Reston National Golf Course Owners To Assert Underlying Zoning Rights

RESTON, VA — The owners of Reston National Golf Course are not happy with Supervisor Walter Alcorn's recent announcement that he would not support redevelopment of their property.

"We're generally very disappointed in the supervisor's decision to really shut down an open conversation," said Steve Siegel, a partner with Weller Development, which owns the golf course with War Horse Cities. "We weren't asking for more than that, neither were the supporters of that same notion."

Alcorn said in a statement released at the end of September he based his decision on the feedback he's received from residents who live around the golf course, which overwhelming opposed redevelopment.

During a Facebook Live interview with Patch editor Michael O'Connell on Friday, Siegel criticized a "very small contingency of people" for opposing a redevelopment that impacts not just Reston but the whole county.

"There are a lot of people out there, both individuals and groups, that asked for an open, public, transparent conversation about the future potential of this really critically important parcel of land, one of the largest pieces of land in the county that's undeveloped," he said.

Back in August, Weller and War Horse Cities released a visioning plan for the 164-acre golf course.

"We offered 100 acres of permanent, publicly accessible open space," Siegel said. "We had offered a conservancy or nature preserve, which would offer people that lived by the course the right actually to access that land, which is a better condition than what exists today. They adamantly opposed it. So they're clearly not for open space, and they're conflating the two issues between open space and golf course. It's private property."

Now that Alcorn has come out against a plan amendment to redevelop the golf course, Siegel said the owners would be pursing redevelopment based on their legacy zoning rights.

"The property is zoned planned residential community, residential designation, which allows for 20 units to the acre," he said. "There's no covenants on it. It's not subject to Reston Association covenants. There's no open space covenants. The comprehensive plan describes it as private recreation space, private being the key. And the comp plan suggests golf course use, because that's what it's been. But that doesn't mean that the zoning underlying is restricted."

Although some people say that a comprehensive plan amendment would be needed in order for Weller and War Horse Cities to redevelop the land, Siegel contends that was not the case.

'The zoning underlying tells a different story," he said. " So, we would go and exercise our rights, based on the zoning that was put in place in the '60s and '70s."

View the full Facebook Live video below or follow this link to view it on Facebook