Lake Orion voters’ passage of a school bond proposal last year  is requiring the North Oakland Transportation Authority (NOTA) to find a new home.

Last week, the NOTA board formed a three-member real estate committee to search for a new facility to house its administrative offices, dispatch center and 21 vehicles.

The transportation service’s current home, a former school bus garage located at 467 E. Jackson St. in Lake Orion, is scheduled to be demolished to make way for construction of the new Blanche Sims Elementary, according to NOTA Director Lynn Gustafson.

NOTA has been leasing the building from the school district since 2014.

Originally, NOTA was told its facility would be torn down sometime this summer, but Gustafson said she was informed on Jan. 17 that the Blanche Sims project is “being pushed back” and it would be “at least a year” before NOTA has to move.

“That takes the pressure off a bit,” she wrote in an email.

According to Gustafson, NOTA needs a place with approximately 2,500 square feet of office space, an indoor area that can hold one or two vehicles for cleaning and maintenance, and parking.

“We need a lot of parking,” she said.

She would like NOTA’s new home to be centrally-located and on or near M-24.

“That would be ideal,” Gustafson said.

When asked if NOTA prefers to lease or buy space, she replied, “We’re open either way.”

Wherever NOTA ends up, Gustafson hopes its new home will be permanent.

Since NOTA’s formation in 2001, the authority has moved around quite a bit.

Prior to its current home, NOTA was based at the Oxford Mills shopping center, the Oxford Veterans Memorial Civic Center (now HomeGrown Brewing), the Crossroads for Youth campus and inside an industrial space on S. Glaspie St.