Treepocalypse Soon: Stream Restoration Moves North of the Toll Road

This map of terror shows that the army of bulldozers, yellow crime scene tape and other tree-fellin' materials are about to move north of the Toll Road, as the ongoing stream deforestation restoration process moves to the Colvin Run Watershed. DON'T YOU SEE THAT THE REACHES ARE BLEEDING? FROM THE TREES? Well, if trees had blood and that blood was hot pink.

Actually, the things we learned from the earlier process in the Glade and Snakeden reaches were that 1) WSSI, the company doing the work on this multi-year project, has tried hard to be responsive to community concerns but has to cut down trees to do its work and 2) Restonians love trees.

Both groups will have a chance to meet again during the first meeting about the next phase of stream restoration from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday at Forest Edge Elementary.

If you live East of Reston Parkway and north of the Dulles Toll Road, you are invited to hear about Reston’s Stream Restoration Project in the Colvin Run watershed.  Preliminary designs are underway for the Uplands – Tall Oaks area. Learn about the history and purpose of the restoration project and the plans for this segment.

In the meantime, you can read WSSI's nifty brochure. You'll notice this fancy brochure is on the "Inter Web," so maybe fewer trees were felled in its production.

Reston Master Plan: Strawmen and Sympathy

How much fun was the Reston Master Plan meeting earlier in the week? The "strawman" was propped up by county officials and then copy-edited, and three different groups shared their own visions of Reston's future.

Heidi Merkel, a senior planner with the county's department of planning and zoning, started the meeting by presenting Reston Founder Bob Simon's original principles, then presenting examples staff came up with. Simon's original goals focused on providing a wide variety of leisure options, housing options, the importance of living and working in the same community and more.

Merkel said the staff examples were only presented to start discussion. They included preserving the long-term stability of Reston, promoting a wide range of mobility options, encouraging a transportation network that supports the planned land uses, improve connectivity throughout the community and encouraging the expansion of housing diversity, among others.

Jerry Volloy, representing the Alliance of Reston Clusters and Homeowners, presented the group's position paper on planning principles. He said the study should determine how much development is possible versus how much is best for the community. He said development should be well planned and the necessary infrastructure and transportation improvements should be in place before development occurs.

Reston resident Kathy Kaplan presented a plan she created with Guy Rando, also of Reston. Their planning principles included world class design, 33.3 percent open space, complete separation of pedestrian and vehicular traffic, living green roof technology, LEED gold standards, and more.

Dick Stillson, Reston resident and cochairman of the Reston 2020 Committee, said the principles the county already has in place are good but have room for improvement. He said planning must be for the whole of Reston, rather than by looking at one specific area at a time.
He said the study should stress excellence in planning, design in architecture, require transportation improvements that support development, and confining higher densities to the Reston Center for Industry and Government, Reston Town Center and the village centers.

Merkel said a key goal of the county is to protect existing stable neighborhoods by not allowing new development to encroach on them. Reston resident Diana Carter asked how open space belonging to Reston Association, clusters, homeowners and business owners will be treated. Merkel said because those are private property they will not be used for development unless entire clusters sell to developers or RA conveys property by referenda.

And we all know how successful those referenda have been for the RA of late!

Meanwhile, that strawman was, if not beaten with sticks, edited a bit. Reston 2020's Terry Maynard points out how subtle distinctions could make a big difference.

Kathy Kaplan’s presentation was noteworthy for dissecting the wording of the county “strawman,” especially language that equivocated or has a special—even peculiar—meaning in the development world (see below). Some of her proposed editing was fairly obvious, for example, dropping the phrase “to the extent possible” from the idea of preserving open space, a classic equivocation. Others were more subtle like deleting the word “enhancing” from the principle of preserving stability in Reston neighborhoods. She reported that, to developers, “enhancing” means adding commercial and retail space into existing residential neighborhoods. The phrase “in proximity to” in the principle regarding existing uses also would foster such an outcome and she proposed it be deleted. She also proposed adding specific clarifying language to the county’s principle on natural and structural beauty in Reston, which would more likely assure the desired outcome.

One final note on Ms. Kaplan’s presentation: She said that adoption of the 20 proposed “APR nominations” or modifications to the Comprehensive Plan would add more than 20,000 dwelling units to the Dulles Corridor (23,413 units by one detailed count). By her calculations, this would require the County to provide 74 acres of additional parkland to meet its own stated requirement of providing .00148 acres of parkland per person.

But would that parkland include a juicery?

