Reston Association agrees to swap trees for parking lot in redeveloped Lake Anne, Washington Post/Local, November 26, 2013

Tom Jackman, Washington Post, follows up on the RA Board decision to swap more than an acre of mature upland woods for a drainage ditch along Baron Cameron Avenue and a few trinkets:

The currently treed lot along North Shore Drive, just behind the Lake Anne Village Center, was designated by the Reston Association last week for development as a parking lot. Across North Shore Drive is the current Crescent apartment complex, which will be torn down and replaced by 935 townhouse and apartment units. (Google Maps)

After a contentious meeting last week, the Reston Association agreed for the first time to give up some of its designated parkland to a developer to help pave the way for the redevelopment of the Lake Anne Village Center. Republic Land Development had originally planned to place parking underground at the new and expanded village center, since it will be eliminating the current surface parking lot. But when it found that wasn’t feasible, they picked out a vacant, treed lot along North Shore Drive and offered to swap another acre of land along Baron Cameron Drive in order to build parking.

There were heavy hitters on both sides of the debate, including Reston founding father Robert Simon on the side of making the tradeoff for development, and a number of environmentalists and longtime Reston residents who opposed the plan. They said Republic could and would come up with another alternative if rebuffed by the Reston Association, though Republic said it had explored many other options. This is all part of the grand plan to redevelop both Lake Anne and the Crescent apartment complex just north of the village center, replacing 185 apartments with 935 townhouse and apartment units. . . .

Click here for the rest of Jackman's article.