Reston Needs to Reform Development Plan Approvals

The St Johns wood redevelopment project has shed light on a flawed community engagement and approval process for the large scale development projects under way or in planning here in Reston.

There are flaws in the updated Reston Master plan updates from last year as it lacks in input from the people who live here. In addition, DRB and P&Z and Supervisor Hudgins review processes allow for limited community engagement in these projects. Without a more balanced approach between the voice of the citizens living in this community on the one hand and developers interests and Fairfax county on the other side, Reston will grow faster than its current infrastructure can handle. One example is St Johns Wood. Another is the new Reston Wiehle project that - if approved -will add 1000 residential units to an already congested area by the Wiehle metro station. The developers are asking for parking exemptions, which would mean residents would not have proper parking space allotment. The plan is to allow parking along the Sunset hills road instead of accommodating more parking inside the new complex. No one seems to have a plan for where people will park their cars or for how the cars from the new units will add to congestion in this area.

There are other several plans in the docket which fail to adequately address the needs of the Reston community that live and thrive here today. Unfortunately, Reston P&Z and Supervisor Hudgins seem to fully ignore Reston citizens feedback in favor of developers. A meeting that took place at RA offices earlier this week showed no possibility of this dynamic changing, where the Supervisor and P&Z lacked interest in opening up a dialogue about improvements into the process.

This is an important fork in the road for us in Reston if we are to have influence in how Reston will look like in five or ten years. Several community members are regrouping and discussing how we can drive a change to the process and players involved in the process. If you are interested in engaging more in these discussions and to come up a get well plan, please contact Arlene Krieger at arkrieg@verizon.net

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Have a great day!