North Whidbey Fire and Rescue District Chief Marv Koorn told commissioners at Tuesday’s meeting that the first step for the consolidation of the San De Fuca and Zylstra Road fire stations has been achieved.

For the past few months, the district has been exploring several options to acquire a piece of property suitable for construction of a new fire station to provide citizens living on the west side of the island with more timely service.

This search included negotiations with Island County in an attempt to obtain a portion of the old county dump site on Hastie Lake Road. County commissioners turned the proposal down, so the fire district began looking elsewhere.

Koorn said dialogue began with Robert Williams, the owner of a piece of property on Van Dam Road, and after some negotiation, a price of $147,500 was agreed upon.

“This piece of property was divided off from a larger piece of property Williams owns,” Koorn said.

The amount the district plans to spend on the purchase is within the $150,000 the district budgeted to secure a piece property for station consolidation.

“It’s a pretty cut and dried deal,” Koorn said. “I met with Island County officials to see if it was permissible to build a fire station on the property and they gave their approval.”

Koorn said the district still has to go through the permit process, but it appears the district has acquired a parcel of land that will meet its needs.

“The only thing we have to do is have the property owners approve the preliminary plan of the building including landscaping and things like that, so anything we build will not devaluate other property the people own in the area,” Koorn said.

No time frame has been set as to when construction of the new facility will begin and the district is continuing its pursuit of federal money that is available through the federal stimulus package for fire department construction and equipment.