Notes on the Meeting of the RTF Report Drafting Committee, October 31, 2012

                                                                                                  R. Rogers

                                                                                    31 Oct 12

RMPTF “Drafting Committee” Meeting: 31 Oct 2012

Summary:  The “Committee” discussed the pros and cons of doing a Report.  The consensus was to do one although the developers were clearly anxious that the DPZ staff report for the comprehensive plan will not be acceptable to them.   A decision was made to defer all further work till 14 Nov.; the day after the DPZ staff at the next RMPTF meeting is expected to further refine Scenario G.

The “Committee”: Although the charge from chair Patty Nicoson implied that the old “Steering Committee” would be the basis for a new “drafting committee” only a few SC members were present (Otteni, Penniman, and Riegel).  Andy Sigle replaced Paul Thomas. Others present included Van Foster, Bill Keefe, Terry Maynard, Richard Kennedy, Joe Stowers and Judy Pew. Notably absent were two attorneys, Mark Looney and Robert Goudie, as well as the co-chairs of the Vision Committee, John Carter and Kohan Williams.

Do a Report? Discussion entered around whether to do a task force report and what it might accomplish. The audience for a study was variously defined as:

--the Reston public

--the county DPZ staff

             --county planning and political leadership.

Most in attendance favored a report. Various reasons given were:

 --to document the more than  2 ½ years  work of the TF.

--to inform a detached Reston community.

--to develop further consensus on the TF or to define better define differences.

There was strong support for making the TF “planning principles” and Vision Com report a basic building block for the report and having the other sub-coms distill their work for inclusion.

There was some concern about how much new work would be involved, but the consensus seemed to be to work from the existing materials. 

The members of the development community present seemed particularly reluctant to press head with a TF Report when the DPZ staff text for the comprehensive plan is not yet available.  Furthermore, developers seemed very anxious that Scenario G would be adopted for the comprehensive plan and then become part of the TF report.  Some voiced particular concern that the transportation analysis was driving Scenario G and that the judgments on transportation were not being soundly made.

The alternative proposed by the developers was to make the task force report only a comment on the draft plan language prepared by the County planning staff.  While there was some traction for including a comment on the staff-drafted plan language, many seemed to think it ought to be part of a free-standing task force report, not the report itself.

The possibility that the TF report might criticize or take issue with DPZ work was mentioned.  No decisions were made on drafting responsibility, nor was their discussion of the outline prepared by Van Foster.

 

Next: After an hour long discussion the chair decided to defer further work on a TF report till after the DPZ staff presents refinements on Scenario G to the TF on 13 November.  Tentatively, the drafting committee will then meet the next day.

            All were urged to review the various sub-com reports, particularly that of the Vision Com.  The 2001 report of a previous planning exercise will be put on the DPZ website.