Reston Comprehensive Plan Amendment Raises Fairfax Board's Concerns

RESTON, VA — Members of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors got their first look Tuesday at the draft Reston Comprehensive Plan Amendment created by a 31-member task force over the last two years. Their initial response to the document was one of concern.

"To be frank, I'm very concerned that we have what I would consider should be policy plan chapters in the policy plan in the Reston plan," said Sully District Supervisor Kathy Smith, who chairs the board's land use committee.

Smith made the comment following a presentation by county staff to the land use committee Tuesday afternoon at the Fairfax County Government Center.

When the Reston Comprehensive Plan Review Task Force wrapped up its work in August, it delivered a 162-page draft amendment for public review.

The lengthy document covers a number of topic areas, including planning principles, heritage resources, transportation, public facilities, land use, affordable housing, parks, environmental stewardship, public art and economic development. In addition, the task force added chapters about community health and equity, which are not currently included in the Fairfax County Plan.

"When I think of equity and I think of the policy that this board approved called One Fairfax, our equity chapter needs to be in the policy plan, because we are 'one Fairfax,'" Smith said. "We can't say that we're going to put these things that are so important to this board in separate sections of the policy plan."

Mason District Supervisor Penny Gross, who is the longest serving member of board, agreed with Smith.

"It's on page 134 where it says that this is the first plan to explicitly consider equity in the comprehensive plan," she said. "Our equity, our One Fairfax overarches everything we do. We don't need to write it into every sentence."

Gross worried that the amendment might ultimately fail under its sheer weight, because it was so long and contained so many things not normally included in comprehensive plans.

"When I read this, a lot of this looks like a sales brochure for Reston," she said, with a laugh. "I do like the public art piece, it is the last two pages. ... But I am concerned about that in an effort to break down barriers, there seems to be setting up additional barriers here."

Tracy Strunk, director of the county's department of planning and development, told the committee her office was currently putting together a work plan to update One Fairfax, the county's racial and social equity plan.

"Our intention is that probably sometime this winter, we would be coming to the board for authorization for the policy plan work," she said. "Part of the prioritization of different areas would be part of that conversation as well."

While Board Chair Jeff McKay did not have a problem with the task force trying to set precedent with the amendment, he did not want it confusing or conflicting with other countywide policies.

"As someone who has worked very hard on making equity a countywide policy in literally every single thing we do, I am troubled when I hear things like, 'This is the first time we've done this in the comprehensive plan,' he said. "It may be the first time we put wording in the comprehensive plan, but we have a countywide policy that guides everything we do in the county in terms of equity that also has to be addressed and how those two intertwine with each other is important."

Springfield District Supervisor Pat Herrity echoed McKay's concerns about conflicting language, especially in regard to economic development.

"The conflicts also make it more complicated for developers when they've got to figure out which one they've got to comply with or they have to comply with both," he said. "I think there's work to do. Reston is a critical economic corridor for us, absolutely critical."

Building on that comment, Franconia District Supervisor Rodney Lusk said that it was important to ensure that Reston, like Tysons, continued to be one of the county's leading business centers.

"There might be unique things about Reston that we have to acknowledge and I think looking at the economic development section, there is some attempt to do that," he said. "To me, that's not necessarily bad."

To attract certain types of business to Reston, Lusk said the county needed to be cognizant of the message it was sending out to the business community.

"These elements that I see in this section are going to be going right to the heart of our CEOs and decision makers who want to decide where to locate their businesses," he said. "I don't see this as a bad thing. I hope we will think about this, as we are continuing this conversation."

The current deadline for public comment on the draft amendment is Oct. 28. Since county staff will need to update the language of the draft so that it's consistent with the comprehensive plan language, McKay suggested that the public comment deadline be extended.

McKay also suggested that both the planning commission and board of supervisors would likely need more time to consider the full plan, especially when it came to ensuring that it was consistent with what was already the countywide plan.

"I get very concerned, representing the whole county, of anyone walking away thinking that that only pertains to Reston and this stuff is not happening in the rest of the county and most of this stuff is," McKay said.