Copies of the county's presentation and the edited strawman are available at this link. Here's Maynard's takeaway from the meeting:

What impressed this observer was the sense that the three citizen group presentations were extremely consistent, yet constructively complementary. ARCH’s proposal tended to focus on the look and feel of the Reston result after development—a thematic focus on vision such as higher density around rail stations, but lower at the mid-point between. Reston 2020’s proposals focused on implementation issues, including orderly phasing of development and infrastructure and trading off density in one place for another. The Kaplan-Rando plan was highly focused on specific metrics. All the presentations sought to preserve and protect Reston’s existing neighborhoods, preserve if not expand Reston’s open space, and positive steps to improve infrastructure—especially transportation—in concert with development. Blended together, the proposals could probably weave a clear, powerful, and comprehensive set of planning principles that well represented the interests of Reston’s citizens.

From this writer’s perspective, the dominant theme principles coming out of the community meeting based on the group presentations, the ensuing discussion, and a macro-scan of the "dots" on the boards seem to focus on
--preservation and protection of existing residential neighborhoods,
--developing infrastructure—especially transportation infrastructure—before or as part of development, and
--preserving and expanding Reston’s open space and natural areas.
I would expect the county tabulation of the preference poll to show similar areas of interest as reflected in the “dots,” possibly spread across all four of the principle proposals laid out during the evening.

Meanwhile, Bob Simon apologized for his comments during an earlier meeting, where he reportedly called critics of development "asinine" and told them to "go take a shower."

I apologize for any intemperate remarks I made at the meeting that may have offended. While not an excuse, I am wildly impatient for there to be movement toward revitalization. Discussions began with regard to revitalization more than 10 years ago during good economic times. Delays in any real movement toward revitalization find us now in economic times that make revitalization more difficult. While organizations such as the Reston 2020 group have every right to make their views known to the County Task Force and the community at large, it feels very much, to me at least, like another delaying tactic of the kind that has kept anything meaningful from happening to date. I certainly hope I am wrong.

During this week's meeting, Simon said he wanted people to remember that "density is not evil." He said density is what makes up a community and it is not a bad idea to expand the community. He said if someone wants to live alone on two acres, that's fine but "density equals community."

The next community meeting, to be held sometime in February, will focus on the Herndon-Monroe Metro station and hopefully include a shiny 99-story building to replace its Targetville doppelganger, the end.

Garden State: Reston's Homegrown Gunman Has No Links to Terrorist Groups; Just Likes Guns

Some "good" news about former Reston resident Lloyd Woodson, who was arrested earlier this week in New Jersey with a grenade launcher, a cache of weapons, and maps of a military installation. He's apparently not a terrorist.

Police say they haven't turned up any links to terrorist groups by 43 year old Lloyd Woodson and his motives are a mystery.

Among items found in his motel room was a Middle Eastern red and white traditional headdress, according to The Star-Ledger, of Newark, N.J.

The weapons allegedly included guns with defaced serial numbers and banned ammunition.

Woodson's estranged wife told the Associated Press that her husband was just a loner who needs psychological counseling and that he is a gun collector.

Now that's a relief?

Lake Anne Plaza Will Be A Little Bit Emptier For Polar Plunge

Here's one of those good news, bad news sorts of situations. Lake Anne Plaza will once again host the Polar Plunge on Feb. 6, to benefit Camp Sunshine, which serves children with life-threatening illnesses.

The bad news? Along with the ongoing attempts to sell Lake Anne Pharmacy, the last of the plaza's original businesses, Body by Geoff has also relocated... to the fake downtown.

After five years at Lake Anne, Body by Geoff closed its doors when the business’s lease ran out at the beginning of the year. The health and fitness company is moving its operation to the One to One Fitness Centers in the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Reston Town Center.

Eve Thompson, president of the Lake Anne Merchants Association, said another business had already spoken for the space but had not yet signed a lease. "I believe the space is under negotiations right now," she said.

But never fear! While we wait for redevelopment to transform the polar wasteland plaza to a vibrant, Macaroni Grill-intensive mixed-use development, another fix is in the works!

Another contract that came to an end was the plaza’s ongoing relationship with Myers Public Relations. "What we feel is that we need to take control of our own image," Thompson said. As of last week, the village center took on two independent marketing people to rework its logo, its Web site and its brand. A temporary Web site is now up, and Thompson said marketing for Lake Anne will place more focus on social media and blogging than previously.

However, she said updates to the center’s image would also take place on the plaza, and not just online, with a new landscape company hired and storefront improvements on the way.

Wow. By now, you're undoubtedly thinking, "That's awesome. Now if we could only get a yarn shop into the plaza, all our problems will be over."

Guess what?

The owner of the former convenience store next to Washington Plaza Baptist Church is hoping to bring in a yarn shop, complete with knitting groups and classes, she said, noting that such specialty businesses become destinations that shoppers seek out from afar.

The owner, she said, is offering "a huge rent discount" to a shop that fits the description.

