A wholesale redevelopment of Reston National Golf Course for housing is off the table — at least for now.
Going against a recommendation by the Fairfax County Planning Commission, the Board of Supervisors voted yesterday (June 10) not to add the site to a list of potential Comprehensive Plan amendments for staff to review.
The proposal “is not ready to move forward,” said Sully District Supervisor Kathy Smith, the board’s vice chair.
The nomination from property owner War Horse Cities and housing developer NVR was one of 43 site-specific plan amendment (SSPA) requests that the county received earlier this year. The board’s vote yesterday determined which requests would be added to a work under consideration at the meeting.
Her remarks represented the wishes of Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn, in whose district the golf course is located.
Alcorn did not speak from the dais to the matter. In a statement after the vote, he said removing the project from consideration represented “good planning practices” and was in line with promises he had made to the community.
“I ran for office in 2019 and for re-election in 2023 with the plank that I would not support consideration of a change to golf-course designations in the Comprehensive Plan for either of the Reston golf courses unless and until surrounding communities let me know they would like a change to be considered,” Alcorn said.
The second course referenced by Alcorn is part of Hidden Creek Country Club.
The move was a victory for the Reston Association, Rescue Reston and other community groups that had voiced misgivings about the proposal put forward by the property owner, a subsidiary of Baltimore-based War Horse Cities.
The board reversed a recommendation by the planning commission, which voted 8-4 on June 4 in support of putting the project on the staff’s work program, albeit in a low-priority position.
That vote came despite Hunter Mill District Planning Commissioner John Carter and county planning staff arguing that the proposal should be kept off.
A May 15 discussion found commission members divided between those who felt the open space provided by the golf courses needs to be retained in an urbanizing Reston, and those who felt more housing options located relatively close to transit is a bigger priority.
The proposed plan amendment would’ve allowed housing on 86 acres of the 166-acre site, reserving the rest for open space — though not necessarily golf.
The course was constructed in 1970 and runs along Sunrise Valley Drive. War Horse Cities purchased it in 2019 from RN Golf Management LLC for $23.75 million, more than four times the sales price when it last changed hands in 2005.
The June 10 vote by supervisors takes a comprehensive plan amendment off the table for now, but it doesn’t guarantee the site will remain untouched by development.
Anticipating community resistance after previous redevelopment pitches were blocked, War Horse Cities recently submitted a separate rezoning plan to allow extensive renovations of the golf course and up to 288 townhouses. The developer contends that the site has 14 acres where residential development has been permitted since the 1960s.
The decision to leave the golf course project off the work plan was probably the most significant change made by the Board of Supervisors to the SSPA recommendations finalized last week by the planning commission.
Smith said adding the 40 or so proposals to the work program doesn’t guarantee that the county will ultimately make future changes to its comprehensive plan or zoning requirements.
The action merely represents “the beginning of the process” that will include extensive community engagement, she said.
Proponents for comprehensive plan changes not included in the 2025 work plan will now have to wait about 18 months until the SSPA process begins anew.
