Proposals for several major land use changes in Reston’s transit areas are now moving forward.
The move comes after the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved an overhaul of Reston’s comprehensive plan last week.
The Reston-related applications submitted via the countywide Site-Specific Plan Amendment (SSPA) process were set aside in the spring as work on the plan continued.
Leanna Hush O’Donnell, director of the Fairfax County Department of Planning and Development, says, now that the comprehensive plan is in place, the SSPA applications have been prioritized for review in the top tier of the county’s work program.
“Staff is in the process of developing a schedule for review as well as an inclusive community outreach plan for review of the amendments,” O’Donnell wrote in a statement. “Updates will be shared through the Comprehensive Plan Amendment listserve, our website, and social media.”
Most nominations in Reston’s transit area pushed for more residential uses in lieu of or in addition to office uses.
The Hunter Mill District received the highest number of SSPA nominations for 2022-2023. Overall, the county received 75 nominations — 36 of which were ultimately added by the Board of Supervisors to the county’s comprehensive plan amendment work program.
The SSPA process kicked off in July 2022, allowing the county to review proposed land use changes for individual sites. This was the first year to follow a revised process that allowed sites anywhere in the county to be nominated instead of alternating between north and south.
A three-year-long planning effort has culminated in the adoption of a new comprehensive plan for Reston.
At a meeting yesterday (Tuesday), the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved an overhaul of the Reston Comprehensive Plan, setting into place new guidance on affordable housing, community health, equity and other issues.
Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn kicked off the overhaul of the plan in January 2020. After more than 50 task force meetings with community stakeholders, county staff and county officials pared down a task force’s draft into a revamped plan. Some called it ambitious, while others worried it was too prescriptive.
Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay said the plan safeguards existing neighborhoods, while bolstering transit and positioning Reston as a major economic development center in the county.
“The adoption of the Reston Comprehensive Plan Amendment is a momentous achievement for Reston, ushering in a new era that ensures Reston’s continued success,” McKay said.
Unlike the previous plan, the new plan includes dedicated principles that define Reston as a new town. Those principles include community health, equity, preservation of neighborhoods and affordable housing.
Alcorn thanked Hunter Mill District Planning Commissioner John Carter for his work in producing the final proposal.
“After much deliberation by the Planning Commission and my colleagues on the Board of Supervisors, I am proud to say that Reston has an updated comprehensive plan that is much more than a land use document,” Alcorn wrote in a statement. “It is also a blueprint for the next phase of what Reston has always been – an inclusive community that values our green open spaces and a vibrant economy.”
Alcorn said the plan aims to maintain Reston’s fidelity to founder Robert E. Simon’s original vision while meeting today’s challenges.
“This plan and process proves that even in times of the highest levels of community concern and anxiety about growth and development, this is a consensus community plan. Focusing growth around Metrorail is not only possible, it is the reality in Reston,” Alcorn said.
At yesterday’s meeting, supervisors continued to massage language in the plan.
For example, Mason District Supervisor Penny Gross argued that it was unrealistic for the plan to say the future relocation of Reston Regional Library should not impact service.
“The community will anticipate that its going to be smooth sailing,” Gross said, adding that “disruption” is an in inherent part of the process.
Several pending issues may be ironed out in future updates — including the approval of several applications for zoning changes in Reston.
Alcorn introduced several follow-on motions. Two topics — community health and equity — may be explored in a future update to the county’s overall plans.
Alcorn directed the Fairfax County Park Authority, Reston Community Center, Reston Town Center Association and Reston Association to develop a strategy for the long-term maintenance and upkeep of community facilities in Reston.
He also asked staff to improve safety at Sunrise Valley Drive and Fairfax County Parkway, as well as along Reston Parkway from the Dulles Toll Road to Sunrise Valley Drive.
The planning commission also wants the county to develop and implement design standards for better pedestrian and bicycle access to Metro stations.
Several deferred proposals to change land uses in Reston are coming to light once again.
At a Fairfax County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday (July 25), Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn proposed that the county begin considering a set of 10 Site-Specific Plan Amendment (SSPA) proposals that were deferred earlier this year due to ongoing work to update Reston’s Comprehensive Plan.
Alcorn asked the county to begin work on the applications, which are part of a countywide set of nominations submitted through its Site-Specific Plan Amendment process.
The move formally seeks to move the applications from tier three of the work program — the lowest priority — to tier one of the program. The work program includes authorized current and future planned studies and amendments to the county’s comprehensive plan.
