Urban areas that need economic development, as well as historic locations and properties, will no longer be priorities for agencies when they make decisions on places where to locate federal buildings.
Two long -term decrees that President Donald Trump canceled on Tuesday encouraged agencies for years at least, at least in part, to these factors when determining the locations of the headquarters, land offices and other federal buildings.
The new decree comes as the Trump administration is continuing its efforts to reduce government real estate assets and move many government facilities outside the national capital region and across the country. Trump said that the elimination of these guidelines would make the federal space of offices more profitable and efficient.
“Provide the highest quality services in an effective and profitable way … Agency must be the place where people are located,” says the decree.
Dan Mathews, a member of the Public Building Reform Council, a former commissioner for the public buildings of buildings under the first Trump administration, said that the president’s decision should give agencies more flexibility where they decide to locate their buildings.
“These other decrees were more concerned about socio-economic objectives as opposed to what is the most effective way to house federal work,” said Mathews in an interview with Federal News Network. “I think it will have the effect of creating other options on how to be the most profitable.”
As part of Trump’s new decree, the General Services Administration, which acts as the government owner, will be required to modify two sections of federal regulations on the location and use of federal spaces to remove the two previous decrees – one of the Clinton administration and the other from the Carter administration.
The location of federal buildings should “find the right balance”
Norman Dong, former commissioner of Building Public Services in GSA as part of the Obama administration, said that the order of former president Jimmy Carter has helped guide the federal location policy for almost 50 years, but that it has never been supposed to be a rigid or absolute requirement.
“The government has been able to consider other factors, including the mission and function of the agency, the security requirements, as well as another federal law which obliges agencies to take into account rural locations,” said Dong in an interview with Federal News Network. “There are several factors to consider, and ultimately, it is a question of finding the right balance between these factors.”
Carter’s objective was, in part, to use the federal presence in urban areas to try to stimulate urban development in certain regions or neighborhoods. In Washington, DC, for example, the Equality Employment Committee and the Federal Trade Commission both moved their head office in the Noma district around 2008. During the years that followed, the district has experienced a major peak in urban development and population growth.
But Dong said that agency decisions in their offices also involve many other considerations, such as security costs and needs.
“If you look at the FBI offices on the ground, for example, you will see many that are not located in the city center, given the highly specialized nature of these facilities and their security requirements,” said Dong. “In places like Atlanta or Sacramento, these FBI offices are located far outside the central city.”
And over time, Dong said that there was also an “unequal application” of the order of the Carter era which prioritized federal buildings in urban areas.
“In some cases, it was the main location factor for the federal installation, but in others, it was one element among many,” said Dong. “With the termination of these two decrees, he emphasizes some of these other factors that have always been one of the decision criteria.”
Partly, current federal regulations indicate that agencies should include an emphasis on the location of federal buildings “so as to strengthen the cities of the nation and make them attractive places to live and work, keep existing urban resources and encourage the development and redevelopment of cities.”
During the location in urban areas, the order of the Carter era told agencies to prioritize the place of buildings in “centralized commercial areas and other areas recommended by local officials”.
The executive decree of the Clinton administration also said that agencies should consider locating buildings in historical properties and historical districts, “when they are appropriate and economically cautious.”
“If no property of this type is suitable, federal agencies must consider other sites developed or not developed in historical districts,” according to the regulations. “Federal agencies must then consider historical properties outside historical districts, if no appropriate site in a district exists.”
But in Tuesday’s decree, Trump argued that the efforts of previous administrations did not have the desired effect and finally called for a revision to these regulations on federal buildings.
“The order of President Carter rather prevented the agencies from moving to the installations at a lower cost,” wrote Trump. “The order of President Clinton did not adequately prioritize effective and effective government services.”
More agency relocations are in advance
Trump changes will probably be at stake while agencies accelerate with large reductions in force (RIF) and reorganization plans. A memo of the February White House called on agencies to submit proposals to move federal offices and offices outside the national capital region and to “less expensive parties of the country”.
In the memo, the White House also told the agencies of “consolidating regional field offices in that the provision of efficient services”, while aligning office closings or office relocations “with actions to return to the office to avoid multiple relocation services for individual employees”.
Some agencies are already taking measures for this purpose. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, for example, plans to leave its head office in downtown Washington, DC, although the plans for a new headquarters are not yet clear.
At the same time, GSA seeks to cancel hundreds of leases and establish a new list of federal office buildings marked for an accelerated sale and elimination. The Federal News Network first indicated that the GSA and the Government Ministry of Efficiency had initially sought to end 1,000 leases, but then fell the layoffs of several hundred leases.
GSA plans to perform five other mass lease reduction cycles by September. The agency has also set an 80% use target for all federal buildings.
Trump took similar measures during his first mandate to reduce and move federal real estate assets to more rural and less expensive areas. In a notable example, the Ministry of Agriculture in 2019 has moved the main research facilities for two of its agencies: the economic research service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
At the time, the objective of the Trump administration was to reduce the costs on real estate, but the government’s responsibility office then noted that the USDA had not taken into account the cost of the attrition of staff when moving the agencies. ERS and NIFA lost between 40% and 60% of staff members during the move to Kansas City, Missouri. When they finally succeeded in the staff, the newly hired employees were less experienced and less diverse.
Some members of the congress try to prevent similar situations from occurring, as more and more agencies should reduce and move federal buildings. In March, the Democratic legislators of the Chamber and the Senate presented the law on the costs of relocations in order to set more strict requirements so that agencies carry out cost-dispatches before moving the buildings permanently.
“The sudden derail of these agencies for political reasons not only endangered their critical missions, but also a waste of dollars of taxpayers,” said senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD.), Who introduced the legislation last month. “This bill guarantees that major decisions like these are made in a thoughtful and motivated manner by the best interests of the American people and their taxes.”
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