Commentary: County Fumbles Plan for Rail, Reston Future-Part 1, John Lovaas, Reston Connection, August 24, 2012

Next year rail service will finally arrive. It will drive a transformation of our community from suburban to urban, from a population of 60,000 to twice that in twenty years. But neither the infrastructure to support the transformation nor a land-use plan to assure an orderly transition or attractive outcome for residents is in place. Fairfax County and the Virginia Commonwealth are inexplicably unprepared for this transition despite having had many years to plan for it. . .

. . .  (Reston Master Plan) Task force subcommittees have in fact prepared draft plans for the development of the areas around each planned rail station. Those drafts, done two years ago, still await action by the full task force. Why the delay?

 Try this. The station area draft plans call for massive increases in density, especially nearest the stations per the County’s Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) philosophy. The high densities reflect the pressure of developer interests. While the TOD framework makes sense, many argue that imbalances between residential and commercial building on the one hand, and between high levels of total development proposed and existing plans for roads, bridges and other essential infrastructure on the other, does not. (Staff have a new corridor growth study that suggests re-examining the levels. For now only further delay is assured.) Critics believe as I do, that the imbalances will lead to gridlock, a community that no longer functions. Rather than confront developers by taking the obvious action to resolve the imbalances, i.e., reduce commercial and overall building levels, the County is telling developers on the task force that the County will accept new building proposals without a new master plan.

 Read the rest of Lovaas' article here.