Tier one applications are focused on areas of development or support a priority explicitly identified by the county, such as affordable housing. Those applications receive the highest priority for staff resources and timing, according to the county’s website.
“While the ultimate outcome of each of these SSPA nominations is still to be determined, there are common themes across the nominations in Reston that would greatly benefit from staff research and analysis that has not yet started,” the board matter states.
The timeline for the approval of the overhaul of the Reston Comprehensive Plan was delayed to Sept. 12 due to recent changes in state codes affecting public hearings. If the change had not been instituted, the plan would’ve been up for consideration at the board’s meeting on Tuesday.
Generally, Reston’s SSPAs favor more housing opportunities and less office development. Areas targeted by the developer proposals include Reston Town Center North, Michael Faraday Court, Commerce Metro Center, Lake Fairfax Business Park and more.
All of those applications will now be moved up and combined into a broad study of Reston’s Transit Station Areas.
(Updated at 3:05 p.m.) The overhaul of the Reston Comprehensive Plan is barreling towards approval this fall.
At a July 19 meeting, the Fairfax County Planning Commission unanimously approved a new version of the plan, which sets a comprehensive vision for the planned community and culminates more than two years of work by residents, officials and county staff.
The approval came after the commission deferred a decision to July 19 after a public hearings on June 28. The date was pushed back due to changes in public notice and hearing requirements.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors will consider the plan at a Sept. 12 meeting.
The commission lauded the updated plan for its comprehensiveness and ambitious nature, overcoming what Braddock District Commissioner Mary Cortina said were “doubts” that the plan would obtain the commission’s approval.
Hunter Mill District Commissioner Carter added three amendments that were approved by the commission. He later noted that parsing the language of the plan to achieve perfection was likely not “the best use” of the plan.
“We live in the house of reason is what I’m trying to say,” Carter said.
Specifically, he deleted a street connection from American Dream Way to North Shore Drive in response to significant pushback from residents about safety and security for pedestrians and vehicles. The street was also retained as a local street, Carter said.
He also added a reference that calls on planners to consider heritage resources guidelines related to Association Drive — a historic area that is slated for some redevelopment and repurposing.
Carter also removed a sentence that encourages multifamily units within a half-mile of Reston’s Metro stations, noting that multiple attempts to reframe the sentence further obfuscated its clarity.
“This bullet has been edited several times,” Carter said. “The more we edit it, the worse it gets in terms of clarity.”
Underway since 2020, the Reston Comprehensive Plan update lays out the county’s vision for the 6,750-acre area’s development, touching on everything from transportation to density recommendations for the transit station areas and village centers.
The proposed draft was shaped by county staff and a community task force convened by Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn in 2020.
Providence District Commissioner Phil Niedzielski-Eichner lauded Carter and his staff for their work on the plan.
“I think the Reston community knows how much you have invested in getting to this point,” he said.
Other commissioners also praised county staff and Alcorn for pushing the update to the plan through — a significant planning effort that Niedzielski-Eichner compared to community planning for the City of Alexandria, an area comparable in size to Reston.
In follow-on motions, Carter encouraged the county to explore how Site Specific Plan Amendment (SSPA) applications for Reston would fit in with the new plan — once it’s approved by the board.
Reston’s SSPAs were temporarily set aside earlier this year due to the ongoing discussion of the comprehensive plan.
Carter also called on the county to improve pedestrian, bicyclist and vehicular connection to Reston’s Metro stations in a comprehensive manner. Suggested areas of study include appropriate bicycle lanes, signal timing, design standards and guidelines, new crosswalk refuge areas, and on-street parking.
Carter said priority areas include Wiehle Avenue, Reston Station Blvd, Town Center Parkway, Sunset Hill Road, Sunset Valley Drive and adjacent local streets. He suggested continuous cooperation between stakeholders like county and state transportation officials, the Fairfax County Park Authority, Dominion Energy and area land owners.
Cortina also praised Restonians for their input on the plan.
Niedzielski-Eichner said that while some chapters were removed from the task force’s version of the plan, that work was not in vain. It will “resonate” in the county’s broader effort to update its overall comprehensive plan.
The Fairfax County Planning Commission will take another stab at a major overhaul of Reston’s defining planning document next month.
At a Wednesday (June 28) meeting, the commission once again deferred a decision on the extensive update of Reston Comprehensive Plan to July 12 — a move that Hunter Mill District Commissioner John Carter said would allow staff time to incorporate proposed revisions. The commission first deferred a decision on the project on June 14.
