Virginia's High Court to Hear Bus Mart Appeal

Virginia’s Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal made by a Fairfax County-based homeowners association seeking to stop Metro from moving a bus lot from north Old Town Alexandria to their neighborhood.

The City of Alexandria has been eager to see the bus mart, owned and operated by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority leave the residential neighborhood surrounding its location on N. Royal Street.

The City of Alexandria is not part of the lawsuit.

“Alexandria does not have any real direct interest in [the case],” said Alexandria City Attorney Jim Banks. “We have not participated in the case at all.”

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved the plan last year for the transit authority, or WMATA, to move the lot to Cinder Bed Road in Newington.

But the Newberry Station Homeowners Association said there was a violation of state conflict of interest laws because two members of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors sit on WMATA’s board.

Alexandria Mayor Bill Euille also sits on WMATA’s board.

The Fairfax County Circuit Court ruled in favor of the defendants – the Fairfax Board of Supervisors, WMATA and site developer Iskalo CBR of Williamsville, N.Y. Iskalo is being represented by McGuire Woods, a law firm based in Richmond. But the homeowners' group appealed the case.

Banks told Patch that the city is not interested in acquiring the property and “traditionally what the city would do is facilitate redevelopment of it.”

City of Alexandria official Mark Jinks told Patch last year that the city has been seeking to get the bus mart out of Old Town for “decades.”

The lot is in the midst of a residential area, at 600 N. Royal St.

It’s also “an inadequate and unsafe workspace for the mechanics working on buses,” Jinks told Patch last year.

The high court has not yet scheduled a date for the appeal.