CPR sends important issue questionnaire to all Hunter Mill District supervisor candidates.

Coalition for a Planned Reston Candidate Questionnaire

Please answer each question and, if desired, provide explanations in a brief statement following all of the questions and answers.

1.  The Fairfax County Planning Commission voted unanimously to reject a proposal to increase the population cap in Reston's Planned Residential Community (PRC) areas to a number greater than 13 persons per acre.  The Board of Supervisors then voted unanimously to "indefinitely defer" action on this proposal.  

            Do you agree with the Planning Commission that there should be no increase in the overall density of the PRC?    YES___    NO____

2.  The Reston Master Plan specifically supports there being two full sized (18 hole) golf courses in Reston.  Fairfax County guidelines also call for at least two golf courses in Reston.  

            Do you support maintaining a firm and unwavering line on maintaining existing zoning laws that will ensure Reston has adequate open space, specifically to include two 18-hole golf courses?    YES___    NO___

3.  The Fairfax County Master Plan specifically emphasizes the vital need for citizen input on land use issues.  

            Do you support having a balanced composition (local private citizens and local business persons) to any task force, working group or similar committee dealing with land use and development matters?   YES___ NO___

4.  In recent years a number of development applications have requested and been granted waivers to zoning and other regulations and guidelines meant to promote safety, accessibility, and the quality of life and esthetics of Reston. This has resulted in the loss of open space, crowded roadways, noise and light pollution and unaesthetic buildings.  

            Do you support the elimination of granting such waivers as a matter of common practice and requiring strict compliance with building and zoning ordinances to preserve the essential nature of Reston and the remainder of Fairfax County?     YES___   NO___

5. A position on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors is a demanding and time -consuming undertaking.

If you are elected to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors will you resign from all other jobs and make the County Supervisor position your exclusive and full-time job?   YES___   NO___

6. One of the key concerns for residents of Reston and the Hunter Mill District more generally is the delay between the approval of developments and the availability of funding and implementation of planned infrastructure and schools to support the increased number of residents associated with the approved developments.

If you are elected to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors will you support legislation by the Virginia General Assembly to authorize Fairfax County to more effectively maintain infrastructure in phase with development?   YES___   NO___

Candidate’s Statement (optional):

Letter: Commercial and County Interests Push Super-Density in Reston despite Community Calls for Balanced Growth--Extended Version

This is an extended version of a letter by Terry Maynard published in RestonNow.  It includes more details and graphics.

As a Restonian who has worked hard on Reston planning and zoning for more than a decade, I was stunned by the letter, linked to in this RestonNow article, signed by 17 people, many of whom are associated with the Greater Reston Chamber of Commerce (GRCOC), to Supervisor Hudgins.  The letter, signed by GRCOC Board Chairman Charlene Wheeless (Bechtel), GRCOC President and CEO Mark Ingrao, GRCOC Executive Committee Member Mike Jennings, and Mark Looney (GRCOC representative to the Reston Master Plan Task Force—RTF—and land use attorney), was so full of inaccuracies and untruths it could readily be labelled “fake news.”  

One of the most stunning claims in the letter was that “Reston’s Comprehensive Plan was the product of a five-year planning process involving the full community.”  The fact of the matter is that the Reston community was marginalized throughout this timeframe and its contributions opposed by developers and ignored by the county. 

Let’s take a look at what REALLY has happened in this near-decade effort to re-plan and re-zone Reston.   

Only six of the two dozen primary members of the RTF studying Phase 1 (the transit station areas) were Reston residents who represented the interests of Reston residents.  They included representatives from three community organizations—Reston Association (RA), Reston Citizens Association (RCA), and Alliance of Reston Clusters and Homeowners (ARCH)—and three independent “at large” residents.  Another “at large” member from Herndon held views aligned with Reston’s community representatives.  Three of RTF’s members, including the chair of the task force, represented organizations promoting the extension of the Silver Line.  The rest, including the Reston Community Center, represented private and government development interests in Reston—more profits, more taxes.

No community representative, then or now, has opposed reasonable residential and commercial development in the transit station areas.  They have objected and continue to object to the excessive development proposed by private and county land use interests.

