RTF Vision Subcommittee Official Summary, July 14, 2010

Vision Subcommittee Meeting
Reston Master Plan Special Study Committee

Date: July 14, 2010
Time and Place: 7:00 to 8:50 p.m. North County Government Center

Participants:
John Carter (TF, Sub-committee Co-Chair)
John Bowman (TF)
Fred Costello (TF)
David Edwards (TF)
Kathy Kaplan
John Lovaas
Patty Nicoson (TF Chair)
Bill Penniman (TF)
Judith Pew (TF)
Guy Rando
Dick Rogers (TF)
Joe Stowers
Heidi Merkel (FC DPZ)
Sandi Smith (FC DPZ)


The following notes summarize the discussions during the meeting.

Item No. 1: Introduction
All meetings are open, and all are welcome.

Item No. 2: Administration
Meeting will be held on Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. The Reston Task Force web site will have the most recent dates, places and times. The next meeting will be on July 28, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. at the North County Government Center.

Item No. 3: Briefing-Transportation
Joe Stowers suggested additional tools may be needed to adequately address transportation capacity. The transportation capacity analysis should address the impact of balancing jobs and housing, a fine grained network of streets and linkages, reduced parking requirements, and transportation management goals on providing facilities (e.g. roads and schools) needed to serve the recommended land sues.

A sketch of a proposed, overall network of streets was presented for the transit corridor area. Revisions and enhancements will be discussed in August after the subcommittees for each transit center complete initial work.

Item No. 4: Principles for the Reston Master Plan
A draft of the Planning Principles was presented for discussion. Subcommittee members identified specific suggestions to improve the overall Planning Principles. The following items summarize the suggestions:

--Complete the document as soon as possible to provide timely recommendations to the other subcommittees and the Task Force
--Add a preamble to the principles that includes a discussion of the original principles for Reston
--Relocate the principles for the environment near the front of the document to provide additional emphasis
--Emphasize the principles that are special to Reston
--Add information on safety
--Support the information on balance of land use and public facilities
--Establish significant setbacks and a step down of development between the transit station areas and the adjacent residential neighborhoods
--Provide additional cross streets though the transit station areas to connect both sides of the Dulles Toll Road
--Add the potential for future air rights development over the Dulles Toll Road
--Emphasize staging of land use with public facilities
--Revise the description of the Town Center Station Area to include the following:
- Metro South
- Urban Core
- North Town Center
--Require buildings to activate streets and avoid the use of parking lots and structures at street level of buildings
--Include a principle concerning the review process with strong emphasis on participation by residents
--Augment the description of affordable housing
--Augment and strengthen the description of a bus system including shuttle buses
--Strengthen the section on the business environment
--Improve the integration between the village centers and the transit station areas

Item No. 5: Next Steps
The next meeting will focus on the review of the environment based on the maps and information from Fairfax County and the 2020 Report information. Participants should examine the web site and be prepared to provide recommendations. For a comparison, participants could also read the recently approved Tyson’s Corners Task Force Master Plan and examine the recommendations for the environment.

Participants should also look at the Reston Comprehensive Plan to examine how the recommendations of the Vision Committee could be incorporated into the final amendment to the Comprehensive Plan.

The next meeting will be 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at the North County Government Center (see web page for final information).