Reston Master Plan: Strawmen and Sympathy

How much fun was the Reston Master Plan meeting earlier in the week? The "strawman" was propped up by county officials and then copy-edited, and three different groups shared their own visions of Reston's future.

Heidi Merkel, a senior planner with the county's department of planning and zoning, started the meeting by presenting Reston Founder Bob Simon's original principles, then presenting examples staff came up with. Simon's original goals focused on providing a wide variety of leisure options, housing options, the importance of living and working in the same community and more.

Merkel said the staff examples were only presented to start discussion. They included preserving the long-term stability of Reston, promoting a wide range of mobility options, encouraging a transportation network that supports the planned land uses, improve connectivity throughout the community and encouraging the expansion of housing diversity, among others.

Jerry Volloy, representing the Alliance of Reston Clusters and Homeowners, presented the group's position paper on planning principles. He said the study should determine how much development is possible versus how much is best for the community. He said development should be well planned and the necessary infrastructure and transportation improvements should be in place before development occurs.

Reston resident Kathy Kaplan presented a plan she created with Guy Rando, also of Reston. Their planning principles included world class design, 33.3 percent open space, complete separation of pedestrian and vehicular traffic, living green roof technology, LEED gold standards, and more.

Dick Stillson, Reston resident and cochairman of the Reston 2020 Committee, said the principles the county already has in place are good but have room for improvement. He said planning must be for the whole of Reston, rather than by looking at one specific area at a time.
He said the study should stress excellence in planning, design in architecture, require transportation improvements that support development, and confining higher densities to the Reston Center for Industry and Government, Reston Town Center and the village centers.

Merkel said a key goal of the county is to protect existing stable neighborhoods by not allowing new development to encroach on them. Reston resident Diana Carter asked how open space belonging to Reston Association, clusters, homeowners and business owners will be treated. Merkel said because those are private property they will not be used for development unless entire clusters sell to developers or RA conveys property by referenda.

And we all know how successful those referenda have been for the RA of late!

Meanwhile, that strawman was, if not beaten with sticks, edited a bit. Reston 2020's Terry Maynard points out how subtle distinctions could make a big difference.

Kathy Kaplan’s presentation was noteworthy for dissecting the wording of the county “strawman,” especially language that equivocated or has a special—even peculiar—meaning in the development world (see below). Some of her proposed editing was fairly obvious, for example, dropping the phrase “to the extent possible” from the idea of preserving open space, a classic equivocation. Others were more subtle like deleting the word “enhancing” from the principle of preserving stability in Reston neighborhoods. She reported that, to developers, “enhancing” means adding commercial and retail space into existing residential neighborhoods. The phrase “in proximity to” in the principle regarding existing uses also would foster such an outcome and she proposed it be deleted. She also proposed adding specific clarifying language to the county’s principle on natural and structural beauty in Reston, which would more likely assure the desired outcome.

One final note on Ms. Kaplan’s presentation: She said that adoption of the 20 proposed “APR nominations” or modifications to the Comprehensive Plan would add more than 20,000 dwelling units to the Dulles Corridor (23,413 units by one detailed count). By her calculations, this would require the County to provide 74 acres of additional parkland to meet its own stated requirement of providing .00148 acres of parkland per person.

But would that parkland include a juicery?

Copies of the county's presentation and the edited strawman are available at this link. Here's Maynard's takeaway from the meeting:

What impressed this observer was the sense that the three citizen group presentations were extremely consistent, yet constructively complementary. ARCH’s proposal tended to focus on the look and feel of the Reston result after development—a thematic focus on vision such as higher density around rail stations, but lower at the mid-point between. Reston 2020’s proposals focused on implementation issues, including orderly phasing of development and infrastructure and trading off density in one place for another. The Kaplan-Rando plan was highly focused on specific metrics. All the presentations sought to preserve and protect Reston’s existing neighborhoods, preserve if not expand Reston’s open space, and positive steps to improve infrastructure—especially transportation—in concert with development. Blended together, the proposals could probably weave a clear, powerful, and comprehensive set of planning principles that well represented the interests of Reston’s citizens.

From this writer’s perspective, the dominant theme principles coming out of the community meeting based on the group presentations, the ensuing discussion, and a macro-scan of the "dots" on the boards seem to focus on
--preservation and protection of existing residential neighborhoods,
--developing infrastructure—especially transportation infrastructure—before or as part of development, and
--preserving and expanding Reston’s open space and natural areas.
I would expect the county tabulation of the preference poll to show similar areas of interest as reflected in the “dots,” possibly spread across all four of the principle proposals laid out during the evening.

Meanwhile, Bob Simon apologized for his comments during an earlier meeting, where he reportedly called critics of development "asinine" and told them to "go take a shower."

I apologize for any intemperate remarks I made at the meeting that may have offended. While not an excuse, I am wildly impatient for there to be movement toward revitalization. Discussions began with regard to revitalization more than 10 years ago during good economic times. Delays in any real movement toward revitalization find us now in economic times that make revitalization more difficult. While organizations such as the Reston 2020 group have every right to make their views known to the County Task Force and the community at large, it feels very much, to me at least, like another delaying tactic of the kind that has kept anything meaningful from happening to date. I certainly hope I am wrong.

During this week's meeting, Simon said he wanted people to remember that "density is not evil." He said density is what makes up a community and it is not a bad idea to expand the community. He said if someone wants to live alone on two acres, that's fine but "density equals community."

The next community meeting, to be held sometime in February, will focus on the Herndon-Monroe Metro station and hopefully include a shiny 99-story building to replace its Targetville doppelganger, the end.