The Winter Garden City Commission voted unanimously Thursday to approve a $5 million purchase of property on W. Colonial Drive. Owned by Panther Land Development, the 16-acre parcel is intended for a land swap with Orange County Public Schools (OCPS) to prevent a proposed school bus depot from being built in an historically Black residential neighborhood.

While the Orange County School Board wasn’t quite ready to ink the land-swap deal, Ed Williams, the city’s planning consultant, told the commission that he felt confident enough “to come to you with this proposal to prepare contracts and a closing date,” so that the city would “be in a position to move quickly to do that swap and implement a different set of plans for that bus station.”