The Proposed Reston PRC Zoning Ordinance Amendment: The County’s Rush to Ruin Reston, June 26, 2017

   The Proposed Reston PRC Zoning Ordinance Amendment:  The County's Rush to Ruin Reston, June 26, 2017 by TerryMaynard on Scribd

Reston 20/20 tells County Board, Planning Commission to go back to the drawing board on its FAR 5.0 ZOA.

The following is the text of an e-mail sent to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission by Reston 20/20 Co-Chairman Terry Maynard.

Dear Board Members & Planning Commissioners,

FAR 5.0 may be appropriate zoning around one or two of the County's TSAs outside Tysons, such as the area immediately north of the Reston Town Center Metro station (but not even at Reston's Wiehle or Herndon-Monroe TSAs, much less smaller station areas, such as West Falls Church).  FAR 5.0 is absolutely NOT appropriate in any of the CRDs or CBCs which have no access to rail mass transit.

The County has tried to take the easiest possible ZOA route by putting 22 totally different localities and communities with different visions, needs, and capacities to handle high density development into one large FAR 5.0 zoning pot.  This is irresponsible legislative laziness and poor planning at its worst.  And you all know that the local plans for these localities and communities, especially combined with the egregious Fairfax Forward plan amendment railroading process, offer no protection for these localities.

Go back to the drawing board and build a series of ZOAs appropriate to the communities you are suppose to be serving.

Sincerely, but with increasing frustration,

Terry Maynard, Co-Chairman

Reston 20/20 Committee

Stop "One Size Fits All" Zoning Proposal, Terry Maynard, Reston Connection, May 11, 2016

The following is an op/ed written by Terry Maynard, Reston 20/20, and published in today's Reston Connection:

Stop “One Size Fits All” Zoning Proposal

In the next few months, the County Board of Supervisors plans to approve a “one size fits all” zoning ordinance amendment that would guide redevelopment throughout the urbanizing areas of the County for decades.  It wouldn’t be too bad if the one size were a “medium” or “large,” but the Board—increasingly desperate for new tax revenues from more development—has chosen to go for XXL.  Specifically, the County’s draft zoning ordinance amendment proposes that all the county’s 20 transit station areas (TSAs), community redevelopment districts (CRDs), and commercial business centers (CBCs) be allowed a floor-area ratio (FAR) of up to 5.0.  

So what does FAR 5.0 really mean?  Literally, it means that a developer can build structures with floor space that is five times greater than the area of the parcel on which they sit.  In the real world, it means that developers can build up these Fairfax County areas to a density that is greater than any that exists anywhere in northern Virginia.  Even the massively developed Rosslyn Metro core (see photo below) only has a density of FAR 3.6 according to Arlington County (including twin towers above the Rosslyn station at FAR 10.0), about two-thirds of what Fairfax County is proposing to make available in communities and neighborhoods areas across the County. 

In general, the FAR 5.0 density zoning ordinance may be appropriate for some locations, such as a part of one of Reston’s transit station areas.  Reston’s new master plan calls for allowing FAR 4.0 (plus a bonus of FAR 0.5) for the small area immediately north of Reston’s Town Center Metro station.  But the draft amendment makes no distinction in allowable density at the station and at the ½-mile perimeter of the station area where it should taper substantially.  

Moreover, Reston’s other two station areas and virtually every other Metro station area in the County, such as the West Falls Church and Van Dorn station areas, are neither planned for nor could they reasonably accommodate density anywhere approaching FAR 5.0.  Unlike Reston’s Town Center (and Tysons), these places have no planned aspirations to become regional economic centers with huge population and employment increases—many tens of thousands—envisioned.

Even worse is the notion of redeveloping the County’s CBCs and CRDs at a density of up to FAR 5.0.  The redevelopment of these areas is almost exclusively meant to revitalize their community economic viability, not to have broader County or regional impact.  Most importantly, these areas have no walking access to Metrorail which is the key ingredient in allowing high density in TSAs.  At best, they will have bus service to link them with Metro, and they certainly can’t absorb the tens of thousands of additional autos on their local streets without massive and costly improvements. 

Worse yet, the residents of all these areas will probably have to pay a share of the cost for the new transportation improvements this intense development will create through new local taxes, so called “transportation tax service districts.”  These needs will include a new internal “grid of streets,” improvements to existing roads, and better bus transit.

