Unofficial Summary: Reston Task Force Meeting, April 27, 2010

Highlights

• Planning Principles remain in editorial limbo.
• A DPZ staffer presented on the environment but judging by the questions of TF members had virtually nothing to offer directly relevant to Reston and the planning exercise.
• Several developers presented their ideas on the North and South Town Center station areas.
• The TF broke into sub-groups to discuss the station areas. Street grids and Town Center density in both areas were the consensus.
• Various ideas on how to proceed from here were discussed. Apparently this will be left up to the Process Committee to work out.

Public Comments

Joe Stowers noted that the Airports Authority is going ahead with a study of air rights development over the Toll Road. Patty confirmed a $150,000 contract with Parson Brinkerhoff. She expected work to be completed in 6 weeks. She said it would only cover the Town Center station area. Rob Whitfield said that no money has been appropriated yet and the study may take more like 4-6 months (see below for developer comments on air rights).

Admin Announcements

A community seminar featuring John Carter and Arlington Planning Division Chief Bob Brosnan will be held 15 May at 9 AM. Ms. Hudgins, the Dulles Corridor Rail Association, and RA are co-hosting this.

Heidi and the staff are still trying to arrange a bus tour around Reston.

Work continues on the planning principles document prepared by John Carter. It is “in the county staff in box.” Patti said she edited it but will need to send it for further editing.

The earlier Process Committee meeting was mentioned. As a result of that discussion, the meeting tonight featured small group discussions with facilitation by the DPZ staff.

The 25 May TF meeting will feature urban marketing expert Shyam Kannan of the Robert Charles Lesser Co. He is an expert in the demographics of marketing.

Robert Goudie spoke briefly about the work of the Reston Town Center sub-committee, which had its fourth meeting on 27 April. He said the committee was now “into the meat and potatoes” of North Town Center, with a strawman draft plan presented by INOVA. The committee hopes to complete work on a street grid for the area and then turn to heights, FARs and density. He pointedly noted that these meetings were public and publicized on the 2020 blog. (Comment: See separate blog entries on this meeting.)

Patty noted that she was getting so many emails from some people she was organizing them by giving each person a file.

Patty commented that Bill Penniman was preparing an outline of how a report might look (Comment: This was cryptic and unclear).

Minutes were approved.

The Environmental Issue

Noel Kaplan, senior environmental planner in the DPZ spoke for about 15 minutes. Since his presentation will be on the website it is only highlighted here. He noted that he was open to any question 703 324-1369.

His presentation covered general county environmental policy including:
• Low impact development.
• Curbing water runoff, including getting water back into the ground.
• Noise levels.
• Green buildings.
He noted that standards in this area are rapidly changing and said that in many instances the county did not have firm guidelines

Questions: Several members including John Carter, Robert Simon, Jerry Volloy and Nick Bauer asked a series of question about how county policies related to Reston. Essentially, the answer was that no particular standards existed specific to Reston and that Kaplan had not focused on specific Reston issues. Bob Simon, for example, noted that a county overview map presented by Kaplan was “far too casual” and did not reflect the potential high density areas of Reston in detail. (Comment: The TF questioning was the most energetic, critical and aggressive on any issue to date.)

A Reston PZ member noted that there was a problem for developers with the county policy of creating an escrow account to ensure compliance with LEED standards. It was noted that a plan might be approved now for development but that by the projects completion in several years the standards it will be judged by may have changed, Kaplan said he did not know the answer to this problem and is studying it.

Developers Presentations

Peter Otteni of Boston Properties discussed potential plans for the key “Gateway site” abreast the TC station in area D-4. BP has 22 acres including two existing buildings in the area and has 1,000,000 sq feet of development potential by right. He also noted BP Properties owns 10 acres in D-2 (the Town Center) and additional property in D-5. The latter is a relatively new suburban style property not suitable for re-development now.

He thought the D-4 Gateway site particularly ripe for re-development.

A key issue is getting from the station to the Town Center. BP is thinking of a raised pedestrian bridge over Sunset Hills. This site could be re-developed as a mixed use commercial, residential and, hotel area. He commented that BP is not in the residential business so would be thinking of some partnership or relationship with an experienced residential developer.

BP was thinking that this property should be very urban in scale, matching the height and density of the property to the North. Considering the ½ mile walk to sections of the Town Center, BP was thinking that some sort of bus shuttle loop will be needed.

He noted a 25 foot drop down Sunset Hills from East to West at the site. They were thinking of a possible plaza that would greet approaching Sunset Hills traffic from the east. This would feature fountains and green space atop any garage. The plaza would be surrounded by retail at the base of the buildings.

At several points during his presentation, he noted that re-development on this scale this will be “risky” proposition for BP.

Robert Goudie was asked to speak, apparently on behalf of TC residents. He said the residents appreciated the urbanity of the TC and the improvements evident since 1998. He said residents appreciate that the station will become part of the TC and that it was important to think of the whole TC area in terms of connectivity. He noted the need for a dedicated trolley or circulator service. He noted that residents thought there was more need for pedestrian and bike crossings and that the design of the station should be world class, not a cookie cutter station.

