Housing crunch looms at Yokota as renovations collide with troop arrivals

Housing is expected to become harder to find at Yokota Air Base as renovations keep hundreds of rooms and homes out of service for years to come, base officials said at a recent town hall.

Housing is expected to become harder to at Yokota Air Base as renovations keep hundreds of rooms and homes out of service for years to come. Renovation work continues on an apartment tower at Yokota Air Base, Japan, Oct. 15, 2026. (Seth Robson/Stars and Stripes) YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — Housing is expected to become harder to find at this airlift hub in western Tokyo as renovations keep hundreds of rooms and homes out of service for years to come, base officials said at a recent town hall. “The future is going to be even tighter,” George Matusak, Yokota’s deputy base civil engineer, said during the Oct. 7 meeting at the base theater.

Construction crews are a familiar sight in Yokota’s residential neighborhoods, where apartment towers, townhomes and dormitories are undergoing extensive renovations. Work on three dorm buildings is slated for completion in early spring 2028, 374th Airlift Wing spokeswoman 1st Lt. Macaiah Honable said by email Thursday. A housing tower on the base’s west side is expected to reopen in summer 2028, while renovations to 32 northside family housing units should be completed by the end of fiscal 2029, she wrote. The projects coincide with an increase in Yokota’s population, which now stands at 12,500, up from the 12,000 reported by the wing in February 2024. Temporary walls surround