Reston Master Plan: 'Strawman' To Be Unveiled At Tonight's Meeting, Promptly Beaten With Sticks

It's time for another exciting meeting of the Reston Master Plan Special Study Task Force (or, as all the kids are calling it, RMPSSTF, only they're sticking in random dollar signs like they do with that Kei$ha character when they "text" each other their kickin' PDFs of air rights schematics).

So what's been doin'? Well, after our friends at Reston 2020 started grousing about a lack of agenda or documents or whatnot for this evening's meeting, county planning officials slapped a bunch of stuff together at 4:59 p.m. last night, including a "strawman" document of guiding principles, which are intended to "create a bridge from Mr. Simon's goals to future plan recommendations that will be more specific in nature."

Sweet! We like bridges. The document, linked above, is a fascinating read, including a nice copy-and-paste job from the seminal work A Place Called Reston. Here are the strawman's guiding principles:

• Preserve the long-term stability of Reston by protecting and enhancing existing neighborhoods throughout the community;
• Continue to encourage a development pattern which provides residential, commercial, recreational and other entertainment uses in proximity to each other to maintain Reston as a community in which to live, work and play;
• Promote a wide range of mobility options throughout Reston to address pedestrian, bicycle, shuttle, and bus service needs as well as personal vehicle use;
• Encourage a transportation network that appropriately supports the planned land uses;
• Identify and pursue opportunities to improve connectivity throughout Reston, particularly north-south connectivity in the vicinity of the Dulles Airport Access and Toll Road (DAAR);
• Encourage the expansion of housing diversity within Reston to achieve an even broader range of housing types and prices to fully meet the needs of residents throughout their lives;
• Respect and build upon Reston’s tradition of fostering natural and structural beauty by:

• Continuing to encourage environmentally sensitive development;
  
• Preserving existing open space to the extent possible;
  
• Ensuring that high-quality green and open space are incorporated into new development;
  
• Promoting the provision of new facilities for cultural and recreational activities and public art;
  
• Encouraging innovative and high-quality site design and architecture.

Other community groups who have expressed interest in the Master Plan process will also be given time to discuss their own principles. We've talked about one such plan; now the Reston 2020 folks have come up with principles of their own:

1. Comprehensive Planning--"must consider the Reston community as a whole"
2. Excellence in Planning, Design, and Architecture--"held to the highest standards of excellence and innovation"
3. Infrastructure and Transportation--"must be planned and funded in concert with approved development projects, and must be completed concurrently with that development"
4. Density--"Higher densities... should be confined to the RCIG, Town Center, and the various Village Centers."
5. Reston Urban Core (RUC)--"must be developed into an integrated, dynamic and vibrant urban center"
6. Existing Residential Neighborhoods Outside the RUC--"re-development of existing residential neighborhoods must maintain the essential character of the neighborhood as defined by the current residents."
7. All Ages/All Families--"(Reston) must continue to accommodate people of all ages, physical abilities, economic circumstances, and families of all sizes and at all stages of family life."
8. Open Space--"at least 25% of all future developed and re-developed land must be reserved for open space"
9. Natural Areas--"must not be developed, and should be extended to the extent possible"

In a commentary on the Reston 2020 Committee's proposed planning principles, Dick Stilson, co-chair of the committee, said the following:

"Many of the principles in the committee’s “Planning Principles” paper are already incorporated in the county Comprehensive Plan. In general we think the Plan is good, although it must be updated with the coming of Metro and other development that will affect the community. That, of course, is what the Task Force is charged to do. There are, however, several ideas contained in our paper that we think are important that are not in the current Plan. We think they should be discussed and considered by the Task Force for inclusion in the Plan."

Tonight's meeting starts at 7 at Langston Hughes Middle School. If you go, be sure to share your reactions, or just dash off a bunch of random principles of your own, in the comments. C'mon, it's fun! Here we go, to start you all off:

1. I am NOT going to pay a lot for this muffler!
2. No strawmen taller than 4" can be displayed in anyone's yard
2a. Unless that yard has red mulch and/or white stone. Then anything goes!
3. Juiceries in every village center and a submerged roller derby arena underneath Lake Anne
4. All RA filing cabinets must be alphabetically, not chronologically, ordered.
5. No Bratz dolls north of the Toll Road
6. More nekkid plays, plz. Thx!
7. Rad '80s art in all Metro stations, funkadelic '70s art at all bus stops
8. More rock, less talk

You're welcome.