November Election: More of the Same?

On Sunday, the Post included four "takes" on November's gubernatorial election. Garrett Epps, a political analyst, settled more platitudes. According to Epps, Virginia's elections are always about what happens next. Well, that clarifies everything. Bob Chase, Director of the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance, made the argument for more transportation funding. A one percent sales tax would yield, Chase argued, $1 billion a year, funding most of Virginia's most important strategic transportation priorities over the next 20 years. What Chase did not say was that the Alliance's notion of transportation is paving over as much as Northern Virginia as possible. Governor Kaine argued that Virginia's voters wanted business as usual and that, therefore, Creigh Deeds was best suited to spend the next four years in the governor's mansion. Morgan Griffith, the leader of the Republican majority in the House of Delegates, came out for a free lunch for everyone: a state government that delivered results but placed no additional burdens on Virginia's citizens.

As you sit in a traffic jam on the Toll Road or on Reston Parkway, contemplating that your car and those around you are consuming an unsustainable amount of gasoline, polluting the air, and warming the earth, you might wonder whether there's any reason for hope. An election that pits "business as usual" against "a free lunch for all" doesn't seem likely to produce any solution's to Northern Virginia's transportation and environment woes. At least, the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance acknowledges that transportation is a problem and that fixing it will cost real money. Too bad all the Alliance wants to do is build more roads. The only mass transit projects mentioned on its site are Dulles rail and extending the Orange Line to Centreville. The Alliance's priorities are what it calls the missing links in the area's road network. And the Alliance's notion of a funding source -- a one percent sales tax -- will put the burden of funding transportation on the least affluent portion of the population.

Board of Supervisors Disenfranchises Significant Others

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, at its meeting this week, approved two changes to the memorandum of understanding between the County and the Reston Community Center. One change will allow electronic or mail voting. You may remember that Supervisor Hudgins vetoed that idea when it was raised several years ago. Supervisor Hudgins' electronic newsletter gave no indication why she agreed to the change now.

The second change to the memorandum of understanding voided the current arrangement whereby every resident of Small Tax District No. 5 can vote in the Reston Community Center's preference poll for members of the Board of Governors. Instead, the memorandum of understanding now allows each residential and commercial address one vote. With one small change, the Board of Supervisors took the right to vote away from every "significant other" in Reston. And it gave every business in Reston a vote.

Now to be fair, the RCC preference poll is something of a farce. Voters don't choose members of the Board of Governors. According to the Board of Governors, only Supervisory Hudgins has the authority to appoint members of the Board. In the preference poll, the community is only making recommendations to the Supervisor.

Nevertheless, it is shocking that the Board of Governors would take it upon itself to change the voting arrangements without engaging the Reston community in some sort of dialogue first. It is more than shocking that the Board of Governors, Supervisor Hudgins, and the Board of Supervisors should limit still further local democracy in Reston.

Fairfax County Taxes: How High?

The GoReston blog contains an account of Monday's "district meeting" regarding the indoor recreation facility. The account repeats a claim that pops up almost any time the discussion turns to public services. The GoReston blogger claims that Fairfax County and Reston Association are pricing families out of the county.

According the figures compiled by the Tax Foundation, Fairfax County's real estate taxes in terms of dollar amount rank 34th among counties with more than 20,000 inhabitants. Sounds impressive... and onerous. Nevertheless, the same figures show that Fairfax County's real estate taxes as a percentage of house value (0.8%) rank 918th among such counties. Interestingly enough, that figure would put Fairfax County below nearly all California counties, where by law real estate taxes cannot exceed 1.0% of property value. And most observers consider California's real estate taxes far too low to support reasonable public services. Fairfax County's real estate taxes as a percentage of family income (3.7%) rank 260th. So much for the idea that the County's taxes are too high for most families.

Metro Accident: Implications for Dulles Rail

The apparent failure of Metro's signaling system yesterday could have serious implications for the proposed Dulles Rail line.

Yesterday's accident represents, first a major blow to Metro's corporate pride. Metro has always been proud that it relies on computers, not human operators, to control its trains. As with many aspects of Metro, the party line has always been that the transit systems that existed before Metro were inferior and that Metro's highly engineered approach represented a significant step forward. Folks who have used the New York or London systems on a regular basis may not be completely convinced. Stairs, for example, don't break down nearly as often as escalators. Nonetheless Metro's future is tied up with heavy reliance on automated signaling systems.

