Like Rain On Your Wedding Day: Meeting On Reston Zoning Proposal That Would Lead to Overcrowding Postponed Because of Overcrowding (Updated)

How's this for a black fly in your chardonnay?

After hundreds of Restonians crowded into the cafeteria at Lake Anne Elementary School for the forum, Fairfax County Supervisor Cathy Hudgins and staff from the Department of Planning and Zoning told them the meeting would have to be postponed until a larger venue could be booked.

“It is a safety issue and a code violation [to have so many people in the cafeteria],” Hudgins said to a chorus of boos from the crowd, many of whom were wearing yellow-shaded Reclaim Reston and Rescue Reston T-shirts. “You did come out and that’s important, and I’m glad that you did, we appreciate that.”

Good on people -- hundreds of them, by all accounts -- for actually showing up to this would-have-been meeting on the proposed fun changes to Reston zoning under consideration by Fairfax County. The more this keeps happening, the less likely we'll just get developmentsplaining with no actual consideration of what the impact of increased density without concurrent infrastructure improvements would mean to Reston.

Still, we can imagine what just might happen next:

1. To address the potential of overcrowding, the county immediately starts construction on the Soapstone bridge over the Toll Road institutes a Very Special Public Meeting Tax District to fund future improvements to meeting spaces, someday.

2. The county announces that because "a couple of those big elementary school cafeteria tables with wheels on them got, uh, stuck, and we couldn't move them out of the way," the rescheduled public hearing will be pushed back to 2025.

3. The county passes the zoning ordinance anyway, the end.

Update: The meeting has been rescheduled to 7pm October 23 at South Lakes High School, which can hold up to 650 people in its cafeteria.