RA, Hudgins Discuss Master Planning, Reston Connection, October 14, 2009

Tentative agreement reached regarding community advisory committees to help guide process.

By Mike DiCicco

Dick Stillson, whose committee of the Reston Citizens Association is focused on revising to the Reston Master Plan, said his group "very strongly" supported the strategy that county planner Loren Bruce had devised for community involvement in the coming revision process. Bruce’s idea was to form advisory committees on a variety of subjects, which would bring input to the task force that Supervisor Cathy Hudgins (D-Hunter Mill) will soon create. "The important thing about this is there should be very, very strong community participation," Stillson said at the Reston Association’s special meeting Monday night, Oct. 12.

John Lovaas agreed, saying an unexpectedly large number of people, including many who were relatively unfamiliar to Reston civic life, had attended the "land use college" Hudgins had set up over the summer to prepare members of the community to understand the process for revising the master plan. "They went because they had the impression that they would be able to participate in the process," he said. However, he added, "Advisory groups are fine, but they have no status," noting that such groups could be shut out of meetings.

Later in the evening, Hudgins met with the Reston Association (RA) to discuss the association’s involvement in the revision process, and they reached a preliminary consensus with the supervisor regarding the possible use of community advisory committees to inform changes to the plan.

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