The Task Force recommended 27,932 dwelling units (homes for about 59,000 people) in the station areas based on study of multiple density and mix scenarios, a development level community representatives could live with.  That was set at 27,900 when the Board of Supervisors (BOS) approved the Phase 1 plan in early 2014.  It was a number Reston community representatives could live with.

Then that Phase 1 planned station area dwelling unit number was raised by more than half to 44,000 dwelling units (92,000 people) in mid-2015 by the BOS in the process of approving the Phase 2 plan without any community involvement or even foreknowledge.  This despite the fact the county insists it only revises plans every five years.

Community involvement in Reston planning was even more limited during Phase 2 (Reston’s suburban areas, all zoned PRC).  The community’s access to the Phase 2 planning process included only four county-led and controlled community meetings and an open house.   It was agreed that residential areas should remain “stable,” but the redevelopment of Reston’s village centers drew controversy.  Draft county language to require a comprehensive plan amendment (generally assuring some community engagement) to redevelop village centers was dropped from the Board-approved mid-2015 Reston Master Plan since it would make the redevelopment approval process more cumbersome.  

No meaningful commitment was made in the Reston Master Plan (RMP) to provide needed infrastructure on a timely basis, despite the GRCOC letter saying, “The Plan requires that infrastructure be ‘phased’ with development.”  In fact, that is illegal in Virginia and the RMP planning principles say it “should occur with development.”   Language in the RMP to add specific infrastructures was vague, brief, and unacceptable.  

Moreover, no meaningful funding has been committed to building any of the so-called “planned” infrastructure elements, all generally inadequate against even county policy standards, other than the library where a $10 million bond funding may disappear.

·       The school system just rejected funding to build a much needed high school in western Fairfax County (as proposed in the Reston plan) to accommodate “planned” growth.

·       Planning for parks serving station area residents remains a farce.  The county’s urban parks policy calls for 1.5 acres of park within walking distance (one-half mile).  That’s 138 acres of public parks for just the planned station area residents.  No public park land has been added so far.   

·       The Transportation Department studied the Reston station area road system for two years and came up with a variety of improvement proposals, but the Board of Supervisors has not fully funded any street improvements in the Metro station areas, including the critical toll road overpasses.  Statements by the C/FCDOT and in the GRCOC letter that “a dedicated revenue stream is already in place” for transportation improvements are not true.  Yes, the county has revenue streams, but virtually none have been “dedicated” to Reston.

·       In a slightly different case, most of the $10 million in funds approved in a 2012 county-wide bond referendum to re-build Reston Regional Library has yet to be utilized and is caught up in a public-private partnership (PPP) to build the library, a new homeless shelter, and other public facilities along with housing in Town Center North.  Worse, any library funds not spent by 2022 will expire and a new referendum will be required.  

Separate from the Reston planning process, the county amended the station area and Lake Anne Village Center “revitalization” zoning ordinance in mid-2016 to increase the allowable density in two urban mixed-use zoning categories, PDC for commercially-focused development and PRM for residentially-focus development.  Residential densities in these areas are now limited in density only by the Reston plan, including up to about 145 dwelling units per acre (FAR 4.0—305 people per acre) in the Reston Town Center station area core.  

Now the county is proposing to amend the Reston Planned Residential Community (PRC) zoning ordinance to increase allowable community-wide population density from 13 to 15 people per acre in suburban Reston and increase the allowable density on a single PRC property designated “high density” from 50 to 70 dwelling units per acre, including the village centers and several so-called “hot spots.”   

·       In its staff report on the proposed zoning density change, the county calculates roughly a quadrupling of planned housing in the village center areas from less than 1,500 to 5,800. 

It also identifies three suburban residential “hot spots”—Saint Johns Wood, Charter Oaks, and Fairway—for high-density redevelopment that would more than double the number of dwelling units to 1,863 residences despite the Reston plan’s call for “stable” residential neighborhoods.

 

The bottom line is that Restonians have had limited access to the planning process throughout and their contributions and concerns have almost universally been ignored.  

The cumulative effect of the new zoning in the station areas and the prospect of increasing the Reston PRC zoning density would be to allow Reston’s population to triple from its current 63,000 people to more than 180,000.  At the same time, there is little or no assurance of the arrival any time soon of needed infrastructure for transportation, schools, parks and open space, and more that would maintain Restonians’ quality of life as a model planned community.