Reston is facing this situation now as the County is proposing an added local real estate tax of $.025 to $.035 per $100 valuation.  One version extends the tax district to all of Reston although only about one-quarter of Reston along the Dulles Corridor is in the TSAs where the road work and development would occur.  Elsewhere, in southern Fairfax County, for example, a comparable proposal could be a Richmond Highway-long tax district from Alexandria to Ft. Belvoir for roads built or improved only in the six small CRD areas designated for redevelopment along that route.  There is no reason the County wouldn’t apply this warped you-pay-for-it reasoning everywhere in these redevelopment zones.

Tysons already has such a transportation tax district.  The tax rate there started at $.04 per $100 valuation in 2013, but increased to $.05 per $100 valuation the following year.  No doubt Tysons’ rate will continue to rise (in addition to the increased taxes from higher valuations on property there) and the proposed Reston “teaser rate” will almost certainly increase quickly soon after the Board of Supervisors approves it. 

The insult to local communities is that the County’s explicit intent is to increase traffic congestion in these redeveloped areas.  Yes, the County’s plan for all this transportation tax spending is to increase congestion explicitly to discourage people from driving in, out, or through these areas.  The goal for these “urbanizing” areas is to increase driving delays at each intersection by up to 50 seconds from current County standards under its new “urban guidelines.”  Four traffic lights will mean more than three minutes of added delay, even for people just passing through these areas, during the rush period whether on Reston Parkway or Richmond Highway. 

Adding injury to insult, all these funds would be used to subsidize the profits of the local corporate developers who need the new and improved transportation capabilities to make ever larger profits on their new development.  Residents would not receive one dollar in financial or any other benefit from these new taxes. 

By our calculation, the developers in Reston’s TSAs will likely make more than $50 billion in profits in 2016 dollars over the 40 year plan timeframe and yet Reston residents are being asked to contribute about one-seventh of the $2.6 billion needed for roadway improvements using County costing assumptions.   That translates into more than $8,800 per household over 40 years with moderate inflation.  Alternatively, the developers could pay for all these roadway improvements from their $50 billion in profits and still—by our calculation—their return on investment for their $34 billion in new development would be 20 percent.  We would anticipate comparable results elsewhere in the County.

The County’s response to the above analysis is that the zoning ordinance amendment proposes to limit the allowable zoning density to the level allowed in the district’s plan and “other recommendations in the adopted comprehensive plan, in furtherance of the purpose and intent of this district.” 

What could be wrong with that?

First, “other recommendations” is a good sized hole through which to drive higher development density; it has been done routinely with less of a legal loophole.

Second, some of the area plans affected by this zoning proposal do not have a FAR density limit at all.  They are “form based” plans that describe what the redeveloped area should look like.  The only out from a FAR 5.0 zoning is the “other recommendations” phraseology, which means little constraint at all.

Third, Virginia’s “Dillon Rule” law prohibits any reduction in zoning authority once given; that density becomes a “by right” authority of the landowners.  So an overly ambitious zoning decision mistake once made cannot be undone.  The opportunity is all for the developers; the risk is all for the residents.

Most importantly, with the County’s new “Fairfax Forward” Comprehensive Plan amendment process—which may be better called “Fast Forward”—the barriers to increasing an area or project plan’s density are virtually non-existent.  The state-mandated Comprehensive Plan, which covers all areas of the County in some depth, provides only a vision and guide to each area’s development that, unlike the zoning ordinance, is a policy document and not legally binding. 

The County Board’s goal in the Fairfax Forward process is to expedite the amendment of existing local plans with high-density plan amendment proposals, which means limiting and controlling community input.  There will be no more time consuming task forces, charrettes, workshops, endless public meetings, and other such community input mechanisms that the County has used previously in its Area Plan Reviews to re-vamp community-wide plans.  And the approval of project-specific plan amendments will be even more tightly controlled.   Still, the Fairfax Forward process documentation reads like a civics lesson in public participation, including an extensive “Public Participation Toolkit” no less, but public participation is schedule-driven, mechanistic, and generally ignored. 

Once the plan amendment has been approved, the ensuing legally binding high-density zoning approval by the same actors will soon follow.  Suddenly a TSA, CBC, or CRD area or project originally planned at FAR 3.0 through the old process becomes planned at FAR 5.0 even if no mass transit is anywhere around, its related zoning amendment application approved, and construction is underway.

We strongly urge all of the County’s citizens associations, homeowners associations, neighborhood civic groups, and any local entities that might remotely be affected by this proposed zoning ordinance amendment to communicate with their supervisor their disapproval of this one-size-fits-all approach to zoning.  It will only increase local congestion, environmental damage, and taxes while disrupting viable neighborhoods and communities, and provide billions in County tax welfare to already highly profitable development corporations. 