The draft under consideration is the product of more than three years of work and dozens of community meetings.
In May, staff released its version of the plan after a first draft was formulated last year by a task force assembled by Hunter Mill District Walter Alcorn in 2020. On June 13, staff also released a 25-page addendum to the report.
Ahead of the commission’s meeting, the county released a chart with county responses to all public testimony received at the last public hearing — a move that Carter said was unusual but helpful to delineate proposed recommendations and the responses from the county.
“We don’t usually go through and address each of the people that testify,” Carter said.
Carter — who walked through a series of suggested revisions during the Wednesday meeting — said the transportation section clearly identifies multimodal components and removes the infamous “road to nowhere” that cuts from Isaac Newton Square to American Dream Way through the Hidden Creek Country Club golf course.
He said he opposes a proposed road connection from American Dream Way to North Shore Drive — a connection that drew significant opposition at the public hearing earlier this month.
Citing safety concerns, Carter said the connection would be dangerous and contradicts the county’s recent consideration of a project that essentially makes American Dream Way a private street.
“If we’re leading this, we just approved a project that did not provide that connection and made American Dream Way a private connection,” Carter said.
Braddock District Commissioner Mary Cortina called a bicycle map in the plan “unreadable” and in need of edits.
“I’m hesitant to continue to put that forward in there without being able to understand what it says or where its going,” Cortina said.
According to Carter, the environment section was pared down in response to concerns that it exceeded the limits of the policy plan and set higher standards for stormwater management in Reston than elsewhere in the county. Those policies include moving towards net-zero energy use, achieving LEED platinum for more buildings, and adding more electric vehicle charging stations.
While these regulations are “good ideas,” the “form” was not right, Carter said.
“I know we struggled quite a bit with that chapter, but I think it’s come out pretty good,” he said.
Carter stressed the need to ensure Reston is able to retain existing market rate affordable housing within the transit station areas (TSA) while establishing new affordable housing.
He seemed to share Cortina’s concerns about the document’s readability, saying that he initially hoped it could have been a gold standard for other similar policies in the county and throughout the state with a combination of graphics, fonts and other enhancements.
Franconia District Commissioner Daniel Lagana suggested adding Geographic Information System (GIS) components to the plan — a suggestion that Chris Caperton, deputy director of the county’s Department of Planning and Development, said was a possibility in future iterations.
Carter said he was still happy the plan was reduced by roughly 40 pages and emphasized more active verbs. He pitched several options for imagery and captions to staff.
The Fairfax County Planning Commission unanimously deferred a decision on the Reston Comprehensive Plan overhaul at a public hearing Wednesday (June 14) night.
The move — which delays a vote to June 28 — came as public testimony at the hearing centered around a challenge facing Reston: navigating growing pains as it chases a new transit-oriented future while also trying to preserve its past.
Hunter Mill District Planning Commissioner John Carter said county staff and the commission will release a new document that outlines community requests by chapter, staff responses and the commission’s decision on each item.
“We’re going to be working hard in the next couple of weeks,” Carter said.
Some residents and community organizations asked the commission to defer a vote because they needed more time to review a supplement to the plan that staff released on June 13, one day before the hearing.
“We are still pouring through the 25-page addendum,” said Lynne Mulston, president of the Reston Citizens’ Association.
Notable revisions in the addendum include a recommendation that multifamily housing be allowed anywhere in Reston’s transit station areas, not just within a half-mile of the Metro stations, and language encouraging the addition of affordable housing, not just the preservation of existing units.
Underway since 2020, the Reston Comprehensive Plan update lays out the county’s vision for the 6,750-acre area’s development, touching on everything from transportation to density recommendations for the transit station areas and village centers.
The proposed draft was shaped by county staff and a community task force convened by Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn in 2020.
Speakers overwhelmingly opposed a proposed vehicular connection between North Shore Drive and Sunset Hill Road via American Dream Way. Citing concerns about traffic safety, residents argued that the proposal would turn North Shore Drive into a thoroughfare and cut-through street.
“It would be highly unsuitable and dangerous for North Shore Drive to become a thoroughfare,” said local resident Christopher Bean.
Another resident who took issue with the proposal said he moved to the area to have a place for his daughter, who stood alongside him as he testified.
Speaking on behalf of the Greater Reston Chamber of Commerce, Mike Jennings emphasized that the task force did not reach consensus on the version it produced.
