The Williamsburg Area Transit Authority submitted five requests to the city’s Planning Commission on Wednesday.
The Planning Commission voted on all five of the agendas items at once.
The vote was nearly unanimous — commission Vice Chairman Jeff Klee recused himself from voting because of his ties with Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
The first application divides approximately 37 acres of Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s land into two lots so WATA could buy the bus facility.
The transportation agency was currently in the process to buying the land known as Lot 1-A, 7239 Pocahontas Trail from the foundation as of Wednesday.
“The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation will retain ownership of Lot 1-B,” according to the application.
WATA wants to revamp the existing bus space, add administrative space and two more bus spaces as well as change Lot 1-A’s ownership from Colonial Williamsburg to WATA, according to the second and third agenda items.
WATA also wants to rezone the property from Museum Support to Limited Industrial I, get approval for a special use permit to use and expand the facility and make the 13-acre lot public semi public.
“This project has been in development for several years now,” said Zach Trogdon, WATA’s executive director, before the commission voted. “The project is intended to still allow the current partners, WATA and Colonial Williamsburg to continue our unique partnership that allows us to work together to support the economic, recreational and social activities through transportation.”
Trogdon said WATA plans to use state and federal money for construction and local resources for the design plan.
The entire budget is expected to cost $11 million.
“We’re bringing quite of bit of funding to this project and a lot of it doesn’t even have a local match necessarily,” he added.
No one spoke during the public hearing.
The matter will go in front of the Williamsburg City Council next.
The next council meeting is July 9 — the agenda has not been released as of Friday so it’s unclear whether the matter is in it.
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