Metro is counting on its signaling system to allow it to accommodate more trains through the Roslyn tunnel. When Dulles rail goes into operation, its trains will share the Roslyn tunnel with Blue and Orange trains. To reduce congestion at Roslyn, Metro has suggested diverting some Blue line trains to the Yellow line, allowing them to cross the Potomac via the Yellow line bridge. It remains to be see whether this proposal will be implemented. The other option is to reduce the headway between trains. Metro now allows something like six minutes between trains. Allegedly trains in Japan operate with one or two minutes headways. Some have suggested that Metro could reduce its headways to three minutes, more or less doubling the number of trains possible on any stretch of track, particularly the Roslyn tunnel.

Reducing headways is possible only by relying still more heavily on automated controls. If Metro loses faith in its current system or, perhaps more important, if the public loses faith in it, Metro will have to find a better system or be content with running with the current headways. Finding a better system would probably not be easy or swift. Retaining the current headways will limit the number of trains Metro could run on Dulles rail. Somehow, I doubt that potential customers will ride Dulles rail if trains run only every 15-20 minutes.

The real solution has always been digging a second Roslyn tunnel and expanding the Orange line from two tracks to four. -- a proposition even more expensive than building Dulles rail, but vitally necessary. Perhaps someone ought to ask Ken Plum and the other Dulles rail advocates how soon they plan to fund the needed expansion.

Reston Land Use College: Inadvertent Lessons?

Tuesday night, Fairfax County held a briefing on planning and zoning procedures for Reston residents. Termed a "land use college," the briefing featured staff from the planning and zoning office and the County attorney's office.

An attorney from the County attorney's office described the legal basis for planning and zoning in Fairfax County. Since Virginia is one of the few states to continue to adhere to the so-called Dillon rule, Virginia counties have only those powers that the General Assembly grants them. Virginia law permits, but does not mandate, zoning. Virginia law requires counties to establish a comprehensive plan. The plan applies only to public facilities, however, and is not legally binding. Although 8 of the 4o senators and 18 of the 100 members of the House of Delegates come from Fairfax County, the General Assembly remains skeptical about planning and zoning. Several pieces of legislation under consideration would limit the County's ability to make land use decisions.

Heidi Merkel, a senior planner for the County, explained that the County has established an elaborate zoning ordinance, documented in several volumes. Typically, the County solicits community input about land use decisions. The County assumes that the Reston Planning and Zoning Committee speaks for the Reston community. The County's Planning Commission reviews land use decisions and makes recommendations to the Board of Supervisors. Regardless of community input, any Planning Commission recommendations, the comprehensive plan, or the zoning ordinance, the Board of Supervisors has the final say about all land use decisions. Since the Board defers to the Supervisor within whose district the land belongs, Supervisor Hudgins makes all land use decisions for Reston. In effect, appropriate planning and zoning is whatever Supervisor Hudgins says it is.

Ms. Merkel said that the County intended to revise the Reston Master Plan, as Supervisor Hudgins promised some time ago. Ms. Merkel added, however, that the County had no firm schedule for the revision. The review would proceed in stages: general principles, the Dulles rail corridor, the town center, residential areas, and finally, the village centers. She added that the Board of Supervisors had directed the staff to conduct a special study of the Dulles rail corridor and that study would precede any revision of the Reston Master Plan. Several residents pointed out that making decisions about the Dulles rail corridor without considering Reston as a whole would defeat the purpose of the Master Plan. Ms. Merkel dismissed these complaints. It was impractical, she said, to consider the entire master plan at once. In addition, the staff were under orders from the Board of Supervisors to proceed quickly with a review of the Dulles rail corridor. The County had before it several proposals from owners along the Dulles toll road for revisions to the County comprehensive plan. Ms. Merkel said that the staff recommended the land use college partly to be sure that community participation in the master plan revision was an informed as possible. The staff would host another orientation session in July and then provide further briefings in September. Ms. Merkel implied that the September briefings would be open to only selected members of the public.

Some in the audience who were new to planning and zoning were clearly taken aback by the rudimentary natural of the planning process. Ms. Merkel, for example, recounted that, in earlier discussions of land use decisions, she has had to explain that the County has no authority to coordinate land use decisions with roads or transportation generally, because the state, not County, is responsible for the roads. The last question from the audience concerned coordinating planning with environmental issues. A resident pointed out that, for urban areas today, environmental concerns, especially air quality, were of paramount importance. She asked how the planning process could address such concerns. Ms. Merkel was rendered speechless. After several minutes, she commented that perhaps environmental issues could be mentioned in the text that accompanies the Reston Master Plan.

How Much is Enough?

