The View From Over Here

The Reston Master Plan Special Study Task Force, the RMPSSTF to its really close friends, is a gang of 25 appointed by Hunter Mill District Supervisor Catherine Hudgins.

Most urgent, Hudgins rightly told her charges, was Phase One—planning for the three train stations-to-be currently zoned industrial. Phase One was to be complete and approved by the Fairfax Board of Lords by Summer 2010.  Phase Two, the other 6,000 acres of Reston, was to be done by the end of 2010.  You know, before the redevelopment gang levels it “by right."

The Task Force moniker alone, RMPSSTF, should have tipped us that timeliness was not to be the modus operandi of the developer-dominated group. 

Sure enough,  here we are in the second half of 2011 and the conclusion of Phase One is not even in sight.  Draft plans for high-density development around the Wiehle Avenue station, Manhattan-type intense density in Reston Town Center, and uninspired office park and residential growth at the Reston West-Herndon station were presented in December 2010. 

Since then, the Task Force Chair (whose day job salary is paid by developers) and county staff have been unable to bring the gang anywhere near closure on those drafts.  As of this writing there is not even a target date for getting a Phase One plan to the overlords of our unincorporated fiefdom. 

Meanwhile, Reston 2020, an independent group of concerned Restonians, has conscientiously tracked the task force from day one, recording in summary its proceedings and offering comments and constructive suggestions (largely ignored) since the beginning.  If you’d like to really understand what has happened to date and follow the process without inflicting great pain on yourself, read and check in on www.reston2020.blogspot.com from time to time.  Reston 2020 offers clarity where going to the source will not.

Even founder Robert E. Simon is frustrated with the futile, seemingly endless process.  At the June 14 RMPSSTF meeting, Simon offered one constructive comment—that the transportation [staff] “… propose major, comprehensive bus transportation in these [station] areas or we can assure [Task Force] failure.”

The point is an overdue acknowledgement of what many residents have raised without effect to date at Task Force meetings — that the transportation and civic infrastructure in place and on the drawing boards for the next 20-30 years will not come close to that essential for the levels of development being discussed.

Regrettably, to date the once-visionary Simon’s role in RMPSSTF has been limited.  On the few occasions he has spoken, it has been as an uncritical cheerleader for maximum construction per unit of land and harsh critic of non-developer Restonians who in any way questioned that view. 

So, what do we have to show for roughly 50 person-years of labor?  Here is the real tragedy. Not only do we have no finished product, the shape of what has been done is very discouraging for America’s premier planned community.  Here’s why:

• The imbalance of commercial-to-residential construction proposed at Wiehle and Reston Town Center is way beyond what experts recommend if there is to be any hope of keeping traffic congestion at levels just above current ones—with already seven failing intersections.
• Existing and planned infrastructure—especially transportation—is nowhere near adequate to support proposed growth for the next generation.
• Reston’s founding principles include character and beauty.  The RMPSSTF proposals include no such features in any of the station areas. 
• Open space and recreation areas for future workers and residents are woefully inadequate.  In fact, for recreation, thousands of newcomers are to be referred to existing, often stressed facilitates in other parts of Reston.

As we’ve said before, Reston deserves better.