Letter: Wiehle Plaza Needs Citizens Input, Reston Connection, April 7, 2010

To the Editor:

These comments are in follow-up to the March 25 Planning Commission hearing regarding Comstock Wiehle development proposal. In spite of analyses and recommendations made by P&Z, RCA Reston 2020 Committee, Citizens Advisory Work Group #1, the Committee for Dulles, Reston Association, the RA Transportation Advisory Committee, negative comments by Richard Newlon of the DRB, flat denial twice by the Fairfax County DPZ, there has been no appreciable change to the Comstock Wiehle plan since September 2009.

The plaza at the station as proposed will be about the same size as Lake Anne plaza. It will be surrounded by 17-story towers and five- to six-story parking garages between the towers. The buildings will completely block out the sunlight and leave the plaza in deep shadow most of the year. The buildings will trap exhaust fumes from vehicles using the plaza to drop off passengers.

At the March 25 Planning Commission hearing, the architect for Comstock Wiehle stated that their plaza was like Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. The Rockefeller Plaza, however, is huge and gets sunlight during the day. There is no traffic in the Rockefeller Plaza and it is also graced by very large trees. Trees in the Comstock Wiehle Plaza will have difficulty growing without direct sun.

Comstock is seriously proposing artificial light as a substitute for natural sunlight. That should raise a thousand red flags immediately. It suggests that the plaza will be designed to grow mushrooms and rats. It will rival 18th century Parisian tenements in the inhuman conditions it will create.

We are not quibbling about density. We are concerned about the quality of life in the plaza and the Reston quality of open space.

The citizens at the Planning Commission hearing recommended increasing the area of the site by using air rights over Wiehle, over the Dulles Toll Road on-ramp, and over Reston Station Boulevard. That would increase the size of the parcel about which Comstock has said, “It’s a tight site.” This should not be used as an excuse. There is no requirement that they build six buildings on the parcel.

Recommendations:

1. Increase the size of the site using air rights.

2. Remove Building 6 from the plan. Use the area as a green park and open space that adjacent landowners can relate to in terms of connectivity as a pedestrian system.

3. Buildings that connect over air rights can have pedestrian overpasses built in to achieve complete separation of pedestrian and vehicular traffic. Please see the Citizens Advisory Work Group #1 alternate plan.

4. Comstock insists on the plaza road for drop-off and for visibility for retail in the plaza. Our suggestion is to build another plaza above ground level which would strictly be pedestrian with more sunlight. Lowering the building heights on the south of the parcel would allow direct sunlight. The upper level pedestrian plaza would contain a sculpture garden, fountains, trees, and be surrounded by restaurants and cultural facilities as recommended by RCA 2020 Committee Residential, Urban Design and Livability Work Group and by those community groups who participated in the March 20 Community Meeting of the Task Force. The lower level plaza would be sheltered, well-lit and well-decorated with art in an ever-changing gallery.

5. A block model or 3D model of the site plan was requested by us and by Task Force member Fred Costello and has not been provided by the architect.

6. There is an imbalance of residential and commercial space. Thirty-seven point five percent is inadequate for Transit Oriented Development. There needs to be more residential and less commercial.

7. The Planning Commission needs to hold approval of the plan until the VDOT Chapter 527 traffic impact analysis report is complete in June 2010.

This design has reached this point in time without any quality control. The citizens demand that the DRB be involved with quality control. Indeed, one P&Z member stated if built, Comstock Wiehle Station would become the “armpit of Reston.”

We are all looking for world-class architecture in Reston. There is nothing in the Planning Principles revised by the Task Force that would prevent additional world-class trash such as Comstock Wiehle being built along the entire length of the Dulles Corridor.


Guy L. Rando and Kathy Kaplan
Reston