The contractors who looked into an indoor recreation facility for Reston reported that community centers typically recover 80-90% of their operating costs through fees and rely on tax revenue for the remainder. The Town of Herndon's policy is that fees will cover 65% of the Herndon Community Center's operating costs. The Fairfax County Park Authority covers 45% of its operating costs with fees. The McLean Community Center covers 30% of its operating costs with something other than tax revenue.

In 1986, the Reston Community Center Board decided that fees would cover no more than 25% of operating costs. In the most recent years, fees have covered only 16% of operating costs. One does not have to be Scrooge to wonder why the folks who use the Community Center should not pay for a larger share of the costs.

Rewriting History

At Monday's Reston Community Center budget hearing, Center staff distributed a four-page document answering frequently asked questions about the proposed indoor recreation facility. In response to the question" Why would the Reston community pay for an indoor recreational facility instead of the County," the RCC Board responded:

"Reston has always paid for recreational amenities desired by the community that exceed those in other parts of the County, or those provided to RA by the Developer..."

First, a little history. When the issue of a community center located in Reston arose in the 1970s, Fairfax County refused to pay for one. It was not a matter of Reston wanting something beyond what the County provided elsewhere. It was, and is, a matter of Reston wanting the same facilities that County built elsewhere. To make matters worse, when Reston residents approved a bond referendum to pay for construction of a community center, the County created Small Tax District No. 5 and insisted that Reston pay for both construction and operation of the community center. If the County had abided by the wording of the bond referendum, Reston would have stopped additional taxes for Small Tax District No. 5 when the bonds were paid off some years ago. Instead Reston continues to pay the operating costs and any new capital costs

Second, the Reston Community Center is far inferior to the recreation centers operated by the Fairfax County Park Authority. RCC is smaller than the recreation centers, has no gym and so on. Even the County has recognized that RCC does not provide the same level of services that a recreation center would. Many years ago, the Park Authority proposed to build a recreation center adjacent to Crossfield elementary school, just south of Reston, but the neighbors killed the project. If life were fair, the County would put a recreation center at Lake Fairfax Park to serve Reston and the northwest portion of the County.

Third, it is true that Reston has paid extra for recreational facilities, but there's no good reason to continue the practice. Surely the fair arrangement would be for Fairfax County, through the General Fund or through the Park Authority, to assume financial responsibility for the Community Center and to pay for any new recreational facilities.

Two small points. The first Reston residents paid for the facilities operated by Reston Association when they bought their homes. The cost of the facilities was built into the original prices. Bob Simon and/or Gulf Reston did not provide them out of the goodness of their hearts. The RCC's answer also states that Falls Church and Fairfax City pay for their own recreational facilities in addition to paying Fairfax County taxes. Falls Church and Fairfax City are not part of Fairfax County, however. Their residents pay only city taxes, not county taxes.

RCC Board Budget Hearing

Monday night, fewer than a hundred residents attended the Reston Community Center’s (RCC) FY 2011 budget hearing. The crowd was smaller than at recent meetings largely because critics of the proposed indoor recreation facility decided that they had already had their say and stayed home.

The FY 2011 proposed budget calls for operating expenditures of $7.1 million, roughly the same level planned for FY 2010 and capital expenditures of $750,000, a $665,000 increase over FY 2010. Board member Beverly Corsham later explained that the capital expenditure figure for 2011 is merely a placeholder. The Board will not decide whether it will make any capital improvements in FY 2011until a needs assessment is completed during FY 2010. The Board proposes to keep the Small Tax District No. 5 tax rate at $0.047 per $100 of assessed value. Based on guidance from Fairfax County, the Board assumes that declines in real estate values will cause the District’s tax revenue to fall by about $400,000 or 6 percent in FY 2011. The Board stated that, in order to remain consistent with Fairfax County’s decision about employee salaries, it was freezing salaries during FY 2010 and may do so again in FY 2011. The Board also directed that operating expenses be reduced by 5% in FY 2010.

The Board announced that it hoped to receive Fairfax County’s permission to use on-line and mail balloting for the preference poll. A community survey, to be conducted in the fall, will solicit citizen input regarding the indoor recreation facility and the district’s tax rate. The Board also expects to learn more about the community’s views at the district meetings to be held by Reston Association over the summer. The Board may revise the FY 2011 budget based on what it hears at the district meetings.

Fewer than a dozen residents commented on the budget proposals. Most spoke about the indoor recreation facility. The speakers were evenly divided, for and against the proposal. Several speakers suggested that the Board look beyond the Brown’s Chapel site and consider all the undeveloped land from Brown’s Chapel to Wiehle Avenue, including Baron Cameron Park. The speakers recommended that RCC and RA include the Fairfax County Park Authority in the discussions. Other speakers questioned the Board’s methodology for a community survey, pointing out that, in an era of cell phones, relying solely on landlines was apt to generate faulty data.