(Comment: There was no mention of TC resident concern stated in earlier WATCH papers about too much population growth in TC.)

Patty then invited Brian Berry of Tishman Speyers to speak. TS owns extensive property in E-4 on the south side of the station. He noted that some of their property will be used for a kiss and ride drop off, 8-7 taxi stands and 6 bus bays. Sprint Nextel is there now with a lease till 2014. He noted that the master plan calls for a tunnel under the toll road in their area but noted this is a 25 year old proposal and that it might be dropped to reconfigure the entrance to the station. He thought the property lent itself more to commercial than residential development. He said height limits of 140 ft need to be lifted to up to 240 feet, noting that the existing Reston International Center is 275 feet. Height is needed to compensate for open space and plazas.

Patty then asked Andy Van Horn of JBG to discuss his company’s property. He noted that JBG owns Reston Heights (the old Sheraton area). He briefly noted that JBG was thinking of a grid of streets, urbanity and Metro oriented densities. There was a need to make it more walkable.

Patty then asked Daniel Perrington of Brookfield was the asked to speak. He noted that they have 36 acres in E-5. He noted that they are experienced with mixed use development in Rosslyn. He said that Brookfield has submitted a plan for the area involving three commercial office buildings but that this is now on hold.

An RPZ person asked about cooperation between developers on the south side. The answer was vague but there was a mention of a meeting in May.

Arthur Hill of the RPZ noted the importance of knowing what is on the ground now and what is planned. He said he knew of 12 plans but only 2 were going forward. Patti asked Arthur to type up his list and circulate it rather than reading it now.

Air rights development: There was a vigorous discussion of air rights development potential. The developers virtually unanimously said that right now Reston was not suitable for this type of development. Land values were too low relative to other urban areas to justify such development commercially. Various technical issues were also raised such as vibrations, security, issues with the station platform.

Dick Kennedy noted the importance of planning in advance for air rights development (i.e. installing footings etc now before station development impedes this).

(Comment: The solicitude shown developer “stakeholders”—even non-task force members—during this period was noteworthy in view of the wariness with which Reston residents' contributions have been treated.)

Reston Parkway Exercise

The last hour of the session was devoted the group exercise on the Reston Town Center station mentioned earlier.

The TF was broken up into four groups. The staff carefully assigned people to groups, apparently to get a mix of people in each.

The group I sat in on spent most time drawing up a potential grid, particularly on the south side. Joe Stowers was a strong proponent of better pedestrian crossings of Reston Parkway and Sunset Hills. There was a general consensus that Town Center should be extended to the south side, with densities tapering off near Sunrise Valley. This group would create active urban open space with adjacent buildings as the first impression of the Town Center at the Metro station instead of parking areas and “kiss n’Ride” areas as presently proposed. In addition, this group created a parallel bikeway along Sunrise Valley Drive with connections to the W&OD Trail as part of an extensive bikeway and trail system that would connect each of the future Metro stations to the Reston systems.

The groups briefly presented their findings (presumably these will be made available by the county). John Carter presented his group’s plan. They proposed plazas on either side of the station as a welcoming to Reston site. His group would remove or reduce the kiss and ride slots.

All of he groups seemed to include a grid of streets on both sides of the station and Town Center density on both sides. One noted that the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority, owner of the WO&D, needs to be brought into the discussion.

One group noted that there was a lot of re-development opportunity on the south side including the area west of the USGS (the tech park) that was just outside the ½-mile circle.

(Comment: Only one group mentioned the USGS property noting that it is the “900 lb elephant in the room.”. It was noted that USGS is in a 30 year old building; where will it be in 20-30 years? When I raised the USGS issue in the group I sat in on, the reaction was, in effect, that it is a foreign country and in no way related to Reston planning issues.)

What Next

The meeting concluded with a disjointed discussion of what to do next. This was triggered by a request from Heidi for an evaluation of the exercise. One comment was that more time was needed for the groups.

There was discussion about the utility of having 2-3 members follow up this work to develop the ideas presented.

Robert Goudie said maybe all this should be should be folded into the Reston Town Center sub-group, which could turn to it after the North Town Center is completed. Goudie also raised the possibility of a separate committee for the south side

Mark Looney suggested turning to the property owners for some sort of concept. One suggestion was to hear more from the south side property owners at the next meeting. Looney noted that any plan might take well more than 2 weeks to develop. He also raised the artificiality of the land units, which have been created largely by property ownership. He suggested developing new ones

Patty suggested turning to another station in the meantime. There was interest from the TF, however, in finishing what had been started. Jerry Volloy noted the importance of figuring out how to move from the discussion they just had to putting down planning text.

Heidi noted that the next meeting was already filled with important briefings including affordable housing, parks and recreation.

The general consensus that emerged seemed to be that the Process Committee should meet again and determine how to move forward.


Prepared by Dick Rogers, Reston 2020 Committee