Reston Town Center Committee Summary, July 20, Dick Rogers

Process issues: Thursday morning will be a special meeting of the committee, at 7:30AM (morning!) if I got it right. Robert hopes to put forth a revised NTC draft.

There was some committee sentiment that the timetable should be adjusted to give the committee more time--many significant issues not discussed. Otteni said a formal decision on this should be made Thursday. Otherwise, Robert still plans public comments AM 27 July and presenting to the TF night of 27 July.

Robert hopes to have extended discussion of open space issues on Thursday and has invited Sandi Stallman of FCPA. (Stallman is pushing for more active open space playfields to be put in place.)

Substance: Air rights. Robert had a phone discussion with the MWAA planning man. What MWAA is studying is putting in pilings/supports now for an air rights platform. The platform would come much latter. They still are trying to get someone in Thursday from MWAA.

Doug Pew said that at his trails meeting, the news was that Metro plans to shut all station accesses when Metro is closed. Supposedly this decision is made at the "highest level" in metro. Tysons, like Reston will be cut in half at night. In this connection, the RPway station designer apparently will be part of the WMRAA party on Thursday--he is supposed to finalize a station design by mid-August.

James Campbell Co presented their tentative plans for TOD development in E-4 west adjacent to the station. Commercial on DTR, residential in back, retail all over. They sounded pretty responsible and were taking into account the issue of access from points south and west of them.

Civic uses: Robert Goudie said he was "dead set" against the Committee specifying civic uses. That should be left up to the Community. This was in the context of a performance center in BP land. Some discussion that south side developers adjacent to the station might be required to kick in $ toward this to get a 5 FAR. BP apparently is hoping someone else would build the "public amenity."

Density: Much of the meeting was a rambling discussion of density and residential-commercial ratios. The various material sent around (Maynard, Stowers, Costello) has made Robert skittish on this issue; he sticks with a 1 to 1 ratio and said repeatedlyd that no one had sent him "proof" that more residential would work or was part of TOD approaches. His developer allies on the sub-com, however, deserted him and were actively pressing for more flexibility. By 4 to 1 they wanted a tiered structure--a FAR of 3 would need be only 30% residential going up to 1 to 1 for a 5. Stowers was not present to argue his case.