Observer Online | Supervisors Should Show Leadership on Reston Heights

Edition of Jan. 11, 2008

Supervisors Should Show Leadership on Reston Heights

To the editor:

On Jan. 7 the Fairfax Board of Supervisors will consider an application by JBG Corp. to build one million square feet of high-rise development at the corner of Reston Parkway and Sunrise Valley Drive. This development, christened "Reston Heights," will feature five high-rise buildings (two 18-story, one 16-story and two 10-story) lined up facing each other in a narrow lot between the existing Popeye's restaurant and the existing (15-story) Reston International Center. This lot is just less than 10 acres in size.

The development will include 498 new residences, more than 425,000 square feet of office space and 145,000 square feet of commercial space. It will also have extensive underground parking. The commercial space is expected to include a number of upscale restaurants and shops, not unlike the Reston Town Center. A conservative estimate is that it will draw at least 2,000 new cars going to and from its premises every day.

How will all those cars get into and out of the development? Access to Reston Parkway and the Dulles Toll Road, which border the property, will not be feasible. All the new traffic will be shunted onto Sunrise Valley Drive, which will soon see a total of seven traffic lights between Reston Parkway and Wiehle Avenue. Residents of established neighborhoods that exit onto Sunrise Valley, like Indian Ridge and Hunters Green, may well end up trapped in their developments for long periods of time waiting for a break in traffic.

Everything about this project is too big. It is wildly out of character with our planned community, the Reston of reasonable, human-scale neighborhoods. This is a level of density that surpasses the Town Centerit even surpasses downtown Bethesda. It will be an ugly blot on our landscape, a Manhattan-like accretion, a concrete canyon. And it will cause untold traffic nightmares for all of us who live and work here.

But because of loopholes in existing law, the project is likely to be approved. The application is being made under the Planned Residential Community ordinance of 1969 and it complies technically with its requirements. The ordinance was drawn up at a time when no one foresaw the coming explosive growth of western Fairfax County or the shift to two-income couples with attendant increases in automobiles per family. The PRC ordinance specifies no height limitation for buildings in Reston. Does that mean it's a good idea to build 18-story buildings? Why not 60- or 70-story buildings like in New York City? There is nothing to prevent that exceptpossiblythe good sense of our county supervisors.

And that is the crux of the issue. When we elect our supervisors, we expect them to exercise good judgment on issues of pressing local concern. We want them to be leaders, not mere administrators. They should weigh all the factors involved in any issue and cast their votes for the option that best promotes the good of our community. On the Reston Heights application, they should not feel obliged to approve this level of over-development simply because it meets the letter of the law, in a narrow, technical sense.

In this case especially, our supervisors should use their good judgment, wisdom and influence to broker a solution that is more appropriate to the people's needs for sensible development, manageable traffic and a suburban, low-rise esthetic. There is no need to create a pocket of Manhattan-like density on the highest and most visible point in Reston.

Marie Huhtala

Reston