And please take the time to testify at the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors hearings on this zoning proposal, now scheduled for 8:15PM, May 25, and 4PM, June 21, respectively at the County government center. 

Terry Maynard, Co-Chairman

Reston 20/20 Committee

Fairfax County is litigating with RA about Town Center North title issues.

The May 26th RA Board draft meeting agenda shows the following item: 

Item K.    9:30 pm       Executive Session – Consultation with Legal Counsel to discuss County’s Pending Litigation to Remove Title Issue on Reston Town Center North Property                            

The specific nature of the County's litigation, possibly a law suit, against RA and the status of the litigation--"pending" could mean the County has taken legal action, intends to take legal action, or that RA is preparing for the County to take action.   Hopefully, some details will emerge from both the litigants. 

So far as we know, there are two "title issues" in the deed transferring this area in 1974:

• One is the provision in the deed requiring that Town Center North have 10 acres of public open and natural space.
• The other is the deed requirement that the entire area is subject to RA governance, including design review and covenants.  

We described these issues in an earlier post, including a report and letter to Supervisor Hudgins about the issues.  

Here is the summary of that report: 

Summary:   In1974, Gulf-Reston deeded a ten-acre plot in Reston Town Center North (RTCN) to the County for the expressed purpose of retaining it for recreational and natural purposes for at least 99 years.  This deed and a separate deed for the remaining40 acres in Town Center North both included clauses that stating that the provisions of the Reston Deed—its covenants, design processes and guidelines, assessment fees, etc.—applied to the entire 50-acre area.

The County subsequently fragmented the original ten acres deeded for recreational and natural purposes—which originally had a long “hockey stick” shape extending roughly  from Baron Cameron and Town Center Parkway to the site of Reston Regional Library—and spread it around Town Center North. The County now faces the challenge of restructuring most of the area’s 50 acres as part of its re-alignment of the RTCN area property with INOVA, which now owns more than one-third of the property there.  Despite the deed’s directive, the County’s proposed development concept calls for only a 2.5acre “Town Green”—one-quarter the space deeded to the County for the expressed purpose of natural and recreational activities.

Last summer, RA entered into discussions with the County on RTCN.  At an August 2015 Special Board of Directors meeting to discuss this and the other 1974 land transfer, the Board resolved to have its counsel work with the County “in a manner which preserves and/or enhances natural open space within Reston.”  RA officials assert that they intend to insure that all the ten acres of RTCN are so preserved. They expect the County to continue to own those 10 acres while RA programs its use.

Unfortunately, the County’s RTCN redevelopment concept proposal fails to meet virtually every key County legal requirement, policy guideline, and community recommendation for the sizing of natural/recreational space in RTCN.

• The proposal provides about one-quarter of the land now lawfully deeded for that purpose.
• It is similarly less than one-quarter of the guideline laid out in the Board-approved FCPA Urban Parks Framework that calls for eleven acres of park space in RTCN—and cited in the new Reston Master Plan for that district.
•  And it is about one-seventh of the 17 acres of land needed to meet the County’s park facilities standards for the number of people conservatively expected to live there.
• It is even one-half to one-third the size of the Reston Master Plan Special Study Task Force’s recommendation that RTCN should have a centrally located 5-7 acre Town Green as “a centerpiece around which the rest of TCN may be oriented and creates the potential of a powerful north-south visual and physical connection from the Town Center Metro Station.”

In the end, Reston may end up with 10 acres of natural and recreation space in RTCN, but certainly not in one large Town Green. In fact, the Town Green is extremely unlikely to be more than eight acres in size due to the fact that about two of the fragmented ten acres of natural space will almost certainly remain as open space. Under any reasonable circumstance, the Town Green should not be less than six acres in size.  And the County has the option to add public park space and facilities to its deeded obligation if it wishes to give more reality to its park policy guidelines, especially so in light of the substantial shortfall of park space in Reston Town Center.  In light of the numerous steps in moving forward toward implementing the RTCN plan, it is important that the specifics of the size, location, and design of the Town Green be resolved now to insure protection of property that is Reston’s legal responsibility to protect.

The community deserves a central park worthy of its late founder, Bob Simon.

Apparently the County believes it does not have to comply with the provisions of the 1974 deed, and it is (or will soon be) taking legal action against RA to assert its independent authority over the TCN area.  If nothing else has made it clear, this move by the County shows in stark terms how determined it is to drive up density to generate more tax revenues at the expense of just about anything else--and probably in places well beyond Reston.