One reason few residents spoke at the hearing was that the Board did not release any budget information until the meeting itself and then released only a one-page summary. The Board did distribute a glossy 24-page annual report, but it consisted largely of self-congratulatory prose about closing the Hunters Woods facility for repairs and then re-opening it.

A closer look at the one-page summary suggests that the Board had good reason to discourage consideration and discussion of its budget proposals. The Board proposes to end FY 2011 with $6.2 million in reserve, virtually a full year’s tax revenue. The Board announced that it was increasing its capital project reserve from $1 million to $3 million and was creating a new Economic and Program Contingency Reserve, proposed to be $2.1 million at the end of FY 2011. In accordance with the Board’s agreement with Fairfax County, it maintains a reserve for feasibility studies equal to 2% of revenue ($153,000) and an emergency maintenance reserve equal to 12% of revenue ($919,000).

Both the capital reserve and contingency reserve are excessive. Although Fairfax County has pushed the Board to construct a three-year capital investment plan, the Board’s presentation demonstrated that it has none. The Board’s only firm plan is to spend $115,000 on needs assessments during FY 2010. Even the placeholder the Board constructed for FY 2011 is less than $1 million. The Board stated that the contingency reserve was to sustain the Center’s programs, presumably in the face of reduced revenues. Nevertheless, the District’s tax revenues would have to decline by over 30% in a single year for it to exhaust a $2.3 million reserve.

The Board has decided to freeze salaries and arbitrarily cut operating expenses even though it has more than enough cash in reserve to provide a cost of living increase and maintain operating expenses at current levels. To add insult to injury, rather than passing the savings along to District’s taxpayers, the Board has decided to use the money to enlarge its reserves.

The size of the District’s reserves demonstrates that the current tax rate is too high. In 2007, Fairfax County forced the Board to reduce the tax rate. Perhaps the County needs to act again.

Kaine's View of Transportation and Planning

Today's Post includes an opinion piece by Tim Kaine outlining his views on transportation and planning issues. Kaine blames a lack of progress on transportation issues on the House Republicans. He takes credit for public-private partnerships, for increased spending on projects other than roads, and for progress toward better planning decisions. He also welcomes the Obama administration's willingness to fund transportation projects.

We all can agree with the Governor that the House Republicans are cave-dwellers, congestion deniers of the first order. But, did Kaine or the Democrats offer credible plans for transportation or planning over the past four years. If the General Assembly had accepted every Kaine proposal for transportation or planning, would we be noticeably better off today? I doubt it.

Let's look at what the Governor takes credit for. Public-private partnerships amount to paying private companies a premium to kept expenditures out of the state's budget -- an accounting gimmick. The Governor refers to attracting private financing, but the truth is that the state can borrow more cheaply than any private firm. You can be sure that the revenues the state has conceded to private firms, for operating the hot lanes, for example, will greatly exceed the expenditures the state would have incurred if it built and operated the lanes itself.

Kaine refers to Dulles rail and other mass transportation projects. But isn't this akin to someone claiming to promote good nutrition by putting a few low-cal decorations atop a seven-layer cake? VDOT's funding is still heavily skewed towards roads. The transportation projects it supports, like Dulles rail, are intended to promote more development, not reduce congestion. In fact, the state's own studies state that Dulles rail will not reduce congestion.

Do localities have any greater powers to control development now than they did four years ago? I doubt it. If they do, Fairfax County certainly is not making use of them.

Since Kaine could serve only one term, one might think that he could risk being bold, laying out for the state what a coherent, effective transportation plan for Northern Virginia would include -- the added taxes, the investments in buses and rail, the restrictions on car use and so on. If not at the beginning of his term, certainly now with less than a year to go. Well, you would be wrong. The Governor and his Democratic allies are stuck in the same rut as ever. They want to campaign again as the NABA party -- Not As Bad As the Republicans. They continue to hope that the voters will ignore the fact that they are bereft of ideas or political courage.

Homeowner Association Legislative Update

Thursday night, Reston Association hosted a workshop on legislative developments that affect homeowner associations. Lucia Trigani of the law firm Mercer Trigani summarized the recent General Assembly's actions regarding associations. Heather Gillespie, Virginia's Common Interest Community Ombudsman reported on progress toward establishing the Common Interest Community Board and the Office of Ombudsman.

