Town Center and RCIG Governance Issues, Joe Stowers, August 25, 2010

There were at least three reasons why Reston Land Corporation may have decided to create the Reston Town Center Association in the mid-1980s. Depending on whether you know because you were involved, or what you surmised at the time, or whom you last got your oral history from, you may have very different priorities for how to order these three reasons:

(1) Town Center was being planned, particularly during the mid-1980s, as a largely commercial development and therefore would have to be governed in a very different way from the primarily residential Reston Home Owners Association (RA).

(2) Because Town Center was going to be far more urban than other parts of Reston were at the time, and was going to be far more commercial, the Design Review Board was going to require very different professional experience and talents, and based on RA experience with having non-professional appointees on its Design Review Board (DRB), Town Center’s DRB should be composed entirely of design professionals. Protection of commercial property owners’ interests may also have been involved in this consideration.

(3) Reston Land was experiencing great difficulty during the build-up to citizen control of the RA Board at the time, which some might characterize as the period of Reston’s “anti-company-town” political period.

Two of these three reasons might well still have some validity. However, today, and more importantly, in the future, we have to face the problem of having two fairly differently structured organizations with primarily the same set of responsibilities for two closely interrelated areas. And with the coming of rail and the vacating of the RCIG covenants, we are facing potentially competing interests of the two associations in some of these, and perhaps other areas, such as Town Center North (there appears to be a consensus among community leaders to try to avoid allowing a 3rd property-owners association from being formed in the station areas).

Regarding this last issue, at a recent Town Center subcommittee meeting, a discussion of which association should new residents of Town Center North be required to join took place between RTCA Board Member Robert Goudie and RA President Kathleen Driscoll Mckee. Fortunately this brief discussion concluded with an informal agreement that a more thorough discussion of this issue between leaders of the 2 associations should take place soon. This agreement prompted the writing of this paper.

In my experience, people involved in the two associations have worked together quite well on things of joint interest such as (a) on one branch of RA’s Trail Marking program – a trail from Fountain Square to Lake Anne Village Center, which will soon be extended to the Uplands and ultimately will connect with several other planned marked trails in both Town Center and elsewhere, (b) priority of pedestrian and bicycle improvements in the Town Center area arising out of a “summit” of residents in the area, and (c) organizing and participating in various community meetings that have involved subjects or issues of interests to people in both Town Center and other parts of Reston.

However, there is no regular established mechanism for coordinating things of this nature, and as events are now unfolding there is likely to be much more need for such a mechanism – perhaps involving joint committees on planning, recreation, environment, transportation, access and use of public facilities, etc. The public discussion of overlapping interests and responsibilities mentioned above should be followed by an organizing meeting leading to the possible establishment of such joint committees – both ad hoc and on-going in purpose.

Another important issue that should be addressed is the relationship between the two DRBs and the way in which the vacuum left by the effectively-now-dead third DRB that has been serving the RCIG development. One possibility that might be considered is cooperation in the design review process that might lead to a memorandum of understanding whereby the two DRBs might join together in the review of all high density projects in the RCIG areas (and perhaps elsewhere).

Another area of joint responsibility that might also possibly require more formal cooperation recently arose in a Historic Trust meeting in Lake Anne Village Center involving possible future stream restoration work in overlapping watersheds to the north and south of Town Center.

Another topic that is beginning to come into focus as part of RMPSS Task Force subcommittee discussions is the issue of overlapping interests in the management and recreational uses of open spaces that are being considered in the RCIG areas and Town Center North.

Finally, it may be desirable to consider conducting regular annual joint meetings of the two association boards to discuss concerns of common interest.