After approximately seven years of work and revisions, Pulte Group is still racing down to the wire to finalize plans for an expansion of its Lofts at Reston Station residences that will satisfy Fairfax County officials.
The county’s planning commission agreed yesterday to defer a decision on whether to recommend approval of the developer’s rezoning application until next Wednesday, June 10 — less than two weeks before a scheduled June 23 public hearing before the Board of Supervisors.
Following a public hearing of its own on May 13, this was the commission’s second deferral of a vote on Pulte’s proposal, which seeks to redevelop three low-rise office buildings at 1810, 1825 and 1850 Samuel Morse Drive with 158 homes, including 112 condominiums across three five- to six-story buildings and 46 stacked townhouses in one four-story building.
Commission Chair Phil Niedzielski-Eichner (At-Large) had hoped to take action yesterday, stating that it’s “against my general practice to put off a resolution of these issues.” But a series of “last-minute changes” requested to the development plan by Hunter Mill District Commissioner John Carter seemed to take county staff off guard.
Carter, whose district includes Reston, proposed adding conditions, known as proffers, that would require Pulte to:
- Provide sidewalks, trees, possible space for on-street parking and a correction for the grade or slope of an interim portion of Easterly Road
- Stripe lanes and crosswalks on the section of Reston Station Blvd on the south side of the Lofts II property
- Assist the original Lofts I residents with cleaning up dust left on the exterior of their homes from construction
- Remove snow within 24 hours after a storm ends on Reston Station Blvd and Easterly Street until they’re taken over by the Virginia Department of Transportation and turned into public roads
Lofts residents push for commitments
Most of those changes were suggested in response to concerns raised by area residents, including occupants of the original Lofts condos, at the May 13 hearing and earlier meetings on a comprehensive plan amendment that the Board of Supervisors approved on May 5 to allow residential development on the 5-acre site.
In addition to expressing frustration with gaps in Reston Station Blvd’s pedestrian infrastructure and calling for more green space and trees in the new development, members of the Lofts at Reston Station Condominium Association board reported that Pulte has fallen short of several commitments tied to the original 44-unit project, which was approved by Fairfax County in 2016 and built in 2019.
Issues have included inadequate parking due in part to a lack of required loading spaces, a delay in striping Reston Station Blvd for an on-street bicycle lane, and untimely snow removal from streets around Lofts I, specifically Reston Station Blvd, Easterly Road and Michael Faraday Drive.
“What happens when Pulte doesn’t fulfill their requirement to remove the snow and do the maintenance?” Adam Rubinstein, the vice president and treasurer for the condo association, asked at the May 13 hearing. “… Because that is a concern we have as an association, having lived through the snow storm in January and having to wait for Pulte for quite a while until I called them. Eventually, they came out.”
Based on their experience with other developments that have emerged nearby, including the Faraday Park apartments and the Townhomes at Reston Station, Lofts residents also pushed for Pulte to provide power-washing or other assistance with cleaning up dust, trash and other debris left by the construction work.
“Certainly to the extent that we have to bear the brunt of dust coming right next door onto our building constantly, we want to make sure that the people doing the building have to clean up their mess, basically,” condo association president Robert Vogel said. “That means power washing. That means dust removal. That means mitigation … Otherwise, we’re going to be living under this for probably two years.”
At yesterday’s meeting, DLA Piper real estate attorney Brian Winterhalter, who’s representing Pulte on the Lofts II application, said the developer was fine with adding the proposed proffers for snow removal and striping on Reston Station Blvd, a step that they would be required to take anyway to fulfill bond agreements.
Previously reluctant to commit to power washing or otherwise cleaning up the Lofts I building, Pulte could instead make a monetary contribution to the condo association so they can hire a power washer or cleaners directly, Winterhalter suggested.
Disagreement over Easterly Road persists
The major sticking point, however, was the proposed interim design for Easterly Road, which will ultimately be extended from Reston Station Blvd to Sunset Hills Road.
Because the street sits on the property line between the Lofts and the office building to the north at 1821 Michael Faraday Drive, there has been some dispute over which developer should be responsible for constructing the road’s full extension.