The most recent General Assembly passed little legislation that touched on homeowner association. The most important action was to bottle up attempts to water down the legislation enacted last year that established the Common Interest Community Board. The General Assembly considered a bill that would have required Associations to disclose the salaries of their employees. The final version limited the requirement to an Association's six highest paid employees whose compensation exceeds $75,000. Ms. Trigani credited Milton Matthews, of the Reston Association, with providing key testimony that persuaded legislators to limit the disclosure of employees' salaries.

Ms. Gillespie reported that efforts to enact regulations for the Common Interest Community Ombudsman are proceeding but will not be complete for another year. In the meantime, her office is considering all complaints submitted. She added that none of these complaints have warranted an investigation or referral to the Common Interest Community Board. Ms. Trigani, whom Governor Kaine appointed to chair the Board, said that the Board had yet to decide what sorts of complaints the Ombudsman should consider. She was inclined to limit them to alleged violations of an Association's rules or of state law or regulations. She saw no role for the Board in disagreements between Associations and their members about such matters as design convenants. She added that many legislators had given their constituents the impression that the Board and the Ombudsman would act as advocates for homeowners. She said that this was not the case.

Reston Planning Case Study

The story in this week's Reston Connection regarding redevelopment of the Fairway apartments provides an interesting case study in Reston's planning woes.

It reminds us, first, that the only thing approximating community input is in the hands of the so-called Reston Planning and Zoning Committee, a volunteer, self-appointed group organized by Reston Association.

Second, the article makes clear that, under current planning and zoning ordinance and procedures, many properties, including the Fairway apartments, are zoned for much higher densities than their current development. When Fairfax County first raised the issue of revising the planning and zoning ordinance, staff suggested that a reasonable revision would include freezing zoning at the current level of development rather than whatever density was considered when the property was first developed. When Supervisor Hudgins seized control of the revision process, that notion disappeared, never to be seen or heard of again.

Third, the story also makes clear that the current planning process deals with properties on a piecemeal basis, without considering the wider impacts that higher densities might bring. A member of the Planning and Zoning committee commented that "from a planning standpoint" the higher density project looked "pretty good." He didn't explain what "pretty good" meant, but the context suggests that he was talking about the building design and so on. Certainly reviewers need to consider such things, but, if they are to serve the community, they need also to consider the project's potential impact on surrounding properties and on the community as a whole. Higher densities mean more cars on Reston's roads, for example; roads that, according to the County's own studies, are already over-crowded. If the planning and zoning process, in the Planning and Zoning Committee or elsewhere, can not and does not consider such wider impacts, it's of little use. It need not be this way. In Montgomery County, for example, a project's impact on traffic and school populations, for example, play large roles in the planning process.

Finally, the story demonstrates that some of the concepts casually tossed around by developers and planners have little real meaning. Apparently, one of the justifications for higher densities at the Fairway apartments is that the site is near Lake Anne and the Reston Town Center and business owners in those areas are looking for more foot traffic. I was not aware, first, that it is now the community's responsibility to rebuild itself to meet business owners' needs. More important, the notion that people are going to walk to stories is overblown. My own experience is that folks in Northern Virginia rarely walk to the stores, almost never to the grocery store, for example. For all the hoopla about the Town Center being walkable, I would venture to say that less than five percent of Harris Teeter's, Best Buy's, or Office Depot's business comes from foot traffic, perhaps much less than five percent.

An article by Ruth Steiner, a planning expert from academia, describes the limited role foot traffic plays in shopping center business, even around BART stations in the San Francisco area. Steiner also makes the argument that stores can not survive on foot traffic alone. Since they need the customers that come by car, their stores need parking spaces. Once parking spaces are available, everyone will drive to the stores, even people who could walk. If the stores prosper, they will attract business from even wider areas, drawing still more traffic. In the end, locating stores near dense developments and rail stations may indeed increase traffic and congestion, rather than reduce it, as our developers are wont to argue. You don't have to buy all of Steiner's argument to recognize that merely including the word "walkability" does not make a development proposal more attractive.

Democratic Primary Results

Creigh Deeds' victory in the Democratic gubernatorial primary suggests that Virginia has not become quite as "blue" as someone commentators had thought. But what does it bode for Northern Virginia and Reston? Since Deeds seemed the candidate least open to change and since he does not come from Northern Virginia, it might seem that Northern Virginia will have to wait another four years at least for the Commonwealth to address the region's transportation and planning issues. I don't recall Deeds suggesting, for example, that Virginia should reconsider the Dillon rule (which limits the powers of local governments) as McAuliffe did.

Of perhaps greater significance for Northern Virginia was the defeat of veteran member of the House of Delegates from Northern Virginia, Robert Hull, in the Democratic primary. Perhaps other aspiring candidates will realize that delegates are not elected for life.

