Fairfax County planning staff appear to agree with many neighboring residents that Reston National Golf Course should remain a golf course.
Property owner War Horse Cities and developer NVR’s proposal to replace the 168-acre golf course at 11875 Sunrise Valley Drive with housing and parkland or other public uses is among eight potential Fairfax County Comprehensive Plan amendments not recommended for advancement in a staff report.
Released late last week following a series of community meetings, the white paper doesn’t delve into staff’s objections to each development pitch, but it indicates that they all would’ve presented environmental or neighborhood challenges.
“These nominations are not recommended by staff due to clear and significant policy issues, all of which relate to land use compatibility and/or environmental protection,” county staff wrote.
Anticipating public opposition based on past experience, Reston National’s owner is already exploring an alternative that would renovate the golf course and add 288 stacked townhouses on 14 acres where it says residential development has been permitted since the 1960s.
That Site-Specific Plan Amendment (SSPA) nomination and 10 others targeting locations in the Hunter Mill District will be discussed in a virtual town hall hosted by Supervisor Walter Alcorn and Planning Commissioner John Carter at 7 p.m. tonight (Tuesday).
The other nominations without staff support are:
- Storage Mart (Fairfax Center): Expansion of a self-storage facility onto an adjacent parcel at 11325 Route 29 that’s currently planned for residential development
- 6404 Telegraph Road (Rose Hill): Redevelopment of commercial buildings at 6404 Telegraph Road and 6408 Highland Drive with single-family attached townhouses
- 5300 Shawnee Road (Lincolnia): An approximately 50-unit apartment complex in place of the existing office building
- 6675 Little River Turnpike (Annandale): Mixed-use housing on a site currently occupied by Pro Computers, the Miracle Garden Center and a single-family house. A concept shows a five-story building with 186 units and 16,714 square feet of commercial space.
- Excel Holdings (Newington): A seven-story hotel with up to 175 rooms on vacant parcels at Loisdale and Newington roads
- Pohick Road Assemblage (Lorton): Up to 200 multi-family residential units and up to eight detached homes on part of a 49.55-acre property in the southeast quadrant of Pohick Road and I-95
- 12716 Route 29 (Fair Lakes): An independent living facility with approximately 117 residential units near the Brightview Fair Oaks community
Trend toward residential over commercial development continues
Fairfax County received a total of 53 nominations for its 2025 SSPA process, which lets property owners suggest land use changes. Of the 43 nominations accepted for the screening phase that’s currently underway, staff recommend adding 35 to a work program for official study.
Staff based their recommendations on a variety of criteria, including whether a given nomination reflects community needs and aligns with the county’s priorities and vision for a particular area.
According to the white paper, nearly all (86%) of the nominations seek to open up sites for housing, continuing a trend in development fueled by declining office demand post-Covid.
Only two nominators are proposing additional office space — Valo Park owner Tamares in Tysons and Reston Station developer Comstock Companies — and in both cases, the office would be part of mixed-use developments with residences, retail and more.
The SSPA nominations collectively call for 14,583 additional housing units, exceeding the county’s maximum potential currently envisioned in the comprehensive plan by 8,591 units. Eighteen pitches focus on multi-family residences, though one developer recently told the Fairfax County Planning Commission that construction is facing challenges of its own.
In comparison, non-residential uses would drop by 400,000 square feet from the comprehensive plan’s existing guidance, despite slight increases in retail, industrial and hotel development.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors will ultimately determine which SSPA nominations to add to the work program in June. Before that, the planning commission will review the proposals and accept public input in workshops on May 1, 15 and 22, finalizing its recommendation on June 4.
A nomination advancing isn’t a guarantee that the proposed development will come to fruition. In the white paper, staff recommend removing nine previously authorized studies from the work program because they’re not being actively pursued, lack funding or otherwise don’t no longer need to be reviewed.
The suggested removals include a Richmond Highway site that the county recently purchased with plans for new public parks as well as an update of the comprehensive plan’s parks section that was authorized in 2011 but has been superseded by a broader, ongoing policy plan update.
