Flashbacks:
The RNGC Caddyshackpocalypse
Bollards!
Reston Community Center is exploring the idea of building a new indoor recreation and community center at Baron Cameron Park.In some ways, it's like it's 2008-9 all over again: The same company is doing the facility planning, the cost is expected to be similar (or possibly slightly less), and a (much-needed) indoor pool tops the list of proposed amenities. (No word, though, on whether the juicery is still in the works.) It's also not clear what impact this would have on RA's own plans to build an (equally needed) indoor tennis facility at Lake Newport, which is currently in a holding pattern and would require a referendum to proceed.
In spring of 2012, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors transferred 68 acres at that location to the Fairfax County Park Authority, Bill Bouie, RCC Board of Governors member and chairman of RCC's program committee. The Park Authority will work in partnership with RCC to move the project forward, said Bouie, who is also chairman of the Fairfax County Park Authority Board.
"RCC would operate it, and for the parks department, it would be another amenity," Bouie said at a public meeting on the issue at RCC Hunters Woods on Monday.
The financing for the facility would come from Small Tax District 5, which includes Reston. The timing is right, Bouie said, because Reston is expecting an influx of residents and businesses with the arrival of Metrorail in 2013.
Even back in ought-nine when emotions ran high over the first proposed rec center, few folks could deny additional indoor facilties were needed. Now, three-plus years later, Reston's already looking a lot bigger, and the sweet bollardy development fun is just beginning. Will people freak out about the location (originally earmarked for another fun high school; would it have been called North Lakes?) or the additional tax burden for those of us who live in
Time will tell. RCC is planning a number of focus groups and public meetings before it hopes to make a decision on whether to proceed in June. As for us, we just want in on the juicery franchise, the end.
'The timing is right, Bouie said, because Reston is expecting an influx of residents and businesses with the arrival of Metrorail in 2013.'
ReplyDeleteExpecting? How about waiting to see if it actually happens. Our money is just burning a hole in their pockets, and they think there is no end to what they can take from us. How about lighting the unsafe pathways first?
"Waiting to see if it actually happens?" Judging by the cranes and construction along the Toll Road, it sure looks like it's happening, like right now and stuff.
ReplyDeleteThey may be coming, but are they going to be required to pay RA assessments?
DeleteWhatever your views on the proposal--location, who pays, etc.--at least it is not some secret deal being cut by RCC and RA. That was horrible!
ReplyDeleteRCC and FCPA are going about this in the right way this time.
Since they donated the land for the new rec center, the county -- and not just RCC -- is now officially complicit in this project. So can they insist on some proffers from developers to pay for it?
ReplyDeleteNo, no, no!
ReplyDeleteSo Baseball wins and Soccer loses?
ReplyDeleteWhy is an indoor pool "badly needed?" There's already a pool at Hunters Woods and the YMCA.
ReplyDeleteHow many soccer fields will be lost? How much open space is going to be lost?
There are plenty of places to exercise indoors and not many places to play outside.
All of the arguments against the original proposal are valid against this new proposed project.
And it's only going to get worse as the teeming masses arrive.
DeleteSouth County and Centreville are looking better and better.
I'm looking even further away. After 38 years, Northern Virginia is really starting to get to me.
DeleteSoccer Dad - I totally agree. Buffalo - I feel the same way. It seems the only answer is to move out of this area completely.
DeleteAren't all these new residents going to be living in chi-chi-frou-frou towers with their own pools and weight rooms?
ReplyDeleteAnon 12:10:
ReplyDeleteThis isn't about providing recreational facilities for new or old residents. It's about handing a big plum to the developer who will build the center. The same one who was lined up to do the indoor rec center at Brown's Chapel? Somebody's friend, at any rate.
In addition to enlarging her kingdom, RCC Director Leila Gordon will also get a raise if this "sports palace" goes through. But we do get to vote. I vote for leaving the land available for a new high school and a new middle school. Put the sports palace down by the Metro stations. And let developer proffers pay for it, not the taxpayers of Reston. Or, better still, let the county pay for it. We are already paying for our own community center AND others in the county.
ReplyDeleteIsn't the sports palace already being built by LifeTime Fitness?
ReplyDeleteGreat point check out:
Deletehttp://clubs.lifetimefitness.com/Reston/63901/
Fitness and pool. Commercial so that it will be run at a profit not like RCC, not in a residential area, no destruction of trees or soccer fields.
Let market forces rule. This is a commercial business not funded by our tax dollars - why would Fairfax County want to compete.
Here is a quote from the recent meeting at RCC about the proposed rec center:
ReplyDeleteReston commercial real estate broker Joe Ritchey, who has been instrumental in many community organizations, floated the idea of building a "world class" aquatic facility that could host major meets and Olympic trials.
"If we consider the future, we could really get something special," he said. "I hope we think bigger - way bigger. The potential is huge."
So they have shifted the site over from Browns Chapel Park to the adjacent Baron Cameron Park, but their thinking is still skewed. First, the proposed site borders residential neighborhoods, in places just a couple of hundred feet from homes. This is just not a site that is appropriate for hosting "major" events. We cannot handle the traffic, parking, noise and congestion. Second, if STD 5 is solely paying for the rec center than it should be built for our needs and only our needs. STD 5 should not be paying to host "major" meets and Olympic trials.
As a developer Joe Ritchey is the one who would benefit from a mega-facility. I'm sure he would love for STD 5 to pay for it.
Let's replace the Small District tax with a Large Developer tax.
DeleteOK, what the hell is this Sexually Transmitted Disease #5 you're all talking about?
ReplyDeleteI count only four
#1 Syphilis
#2 Gonorrhea
#3 Herpes
#4 Chlamydia
Clap on! Clap off!