Transit Oriented Development

Today's GoREston features an interesting piece on planned developments in Reston and especially on transit oriented development. In general, the piece argues against the planned densities and the reliance on what's called transportation demand management as the means to make additional densities fit within the current transportation infrastructure. The principal example of transportation demand management offered is restricting the number of parking places at new developments.

Limiting parking appeals to planners because it does not cost the developer or the County anything. In fact, it saves the developer money. What impact it will have on transportation resources or on the quality of life is really unknown. One could, for example, point to the vehicles parked along Soapstone Drive as an example of what happens when parking is inadequate. To get people out of their cars will require both incentives and disincentives. Perhaps limiting parking will at some point be one of the disincentives that makes sense but at this point it seems premature.

The construction planned for Reston and for the Toll Road corridor is breath-taking, perhaps excessive by any standard. Nevertheless, higher densities are likely in areas like Reston and Tysons, if only because residents have yet to find a way to stop them. To be fair, planners can make a reasonable case for some, if not all these developments.

The obvious response from the Reston community should be to ask where the transit in this so-called transit-oriented development is. The County is proposing transit-oriented development without the transit. No one who knows anything about public transportation would accept the proposition that locating higher densities along a new subway line will make a significant dent in auto use. In fact, the studies supporting the Dulles rail line state that the new rail line will not decrease traffic in the Dulles corridor. Nevertheless, the County would have you believe putting apartments near a Metro line will cut congestion.

(In fact, the available research indicates that at best people who live in areas with higher densities use their cars 20 percent less than people who live in low density areas. And there is every reason to believe that more affluent, older people will not decrease their auto use just because they live in denser areas.)

If new construction can not be stopped, the response from the community should be a push for a real transportation plan (that includes measures that will get people out of their cars) and then implementation of those measures. A good place to start would be implementation of the measures already identified as needed to integrate the Whiele Ave Metro station into the community. These include changes in traffic patterns and establishment of a feeder bus service. Now be warned. The proposed changes means substantial capital investments and operating more buses means additional operating costs every year, not just capital costs. But, if the choice is gridlock or a combination of a reasonable quality of life and higher taxes, what would you choose?

Reston Master Plan

Next Tuesday, Fairfax County will host the first in a series of briefings it calls a Land Use College. The briefings are intended to acquaint residents with some of the details of the land use planning process so that they can participate more intelligently in planning discussions.

As John Lovaas explains in his column in this week's Reston Connection, revision of the Reston Master Plan is about to start. Folks who want to take part in the revision process would do well to attend the Land Use College.

John is rightly critical of recent land use decisions in Reston and of the weaknesses of the current Master Plan. He includes a formidable list of developments already approved for Reston.

The fundamental weakness in the current planning process for Reston is not so much the Master Plan but the portions of the Fairfax County planning ordinance that applies to Reston (and only two other small sections of the County.) The planning ordinance assumes that a single developer is responsible for Reston and allows that developer a great deal of latitude in planning and implementing development. This arrangement may have made sense when there was a single developer, but it makes little sense now. Because there is no single developer, the ordinance in effect allows the County a great deal more latitude in Reston than it can exercise elsewhere in the County. In effect, we have traded Bob Simon for Cathy Hudgins. As much as people may object to any one proposed development (and there do seem to be far too many and development that it is too dense), fighting any one proposal will not solve the problem. People who care about Reston need to work to have the ordinance changed so that overall control is put in the residents' hands, perhaps in an elected planning and zoning board for Reston.

Choices in June 9 Democratic Primary

If you are interested in Reston's transportation and planning woes, whom should vote for on Tuesday?

Creigh Deeds does not mention either transportation or planning on his website.

Brian Moran's site says he favors forward-looking solutions and a transportation system that is statewide, sufficient, and sustainable. It says that Moran favors expanding mass transit.

Terry McAuliffe's site provides a lot of words about transportation and some about planning. McAuliffe says he favors a long-term approach. He acknowledges that Virginia needs an honest discussion of funding. He's against raising taxes while times are bad, but hints that he might consider higher taxes in the future. He also hints that the Federal government ought to contribute more to solve Virginia's transportation problems. He says that we need to improve land use planning. He would finish Dulles rail and consider what other communities should be linked to Metro. (Does he mean extending Metro down I-66 or I-95?) He favors public-private partnerships and mentions using the latest technology for our roads and transit.

Based on the candidates' websites, you have to favor McAuliffe.

In reality, the three sites taken together demonstrate how far we are from confronting Northern Virginia's transportation, planning, and environmental issues.

