The Observer Newspapers | County Reviews Reston Plan Process

August 22 , 2008

County Reviews Reston Plan Process

To the editor:

Fairfax County Planning Department representatives are about half way through a series of focus group meetings with Reston organizations to discuss the process by which the Reston Master Plan (and related planning documents) will be reviewed. The meetings are the outgrowth of requests by the Reston Citizens Association, Reston Association, the Alliance for Reston Clusters and Homeowners, and the Reston Planning & Zoning Committee in 2006 to review the Reston planning documents.

As these meetings proceed, RCA is sending to organization leaders a summary of the issues raised during RCA's own meeting with the County Planning Department representatives. This meeting of county staff with seven RCA board members occurred on July 22. The summary covers the issues described below.

Bob Simon's goals are currently only in the PRC. Ideally, the goals should be in both the plan and the PRC and there should be some discussion about updating them.

"Blob" zoning may now be a liability. The original developer had substantial leeway, by means of very general zoning, to put together a harmonious community. That same leeway, in an environment where a re/developer is only interested in the single part of Reston he owns, could lead to very inharmonious results. One approach to replacing blob zoning would be to use more standard zoning for "stable residential communities."

There is significant concern that the level of density that could occur in Reston with the existing plans could lead to a deterioration of our environment (in all senses). In general, there is a loose consensus that additional development (or redevelopment) should be in the RCIG, Town Center and around the Village Centers (where it was originally planned).

Transportation infrastructure should precede redevelopment. While there may be areas of Fairfax with an even higher level of congestion than Reston, it is not acceptable to Reston residents, as members of a planned community, to destroy that plan so that we match the worst congestion in the county. The planning for the Reston-Herndon Suburban Center was done almost a decade ago, and it did not address the infrastructure associated with Metro. While there is a theoretical lower level of additional congestion associated with mixed use, when compared with single use, there was very little actual data provided. The entire issue should be reviewed.

Piecemeal redevelopment of the RCIG/Reston-Herndon Suburban Center area is likely to have very undesirable results. Perhaps we need a master plan for the RCIG area or the Reston-Herndon Suburban Center like the one for Tysons.

RCA is concerned that the original goals of diversity (economic, age and ethnic) in Reston will be met less in the future. Economically, many people are being priced out of the Reston market and new residential construction is aimed almost exclusively at high end condos. Approval of development plans that do not provide a range of housing should not be given. In particular, we need additional affordable, accessible housing for people currently in townhouses who become disabled due to aging or other factors, so they can stay in Reston.

The county indicated that they believed the review should be relatively quick, in particular, quicker than the Tysons Corner Task Force schedule. RCA members felt that the quality of the review was important and that it would be acceptable for the review of the planning documents to take as much time as needed.

Marion Stillson

Reston