Letter: Don't let high density rule Phase 2. Kathy Kaplan, Reston Patch, July 21, 2011

When I pick my granddaughter up at Terraset Elementary School after school, there are many grandparents waiting for kids. That's a big change from the early 1980s when my daughter was a student at Sunrise Valley.   She tells me nobody she knew at her school had grandparents living in Reston. 

We have become a settled community with deep roots over the years since Reston was first created. Our founder, Bob Simon, has said recently that density equals community.  He is very eager for the changes that will bring additional people and development to Reston.   Right now Town Center and Dulles Corridor are being considered by the Reston Master Plan Special Study Task Force for additional development.

But soon the county will turn its attention to the part of Reston called the PRC, the Planned Residential Community.  Then our neighborhoods and the shopping centers will be considered for additional density in Phase 2. 

The time to discuss this Phase 2 of the Task Force is now.  Our county supervisor, Cathy Hudgins, will run for election in the fall and right now, she runs unopposed.  Her re-election will give her a mandate to continue planning extraordinary changes to Reston.

Significant numbers of our neighborhoods will be considered by the Task Force for redevelopment in order to increase density and county revenues.

Reston Association Board President Kathleen Driscoll McKee stated in a letter to the Reston Patch that no one will have to sell out unless they choose to do so.  She was misinformed.  Only 75 percent of neighbors in a neighborhood have to agree to a buy-out by a developer.  (Editor's Note: Driscoll McKee explained the rules of this in her Reston Notebook column. Read it here).

Right now, 50 of our neighborhoods are zoned high-density.  However, many were built at medium density.  Because of the zoning a developer can offer to buy out the neighborhood and redevelop at the higher density "by right."

Should the Task Force recommend to the Board of Supervisors that the area zoned high density be increased over what it is now, many more than those 50 neighborhoods will be available for potential redevelopment.

The time to discuss the future of Reston is now, before the election.  It is not too late for an independent candidate to file to run for the Hunter Mill seat on the Board of Supervisors.  I hope that someone in Reston will have a different idea of what community is than Bob Simon.  I hope someone will run as an independent.

I believe the connections between people, families and friends are what constitute community.  I hope that my family will be able to continue living here until my great-grandchildren are also Restonians.  We have come to love this place.

I hope my family will not be driven out by the frenzy of residential redevelopment being contemplated by the county.   We need to have an open community forum about the buy-out of Reston's clusters by developers and the impact that will have on our town.  An election provides a prime opportunity to begin that discussion.

Kathy Kaplan
Reston, VA