Providing enough public transportation to create an alternative to using private cars will cost sums unthinkable to today's elected officials. If Dulles Rail costs $4-6 billion, the capital cost of a real public transportation network (one that gets people out of their cars) will cost $40-60 billion at least. That means higher state and local taxes and probably financial disincentives to using cars (more toll roads, car taxes, user fees and so on). Perhaps the Federals will pick up some of the capital costs, but they are unlikely to take on the operating costs. Since a credible transit network in Northern Virginia will rely heavily on buses (the densities won't sustain either heavy or light rail in most areas), the operating costs will be considerable.

"Public-private partnerships" and "new technology" sound modern and forward-thinking, but neither offers much in the way of real solutions.

What does the private sector in the US know about public transportation that governments don't know or can't learn? Virginia's public-private partnerships amount to paying private companies a premium to take large expenditures off the books. If "hot lanes" made sense (which they don't) there's no reason that Virginia could not build and operate them -- other than elected officials don't want to admit how much they cost over the long run.

What new technology is going to appear that's better than the existing Metro cars, light rail vehicles or buses? Considering that the basic technology for mass transit has not changed in nearly a hundred years, a technological solution is very unlikely.

All this sounds intimidating and it is. Nevertheless, we won't solve our transportation problems, reduce pollution, and protect our quality of life as soon as we remain in denial.

Urge to Develop Alive and Well

With economic activity, especially new construction, at a low ebb and with increasing concern about Northern Virginia's transportation and environmental challenges, one might imagine that county governments, landowners, and developers had lost interest in more construction. Or at least one might imagine that they were thinking about different kinds of development. One would be wrong on both counts.

As the Washington Post reported, Loudoun County asked stakeholders in the Route 28 corridor for their assessments of the corridor's development potential and for suggestions about encouraging more development. The County wants more commercial development in order to broaden its tax base. The staff report makes it clear that the key players are thinking about development as usual. The stakeholders imagined a corridor filled with commercial office space, especially near Dulles airport. They envision large mixed use developments around metrorail stations and so on. They suggest that Loudoun County has to offer more incentives and a more lenient planning processs (like Fairfax's, says the report) if it wants more development. The report praises the corridor's transportation facilities, pointing to easy access to the airport and the interstate system. Other than mentioning metrorail stations as the sites for future development, the report does not mention public transportation or efforts to get workers or residents out of their cars.

For Reston, this report is relevant in at least two ways. First, it indicates that we are likely to see more development (and more traffic and pollution) to the west once the economy improves. It also means that we cannot count on county officials, landowners, or developers torecognize on their own that "development as usual" is not good enough and that we need something better

Commentary: Indoor Recreation Facility

Last night’s meeting at Hunters Woods raised issues for the Reston community, some new, some old. Perhaps, over the coming months, the community will resolve some of them.

Resolutions will, however, be hard to come by if the tone of future conversations resembles the belligerent and antagonistic approach adopted by most speakers last night. Some speakers professed a willingness to listen to other viewpoints, but sweet reason was in short supply in the audience. Particularly troubling was the repeated message that Brown’s Chapel belongs, in reality, to the families who live nearby, and not to the whole Reston community. There’s no reason why, for example, the North Point communities should have anything more to say about a master plan for Brown’s Chapel, if one is needed, than any other community in Reston. Yet that’s that one cluster president claimed. Also disturbing is the fact that so many people are energized only by protecting what they consider their bit of turf. Reston faces serious transportation problems and the continued threat of inappropriately dense development, both facilitated by inadequate planning and zoning procedures. Yet one could go to many public meetings about public transportation or planning and zoning and never see the kind of energy displayed last night.

Having said that, it is also true that the RA and RCC boards have only themselves to blame. Letting it slip that a new facility was intended for Brown’s Chapel before consulting the entire community and assembling real support was monumentally stupid. Posting a draft contractor’s report on the RCC website, without apparently having it reviewed thoroughly, and then removing it and issuing a revised report three weeks later won’t win any prizes either. The sad truth is that both boards are accustomed to working outside public scrutiny, bending the rules, and imposing their will on the community. Accusations that they listen to Supervisor Hudgins and to developers more than the community certainly seem credible. And neither board has a record of solid achievement. After all, Reston wouldn’t face a deficit in indoor recreation facilities, if either RA or RCC did what they were supposed to. Cooperation is a good thing, but when one band of bumblers cooperates with another band of bumblers, the result is just more bumbling.

