaining, and that its identity as a national park will economically invigorate Hampton and Phoebus, turning them from way stations into destinations. Finally, we believe that before the post closes in 2011, our state and federal legislators will share our conviction that making Fort Monroe a national park is both the honorable and the sensible thing to do.