Home for now to Northern Virginia Community College’s Reston Technology Center, among other tenants, the four-story Michael Faraday Drive building is also being considered for redevelopment with townhouses and multifamily residences. Prospective developer JB Properties submitted a rezoning application for the project last June that’s currently under review by county staff.
At the May 13 public hearing, Winterhalter proposed that whichever developer begins construction first provide the right-of-way and grading for the full street, while making a monetary contribution to help fund its eventual construction by the other developer.
The arrangement would, of course, be contingent on the same condition being included in JB Properties’ proffers. David Gill, the land use attorney representing that developer, indicated at the hearing that his client was unlikely to support it.
“We don’t feel the current proffer as it’s drafted is a fair, 50/50 balance,” he told the planning commission. “Frankly, Pulte controls roughly 70% of the right of way, and with their proposal and this contribution, they put it almost entirely on us as the smaller property owner to finish building the road, get all the utilities removed, get it accepted by VDOT and make it a true public road.”
Gill suggested instead that JB Properties, an affiliate of Bognet Construction, could give Pulte the easement needed for them to construct all of Easterly Road on the Lofts side south of the property line.
Winterhalter countered that Pulte had already developed a portion of the street as part of Lofts I, adding that Fairfax County Department of Transportation staff had found an $182,000 contribution “satisfactory … for the fairly minimal work that would be remaining on our side of the line for Easterly Road.”
Though staff had urged the two developers to work on a compromise, Carter shared at yesterday’s meeting that they still haven’t come to an agreement for how to construct Easterly Road in its final design, necessitating “more attention to the interim portion.”
“What I’m hearing is we need a new section in the [development] plan to show the sidewalk, trees and on-street parking, and then there’s this issue with grading,” Mary Ann Tsai, a branch chief in the Department of Planning and Development’s Zoning Evaluation Division, said.
According to Winterhalter, the submitted development plan still includes a depiction of an interim design for Easterly Road, featuring a 6-foot-wide sidewalk, even though Pulte had committed to a proffer to build its side of the street in its ultimate condition. He suggested the developer could just update the proffers to clarify which version of the street it’s referencing instead of amending the plan itself.
But Tsai said that wouldn’t be sufficient to address the proposed change.
“Because you have a development plan that shows one thing and your proffers say another, it raises a concern … that you will get held up at site plan, and you may have to do an interpretation” to confirm that it conforms with the plan approved by the Board of Supervisors, she said.
Trees requested on Sunset Hills Road
Braddock District Commissioner Mary Cortina also questioned Pulte’s decision not to meet staff’s recommendation for street trees along Sunset Hills Road.
From the county staff report:
In the ultimate condition, Sunset Hills Road will be constructed with an 18-foot wide median, two 11-foot wide travel lanes, and a 5-foot wide on-road bike lane, 7 foot wide landscape amenity panel, 9 foot wide sidewalk, and a 7-12 foot wide building zone. The curb will be relocated, shrinking the interim buffer to a 7-foot wide landscape amenity panel without street trees. Staff continues to recommend an 8 foot wide landscape amenity panel with street trees.
Winterhalter said Pulte hasn’t committed to planting trees along Sunset Hills, because the road is slated to be widened, but he also confirmed that the timing of the widening is “up to the county,” which doesn’t currently have a timeline for the project.
“So, presumably within the 10-year canopy time frame, we’d be without trees,” Cortina said.
“Possibly,” Winterhalter confirmed.
The Lofts II development plan features 0.48 acres of publicly accessible urban park space, including a central park with a multipurpose lawn and tot lot. That exceeds the county’s park space requirements, but Pulte hasn’t taken county staff up on their requests for three more crosswalks in the park spaces “to provide better pedestrian connectivity and access” or to place all sidewalks in a public access easement, per a May 11 memo.
“We’ve already done quite a lot on this project,” Winterhalter said when Cortina asked if the developer opposes the requests. “We’ve redesigned it eight times. I think we’re at the end of what we can squeeze on this site quite honestly.”
Easterly Road screenshot via Google Maps