The County move is beyond disgraceful.  It is disgusting.  We worry that this will add substantially to RA legal expense and, ultimately, Restonians' assessment fees.  Nonetheless, if that is the case, it is imperative that RA fight this County legal action until it wins.  Otherwise, Bob Simon's vision means nothing. 

Increasing the Reston Population Cap One Way or Another

With the new Reston Master Plan now in the books, the County now is proceeding to consider ways to increase the population allowed in Reston to open up development options to meet the plan's ambitious goals.  The County effort is in its early stages, but the County Board has set January 2016 as the month in which it will decide on a new Reston zoning code, with or without additions to permitted population.  So far, we are unaware of any public outreach by Supervisor Hudgins or the County staff to discuss the process, the options, or anything else about the likely zoning change between now and January next year.  This being a County election year, we don't expect to hear anything soon.

At this time, Reston has a 13 person per acre cap (maximum allowable density) on the community's population.  With some 6,300 acres of area covered by Reston zoning, that works out to about 81,000 people allowed in Reston.  Right now, Reston population sits at about 60,000 (the US Census American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimate for 2013 was 59,333).  The Reston Master Plan, while offering no specific maximum at full development, suggests future population could exceed 100,000.

We do know, however, that the County zoning staff has discussed Reston zoning from documents we acquired from the Fairfax County website.  Still, we don't know who it has met with to discuss re-zoning, but we offer below the two documents below from early this year that (a) show how the zoning calculations are made (Powerpoint presentation) and (b) an outline of the options that are available.  We are pursuing more information from the County staff that we will share with you.

   Reston Density Presentation--DPZ by Terry Maynard

   Zoning Ordinance Amendment Options by Terry Maynard

We believe it is time for Supervisor Hudgins and the County staff to engage the Reston community in a dialogue about the forthcoming Reston zoning decision.

Agenda: Reston P&Z Committee Meeting, June 17, 2013

THE RESTON PLANNING AND ZONING COMMITTEE
MEETING AGENDA

Monday, June 17, 2013 – 7:30 p.m.
North County Government Center
Community Room
12000 Bowman Towne Drive, Reston, VA

1. Approve May meeting minutes.

2. Reston Master Plan Draft Areawide Text Review and Discussion.  Review  and discussion of the draft areawide plan text provided by Fairfax County Planning Staff.  Heidi Merkel of the Fairfax County Department of Planning and Zoning will be in attendance to help review the draft areawide plan text with the committee.

3. P and Z Interim Appointment Process Discussion.  A discussion amongst the committee regarding how interim appointments of members should be addressed in accordance with the committee's bylaws.

4. Discuss any additional matters and adjourn.

Next meeting date: July 15, 2013

Agenda is subject to change without notice by order of the Chairman, Michael Romeo, (703) 579-7525, or Jared Willcox, Vice Chairman, (703) 638-7555.

June 4, 2013

Agenda: Reston P and Z Committee, May 20, 2013

THE RESTON PLANNING AND ZONING COMMITTEE
MEETING AGENDA
Monday, May 20, 2013 – 7:30 p.m.

North County Government Center

Community Room

12000 Bowman Towne Drive, Reston, VA

1. Approve April meeting minutes.

2. Wiehle-Reston East Metro Station Access Discussion.  A discussion with Patty
Nicoson and Bill Penniman regarding pedestrian and vehicular access to the
Wiehle-Reston East Metro Station.  Patty and Bill will provide insight on this
topic from the perspective of the Reston Master Plan Special Study Task Force.

3. Transit Screen Presentation.  A presentation by Matt Caywood and/or Ryan
Croft regarding a new technology that provides real time data from all major
transit agencies in the Washington D.C. Metro area (Metro, Metrobus, Capital
Bikeshare, Circulator, ART and Fairfax Connector).  The technology is billed as a
sustainable way for businesses to inform customers, reduce traffic congestion and
promote safe public transportation alternatives.  Transit Screen works closely with
business improvement districts, real estate developers, property managers,
homeowners associations, retail locations and government agencies across the
Washington, D.C. Metro and San Francisco Bay areas.

4. School Review Criteria Discussion.  A discussion of the criteria recently
developed by Sue Straits and Nicole Wynands regarding P&Z's review of future
school renovation and construction applications.

5. Discuss any additional matters and adjourn.

Next meeting date: June 17

Agenda is subject to change without notice by order of the Chairman, Michael Romeo,
(703) 579-7525, or Jared Willcox, Vice Chairman, (703) 638-7555.

May 7, 2013

Agenda: RP&Z Committee Meeting, April 15, 2013