Jennings said a tie vote on the initial plan was broken when an abstaining member shifted the vote in favor of the plan. He called staff’s version of the plan a “significant improvement” because it trimmed down “erroneous,” “impractical,” and “prescriptive” language.
Trimming the task force’s version of the draft plan from 180 pages to 133, county staff’s version is intended to avoid prescriptive language in specific areas, especially land use, that could conflict with countywide policies. Initially separate chapters about equity and community health were consolidated into one chapter related to “new town” elements.
The plan also covers Reston Town Center North — an area that is in limbo but is also slated for major redevelopment. The proposed draft recommends limiting residential development to 1,000 dwelling units with all new market rate units consolidated on three blocks. The remaining four blocks would have up to 150,000 square feet of nonresidential development, including civic and public uses. Read More
Fairfax County staff have released their final word on a draft version of the Reston Comprehensive Plan, a guiding document for holistic community planning that was last updated in 2015.
Released yesterday (Wednesday), the staff report shortens and tweaks the first version of the plan, which was developed by a Reston Comprehensive Plan task force, a 31-member group convened by Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn in 2020.
In response to concerns raised by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, staff’s recommendations for the plan tighten prescriptive policy language in the first proposal and condense several separate sections into one chapter on planning for the new town of Reston.
“This chapter of the proposed plan does not break new policy ground, nor is it prescriptive,” the report states.
In the report, staff noted that their version of the plan aims to maintain the existing residential densities in Reston’s village centers, removing the option of housing in non-residential portions. Any changes would require another amendment to the plan.
The proposal also aims to preserve existing market and affordable housing in Reston — although that language is an encouragement, rather than a mandate.
The idea of biophilia — a designation given to communities that protect and cultivate nature while creating deep connections with the natural world — is also emphasized in future planning and development in Reston.
As alluded to during previous discussions in April, the latest plan includes a chapter called “Planning a New Town” that combines the principles of equity, community health and economic development under an umbrella chapter instead of separate ones.
“I am looking forward to reviewing the staff report to ensure that it includes the essence of goals from that Board Matter three years ago. Last updated in 2015, the Reston Comprehensive Plan is the guiding document for land use and development decisions in Reston,” Alcorn wrote in his weekly newsletter to constituents.
The task force’s initial version drew consternation from the board, which saw it as overtly prescriptive and an overstep of what the county can require by law. The board also worried it would set a precedent of establishing separate principles of community health and equity for one community within the county.
The staff’s version of the report also departs from the task force’s version on several key points.
The task force sought to remove an exemption in the plan that removed ground-level retail located in office, hotel and residential buildings from calculations when determining how much a developer should pay into the county’s housing trust fund. Read More
The most recent update of Reston’s draft comprehensive plan got a kudos from the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors earlier this week.
At a land use policy committee meeting yesterday (Tuesday), board members said the latest version of the plan — which has been under the pen for nearly two years — averts the prescriptive policy language put in place by a community task force that created the first draft of the new plan roughly two years ago.
An official staff report is expected next month, followed by a June 14 Fairfax County Planning Commission public hearing and a board public hearing on July 11.
As discussed last month by the planning commission, the latest version by county staff focuses on supporting guidance in existing county policies, avoiding language that could be seen as establishing new policies.
New planning principles of equity, community health and economic development were consolidated into a chapter on the “new town” of Reston instead of getting separate chapters.
Franconia Supervisor Supervisor Rodney Lusk said he was particularly pleased with the guidance on economic development for Reston, which says support for housing, businesses, education and access to Metro’s Silver Line stations is key to maintaining the area’s “unique community and business climate.”
But Dranesville District Supervisor John Foust said he was unsure if there was anything particularly unique about Reston that warranted guidance.
“I’m not sure why Reston feels like it has to take a position on that. It doesn’t seem to be anything particularly unique,” Foust said.
He added that economic development guidance for a particular area could open up other area plans to similar updates when the guidance should simply be applied countywide.
Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn, who initiated the review and held dozens of meetings with the community task force, said he wouldn’t support the new plan if he didn’t feel it was an improvement over Reston’s current plan.
Alcorn also asked staff to create a chart that depicts significant issues and concerns.
“Overall, I want to make sure we balance this in the right way, because I don’t want to dumb down Reston’s comprehensive plan,” Alcorn said.
County staff noted that they tightened up language in the task force’s version of the plan.
Providence District Supervisor Dahlia Palchik said she was pleased the new plan is now “going in the right direction.”
“This is in a much better place,” she said.