RCC/RA Board Meeting

RCC/RA Board Meeting: Brown's Chapel Neighbors Blast Recreation Center Plans

Last night, several hundred people attended a joint meeting of the Reston Association Board and the Reston Community Center Board of Governors at the Hunters Woods Community Center. After brief comments by Carol Ann Bradley, the RCC Board Chairperson and Robin Smyers, the RA President, the meeting heard a 45-minute presentation by the contractors, Brailsford and Dunleavy regarding the feasibility of an indoor recreation center in Reston. After the RCC Board convened its monthly meeting, it listened for several hours as Reston residents offered their comments about the prospect of a new indoor facility and especially about the possibility of locating it at Brown’s Chapel.

Bradley said that RA and RCC began a collaborative effort nearly a year ago aimed at making the most of their resources to provide recreation opportunities in Reston. She offered assurances that RCC would not agree to a new facility without getting the consent of the community. She also said that RCC would not agree to a facility if it meant raising the tax rate for Small Tax District No. 5, which funds RCC. Smyers offered similar assurances that RA could not convey property to RCC without getting approval from its members in a referendum. Bradley announced that RCC would hold meetings over the summer to get feedback from residents about a new facility. She added that RCC’s annual budget meeting is scheduled for June 15. Smyers said that RA would hold four district meetings during the summer to brief residents about the history of recreation facilities in Reston and to solicit comments about a possible new facility.

The representatives from Brailsford and Dunleavy stated that a reasonable case could be made for an indoor facility. Recreation is part of Reston’s vision. The community has extensive outdoor facilities but few indoor facilities. The community has considered various facilities in the past, especially “bubbles” over swimming pools and tennis courts, but no new facilities have been built since 1994. Swimming and other groups continue to campaign for additional facilities. The contractors reported that Reston’s high family incomes and demographics, particularly the growing number of residents over 55, suggest that it could readily support additional indoor facilities. In addition, the population in the areas around Reston is likely to increase significantly in the next decade, putting more pressure on existing recreation facilities and creating a clientele that a Reston facility could draw from.

The contractors laid out three possible facilities. Each would offer space for swimming, tennis, fitness, formal meetings, passive recreation (pool tables and the like), and a gymnasium. The options range from 120,000 to 175,000 square feet and would cost between $37 and $49 million to construct. Assuming user fees would cover 74-80 percent of the operating costs and Reston residents made up 90 percent of the users, the contractors calculated that the operating cost to Small Tax District No. 5 would be about a $1 million a year.

A new facility is at least three to four years away, the contractors stated, without considering the need for RCC and RA referenda. The contractors reported that they have been working with Arlington County on a new recreation facility since 2002 and ground has yet to be broken.

During the contractors’ presentation, the atmosphere in the Community Center was hostile. Members of the audience repeatedly interrupted the presenters, shouting out criticisms. When members of the two Boards asked questions of the contractors, angry shouts were heard demanding that they stand and speak up.

Most of the comments that followed over the next several hours continued the same angry tone. The leader of a new “Save Brown’s Chapel” organization and the presidents of two clusters adjacent to Brown’s Chapel, in particular, demanded that RCC and RA stop planning any changes to Brown’s Chapel. The Save Brown’s Chapel group promised to file suit against RA if it attempted to make land available for an indoor facility. One cluster president insisted that RA stop any activities regarding Brown’s Chapel until the communities in North Point had approved a master plan for the park.

Many of the arguments against putting an indoor facility at Brown’s Chapel centered on the need to preserve green space and on the importance of green space in Reston’s quality of life. A typical comment was that “once you cut down trees, you never get them back.” Others described the baseball fields at Brown’s Chapel as cherished sites of their boyhoods and key parts of Reston’s baseball program. Others simply objected to building a new facility near their homes.

Critics of a Brown’s Chapel site were split about the need for a new indoor facility. Some were truly of the “not in my backyard” school. They conceded that Reston needed more facilities but just not near Brown’s Chapel. There was talk of the Save Brown’s Chapel group working with the swimming and tennis communities to identify alternatives – perhaps putting bubble on the Lake Newport pool or having Fairfax County build indoor courts in the Reston Town Center.

Others opposed any new facility. They claimed it was not needed. It was too big, too expensive. The community could not afford it. It would be used by many people from outside Reston. Reston residents had resisted all the other plans for indoor facilities and they would resist this one too, they claimed.

Interlaced with objections to a facility were criticisms of the RA and RCC boards. Opponents claimed that the boards’ protestations that no decisions had been reached and that they were looking for citizen input were false and misleading. “It was a done deal,” one commentator said. Another accused the RA board of becoming subservient to Fairfax County and to Supervisor Cathy Hudgins and serving the interests of developers rather than the community. Several people questioned the contractors’ numbers, claiming that they were made up just to support what RA and RCC had already decided to do.