Now it is imperative that Restonians rise up and stop the county’s ill-considered PRC density increase proposal driven by Supervisor Hudgins.  Attend the Planning Commission hearing on the PRC amendment at 7PM on January 23, 2013, in the Fairfax County Government Center wearing a YELLOW shirt.  The presence of hundreds of Restonians will be as great a message to the Planning Commission as the testimony of Reston’s representatives and residents. 

Terry Maynard

RA Letter to Supervisor Hudgins re Follow-up on Recent Meetings, August 20, 2018

   RA Prc Letter Aug2018 by TerryMaynard on Scribd

The County Needs “Practice” in Telling the Truth

As a result of the County’s unwillingness to consider Reston plan amendments proposed by the community, Restonians are facing the end of their planned community, a community that has balanced people and nature to maximize quality of life for more than a half century. 

County staff stated in a letter dated March 28, 2018:  “(I)t has long been the county's practice not to amend these new plans within the first five years of their adoption. . . Staff continues to support this practice and cannot support changes to land use, density or intensity recommendations in the Reston Master Plan for the Transit Station Areas until after 2019 and for Reston's neighborhoods and village centers until after 2020.”  These are precisely the areas of the plan that most need change now to preserve Reston as a planned and livable community.  

Despite its alleged “practice,” the County has amended Reston’s plan at much shorter intervals when it suits the County’s tax revenue purposes.  Specifically, the County increased Reston’s transit station area (TSA) development plan potential density in less than a two-year window.  Here’s what we mean:

• In the version of the Reston plan approved February 11, 2014, “The target development level established for the three TSAs is approximately 28,000 new and existing residential units and approximately 30 million square feet of new and existing office uses.”  This is generally in line with the “Scenario G” recommendation of the Reston Master Plan Task Force that Supervisor Hudgins likes to point to as representing community involvement.  

Fairfax County Comprehensive Plan, Amendment 2013-05, Adopted February 11, 2014, p. 7.

• In the version of the Reston plan approved June 2, 2015, ostensibly approving Phase 2 of the Reston plan concerning Reston’s non-TSA suburban areas, the following change was made:  “The target development level established for the three TSAs is approximately 44,000 new and existing residential units and approximately 30 million square feet of new and existing office uses.”  County staff’s argument was that it maintains the jobs to households balance at about 2.5 to 1.   It does not explain why this is meaningful, much less desirable.   It’s equally unclear why, if a change were required, the jobs potential couldn’t be decreased—instead of increased— to meet the County’s desired ratio.  

Fairfax County Comprehensive Plan, ST09-III-UP1(B), Adopted June 2, 2015, p. 22.

 And, NO, the county did not work with the community in changing these critical density elements of the Reston plan.  There was no transparency in this process and it is not the only change made on Phase 1 transit station areas when the County was nominally looking only at changes in the suburban (PRC) areas of Reston.   In fact, the County is so opaque on this matter that you cannot find these two earlier editions of Reston’s Master Plan on the County’s website.  Some of us have retained hardcopies, however.

The County made this major density change within sixteen months of the earlier change.  So much for the “practice” of a five year wait!  Does this fact make the change invalid???

So the notion that it is County “practice” not to change the Comprehensive Plan at less than five year intervals is a falsehood.  It is only a self-serving “practice” used by the County when it does not want to consider Restonians’ concerns about land use, density, or intensity that has been foisted upon it by the Board of Supervisors and County staff without community participation.   

As a result, we face a hurtling County scheme to increase Reston’s allowable density in the PRC zoning ordinance from 13 to 16 persons per acre and continuing support for generally unconstrained redevelopment in key areas of the Reston Master Plan.  This unconstrained redevelopment potential includes the station areas, the village centers, and other “hot spots” (such as Saint Johns Wood) the County has identified without community consultation for high-density, high-rise multi-family redevelopment.

As a next step toward trying to stop this onslaught, please attend CPR’s community meeting on April 23, 2018, 7PM, at RA’s conference center, 12001 Sunrise Valley Dr., Reston, VA 20191.  CPR will update the community on recent developments in the County’s zoning initiative, lay out its ideas for community action, and seek your assistance in stepping up community protest.  Your involvement is vital to the survival of the Reston we know and want as a planned community.