Notes on Reston Task Force Meeting, September 14, 2010, Dick Rogers & Marion Stillson

1.  During the administrative portion of the meeting, the Task Force agreed in principle to support a letter from the Vision Committee to MWAA, as they get their air-rights study results (within a month), asking MWAA not to take steps which will preclude future air rights.

 

2. Heidi Merkel, FC DPZ, outlined the near term schedule for the Task Force::

•  28 Sept.  Wiehle sub-com will report tentative conclusions (this changes what she said at the RTC Committee meeting in the morning when she said TC would go then!)
•  5 October. Special presentation on Design and Architecture.
•  12 Oct.  TC Committee will present what will presumably be its final report.
•  26 Oct.  At last the county transportation presentation. 

Click here for the full presentation. 

 

She indicated that the reports prepared by the Task Force would go through a rigorous staff review, which drew no general reaction from the Task Force. She was talking about staff performing two tasks:  

• Putting TF recommendations into CP language was one, and I think many felt relief that the TF would not have to do this. 
• The second staff task was assessing the impact of TF recommendations against such measures as the GMU forecasts. There was an explicit TF reaction to the latter, though it might have been at another point in the evening, I'm not sure:  This reaction was to decry the GMU horizon of 40-50 years as too great, 20-30 years being more realistic. However, Heidi appeared to stick with the 40-50 year horizon. 

Someone asked her what the timeframe was for the final stages of Phase 1, and she hesitated very long before saying "the first half of the year."  I think people were so surprised at going beyond December 2010, that no one asked about Phase 2 (which will consider the Village Centers and Reston's residential areas).

 

3.   John Carter presented the Vision Committee's principles and preliminary overview.  They were well received. He drew particular reaction on a couple of points:

• The Soapstone overpass across the DTR should be built soonest. Question: With what money?
• We should be thinking of extending the Reston tree canopy, not reducing it.  (He cited a County figure of 45% tree cover up from the current 38%.)  Skeptical developers and TODers were on this one at this morning's Wiehle mtg.
• Where are the places for quasi-industrial type uses like storage facilities, which are not generally being thought of?
• Village Centers: He noted potential concerns--something to think about--that the VCs might be undercut by retail in the TOD areas. 

In other comments during his presentation,

• He honored' Reston 2020 explicitly by saying his report's transportation segment uses Reston 2020 maps. 
• At least three times he also remarked that there are 5 "failing" intersections near where the stations will be, with no satisfactory plans to improve them. In imitation of "Houston, we have a problem" he said, "Reston, we have a problem." It's no exaggeration to say he emphasized this issue, legitimately so, in my opinion.

Mike Cooper of Brandywine (a very pro-office developer) raised some questions about John's slide on residential-commercial growth which implied lots of the former and less of the latter. He stressed the need to continue to attract jobs.

 

4.  Herndon-Monroe Committee Report--The presentation largely followed that of their draft paper.

•  Protect established commercial/office sites was emphasized but more mixed use and residential and TOD in A-2 and C-2 (the station area) was allowed for than the draft paper suggests.
•  Protect wetlands drew applause.
•  Paul Damory of Polo Fields thanked the committee for, in effect, protecting his neighborhood.

(Comment: I continue to find them a bit vague on improved access to the station from Monroe and FCP; also they do not really embrace the Joe Stowers proposal to convert the existing access ramp into a link to Herndon.)

 

5.  Sandi Smith of DPZ gets married Saturday--gone for two weeks!