Commentary: The View From Over Here: RCA Community Forum Brings Back No-Birds, John Lovaas, Reston Patch, March 31, 2013

(Part 1 of 2)

Last Wednesday evening, the Reston Citizens Association (RCA) hosted another in a series of open forums on the Reston Community Center’s (RCC) proposed partnership with Fairfax County Park Authority to bring an indoor recreation facility to Baron Cameron Park on land recently transferred to the Authority by Fairfax County.  This same land, previously owned by Fairfax County Public Schools, was once slated to be the site of Reston’s second high school. 

However, the dream of a second Reston high school allowing all Reston kids to attend secondary school in our community was never realized.  According to a forum participant, Browns Chapel area residents raised such a hue and cry against having a high school in their neighborhood that the County shelved the proposal.  Thus, Herndon High became the future school for pupils from North Point.

That was the first of several victories for what became Reston’s leading NIMBY corps. . . .

Click here for the rest of this article. 

We appreciate that there was neighborhood opposition to the siting of the proposed recreation center at Baron Cameron Park, but several good community reasons were offered by those with no links to the neighborhood for not locating the recreation center there.  Very briefly, these include:

• There are several activities/facilities that would be supplanted by the recreation center if it is located at Baron Cameron.   These include soccer and baseball fields as well as a well-used dog park.  
• The site is a long way--well beyond walking distance--from the planned locus of Reston population and employment along the Dulles Corridor.  This would create additional traffic at an already crowded intersection at Baron Cameron and Wiehle avenues.
• Other sites are available where both of the preceding are mitigated.  These include FCPA land in the southwest corner of Lake Fairfax Park and undeveloped parkland in Town Center North (behind Reston Urgent Care).  They also include more expensive options of locating the center at the struggling Tall Oaks village center or in Isaac Newton Square.  

This community discussion has a long way to go before decisions about siting, pricing, facilities, etc., are made.  RCA's Reston 2020 Committee is working on this issue even as this is being written.

If you have thoughts on the proposed RCC Reston Recreation Center, please feel free to share them here.