As City Council prepares its update on renovations to the Williamsburg Fire Station and construction of a second station, a union leader who represents firefighters in Williamsburg has expressed concerns about the project.
In March 2019, City Council unanimously approved renovating the fire station on Lafayette Street and also building a second fire station on Capitol Landing Road. Staff has since been working with Guernsey Tingle, a local architecture firm, on a plan for both projects that will meet the needs of the community now and into the future.
Prior to seeking proposals, there will be a presentation during a City Council work session Monday, which will cover financial needs and a staffing plan for the project. It will also discuss assessment results, which detailed space needs for the existing fire station and the second station, to ensure there’s adequate facility capacity now and in the future, according to an email from Nicole Trifone, public information officer for the city of Williamsburg.
Don Dinse, president of the York/Williamsburg/Poquoson/James City Professional Fire Fighters, Paramedics, and 911 Dispatchers, said a second fire station is needed to meet the minimum three- to five-minute response time for citizens and businesses that reside in areas farther away from the Lafayette Street station.
“You never want to have your apples all in one basket,” Dinse said in a phone interview Friday. “In the event that a natural or man-made disaster wipes out your fire station, you are left with nothing, whereas if you have two you have a backup, and the citizens remain protected.”
He expressed concerns that the city’s current plan is to renovate the Lafayette Street station prior to building the second fire station. This would negatively affect the response time and safety of first responders, he said, because personnel would be relocated to the three-story Municipal Building across the street during the renovation.
He said that if a second fire station was built prior to renovating the existing station, then that would allow those renovations to be done without affecting response capabilities.
“What we want to ensure is that there is a commitment to follow up on the council’s unanimous vote to build a second fire station in order to provide all Williamsburg citizens an adequate response time,” he said.
According to an email from Trifone, no decision has been made on whether the Lafayette Street fire station’s renovation would occur before the second fire station is constructed. The choice is between using temporary accommodations at the Municipal Building during the renovation or using the second fire station after it has been built.
Staff strongly believe that using existing infrastructure will have the least impact on response times, cause the least disruption to fire and EMS operations, and, “is in the best interest of the community and our fire and EMS personnel,” which will be part of the presentation on Monday, according to Trifone.
“Using existing city infrastructure, such as living space on the third floor of the Municipal Building, would be a cost-effective approach to accomplish temporary facilities and accommodations for Fire and EMS personnel,” she wrote. “Building fire station 2 on Capitol Landing Road first, and moving fire and EMS personnel to Station 2 while Station 1 is renovated/constructed, will negatively impact response times.”
The city has been looking at renovating and/or reconstructing the Lafayette Street fire station since 2016. The city’s fire and police stations were both built in the 1970s, according to Virginia Gazette archives, and the fire station needs substantial upgrades to continue service demands, according to the agenda item.
These early conversations and a building study of the police and fire stations led City Council to issue bonds for renovation or replacement of the two buildings in 2017, and another consultant was tasked in 2018 to look at the deployment model and response times for the Williamsburg Fire Department.
This was an overall look at the department, but mainly focused on response times in order to determine whether the current fire station on Lafayette Street was sufficient, or if a second station would be more efficient for responses, according to the minutes for the City Council session on March 14, 2019.
“Although there were some issues throughout the study, the final recommendation was a two-station model for the city of Williamsburg,” according to the minutes.
Alex Perry, 757-285-9397, alexander.perry@virginiamedia.com
If you go
When: 4 p.m. Monday
Where: Stryker Center Council Chambers, 412 N. Boundary St.
Information: The agenda and more information is available at the Williamsburg City Council webpage on williamsburgva.gov. Meetings are open to the public and televised live and on demand on WMSBG Cable Channel 48 and on the city’s Facebook page.
