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.
