Edwards Air Force base has been home to many ‘firsts’ in Air Force lore, from the first supersonic flight to the first space shuttle landing. This week the Air Force broke ground on another ‘first’ at Edwards, one which could address the chronic housing shortage at the remote base in the southern California desert where some troops have lived in RVs for years before finding full-time housing.
With Edwards base officials lifting shovels of dirt with contractors, work began for the on-base apartment complex that will be run by a private company, a first for the Air Force. Officials hope the project will be a blueprint to address the chronic housing shortage both at Edwards and at other remote bases across the Air Force.
The complex will prioritize officers, most of whom are pilots, assigned as students to the base’s Test Pilot School, which is doubling its enrollment with the addition of the Space Test Course, according to Mary Kozaitis, a spokesperson for Edwards.
The officers are manager and leaders who are further along in their career compared to junior servicemen and are typically no longer eligible for the dormitories. E-1 to E-3s are not the target demographic for the apartments since they are eligible for the dormitories. So, they are two different groups that are eligible for different housing.
Planners hope to complete the project by summer 2026, though the official goal date is still being worked out. Once complete, the apartment complex at Edwards will feature 246 total beds split among 142 apartments. Of those apartments, 38 will be one-bedroom, one-bath, while 104 will be two-bedroom, two-bath.
The complex will also be available to some enlisted members in the E-4 pay grade and up. Junior enlisted airmen in the E-1 to E-3 pay grades will continue to be assigned to Edwards dorms.
All told, Edwards needs 119 single-family homes and 307 unaccompanied quarters — like barracks rooms — to make up its full housing shortfall for its active-duty workforce, according to the latest Air Force Housing Requirements and Market Analysis for the base. The new apartment complex will add 142 more apartments and a total of 246 beds, reducing the shortfall to 61 unaccompanied accommodations and 119 single family homes, according to Kozaitis.
The apartment project was designed for service members “who are no longer eligible for the dormitories, but who are not quite ready for the off-base housing market,” Kozaitis said.
Junior service members are eligible for on-base government-owned dormitories which Edwards “recently invested a significant amount of money” to renovate, she said. “They are not Test Pilot School students and not the target demographic for the apartments.”
A one-bedroom unit, officials said, might be taken by an officer student at the test pilot school. Elsewhere, two airmen who have moved out of the junior enlisted dorms could pool their basic allowance for housing payments to afford to live in a two-bedroom apartment.
Living in an RV with no room on base
In March, Task & Purpose reported that families assigned to Edwards were living in RVs due to a lack of available on-base housing and unaffordable rents in the surrounding communities of southern California. The issue has not gone unnoticed by base leaders. Former commander of the 412th Test Wing and Edwards, Brig Gen. Matthew Higer wrote in a memo that the “status quo, risk-averse, posture” embedded in the market analysis “disproportionally disadvantages our most junior and vulnerable military members and their families.”
The on-base housing shortage, Higer noted, was exacerbated by Edwards’ remote location roughly 30 miles from the nearest mid-sized town, and by the high prices for housing in California.
“Many Airmen at the 412 Test Wing have been impacted by the shortage of housing options on or in proximity to the base. That’s why we’re going to flip the script and try something new,” Ravi Chaudhary, assistant secretary of the Air Force for energy, installations and environment said in a news release. “I can say this, we hear you, we see you, but now it’s time to deliver for you.”
During a press briefing on the Pentagon’s plan for new quality of life initiatives released Friday, a senior official mentioned the private apartment project at Edwards noting that “there is clearly a deficit for that unaccompanied housing there.”
According to Department of Defense policy, “no more than 10% of an installation’s population can be housed on base with the remaining population housed within local communities,” Kozaitis said, adding that the policy “does not offer concessions for remote and isolated installations such as Edwards AFB.”
Subscribe to Task & Purpose today. Get the latest military news and culture in your inbox daily.
Edwards AFB was chosen as a pilot for the service’s first private apartment project because of its remote location, officials said. As part of the Pentagon’s plan to improve service member’s quality of life, officials also announced a new initiative to “make life easier” at remote and isolated bases. It’s unclear if Edwards will be chosen as one of the first remote and isolated base projects. Defense Department officials said on-site visits and selection of three bases for this effort is planned for 2025.
The new apartment complex at Edwards is being built by Mayroad, a private company that runs other on base family housing projects. In 1996, the Department of Defense underwent a privatization overhaul of its family housing and in recent years, Congress has signaled interest in expanding private projects to unaccompanied housing, or barracks for junior enlisted service members.
During the briefing about the Pentagon’s latest military lifestyle improvements, officials announced more privatized housing plans at Navy and Army bases. A senior official said that the Pentagon recently got White House approval to move forward on projects to build between 6,000 to 8,000 “privatized beds” at Naval Support Activity Hampton Roads in Norfolk, Virginia and 550 at the Army’s Fort Irwin base in southern California, which is home to the National Training Center.
The Air Force plans to review the Edward’s project design and cost early next year and begin construction soon after. The service expects that the first units could be ready for service members to move in by summer 2026, according to the news release.
The privatized apartments will “serve as a model for future housing solutions” at remote bases like Edwards, according to the Air Force news release.
“Edwards Air Force Base is a place of firsts: our first jet took off on the lakebed just a couple miles that way. We first broke the sound barrier here less than a month after the Air Force was created, “ Col. Douglas Wickert, 412th Test Wing Commander said in the release. “There’s a reason that we like to say we live for first in flight test and to that long list of historic firsts that have taken place here Edwards Air Force Base, I am so thrilled that we now get to celebrate one more: the Air Force’s first commercial apartment complex.”
The latest on Task & Purpose
- A Marine went on a comedy podcast. The sister of a fallen scout sniper was listening.
- After nearly 5 years, the Space Force still can’t get its own dress uniforms for most guardians
- The Navy’s 1945 cookbook teaches how to feed hundreds of sailors
- Navy SEAL astronaut doctor Jonny Kim will blast off into space next year
- An Air Force special ops squadron damaged three Ospreys in five days