This Week in Crime: Fox Mill Man Charged in Graffiti Incident at SLHS, Other County Schools

An 18-year-old Fox Mill man and a handful of juveniles have been charged with destruction of property following incidents involving graffiti at South Lakes High School and two other county schools last year.

On Thursday, January 14, police placed charges on one adult and several juveniles for destruction of property involving three Fairfax County public schools. On October 10, 2009, the graffiti was spray painted on property at Westfield High School, located at 4700 Stonecroft Boulevard. On December 4, 2009, graffiti was spray painted at Westfield High School, South Lakes High School, located at 11400 South Lakes Drive, and Fox Mill Elementary School, located at 2601 Viking Drive. The damage for all three schools was totaled at least $10,000.

In late December, school officials and security staff at Westfield High School received information about these incidents that was passed onto the Westfield School Resource Officer. He was able to identify and charge suspects with the assistance of the SRO and security staff at Oakton High School.

[An 18-year-old], a 17-year-old boy, two 16-year-old boys and a 15-year-old boy were all charged with one count of felony destruction of property.

"Sample pictures of the graffiti is available upon request," the news release read. We're guessing it didn't look like a Banksy exhibit.

Need a Quick $100? Can't Sing? Has Craigslist Got a Gig For You!

For once, the craigslists has a Reston listing that doesn't involve swapping sexual favors for used furniture:

I am willing to pay $100 cash (must come to Tysons corner to collect) to anyone (or any group of people) who would deliver a loud ridiculous singing telegram (preferably in costume... the more ridiculous the better) to my girlfriend (who is at home right now in her apartment in Reston). I will write what you sing (it probably won't rhyme). It was her birthday yesterday... and I kinda missed it. I knew it was coming... she already got a significant birthday gift last month, but I'm pretty sure she was expecting another gift and I was empty handed. You can sing it to any tune you desire. Please email me, selling your abilities to accomplish this task (video or audio preferred).

A Shocking Reversal: Has Reston's Most Selfish Cluster Found Its Earth-Toned Heart?

Restonian operative "Sean" sent us this exciting photo of the former tot lot in Moorings Cluster, which was torn down last year when the cluster's munificent residents decided they didn't cotton to kids playing within yards of their lakefront manses, earning Moorings the title of Reston's Most Selfish Cluster (tm).

"Sean" seems to think this array of metal bars and whatnot suggests that the people of Moorings have had a change of heart and are building a fancy new playground. Frankly, we're skeptical. Until we see tykes happily playing on swings, we're going to assume these metal rods are carrying a charge of 10,000 volts each.

Fancy Dulles "Aerotrain" Opens For Business; Confounds Tourists

Our favorite correspondent, The Peasant From Less Sought After South Reston, provides this dispatch from Dulles "Air Port," which may someday be connected to our fair community by Metro's awesome Silver Line. In the meantime, it's unveiled a fancy "sub way" of its own!

The official ribbon-cutting [was Tuesday] at 10:00 a.m. This news comes to me from a reliable source, Mrs. Peasant (a.k.a. Daniela Boone, in honor of her fearless trailblazing on our last vacation) who volunteers with Travelers Aid at Dulles Airport.

Please to note the attached photo, taken by operative "Bud", also a member of the Secret Brotherhood of Travelers Aid:

Now, I am but a humble peasant, but when I see this schematic of the "new and improved" Dulles Airport, I admit to slight befuddlement. But that's why we have Travelers Aid -- "helping the terminally (get it -- "terminal"-ly?) confused". As Daniela Boone just explained it to me, even with the Aerotrain, the famed Dulles people movers will still go 1) between the main terminal and the H gates, 2) between the main terminal and the D gates, and 3) between the D gates and the A gates, although you can reach the A gates from the main terminal with the Aerotrain, but not with the people mover, unless you first go to the D gates and from there to the A gates.

Got all that?

Yes, I am terminally confused with this schematic as well, and one can only imagine the looks of wonder on the faces of jet-lagged, non-English speaking international travelers arriving at our Eerie..er, Eero...Saarinen-designed airport ("Gateway to Northern Virginia's Particleboard Paradise!") after 10 hours of flying in sardine-can-comfort, no-blanket-on-your-lap, stay-away-from-the-bathroom-in-the-last-hour-of-flight when they see this map.

Actually, I believe this schematic is modeled on the same systems process through which the RA decided to ban red mulch.

Confusing? Sure. But what do you expect for a paltry billion dollars? Plus, unlike Metro, there's a reasonable chance the Dulles trains will be able to make it from terminal to terminal without a track fire.

Reston Master Plan: 'Strawman' To Be Unveiled At Tonight's Meeting, Promptly Beaten With Sticks

It's time for another exciting meeting of the Reston Master Plan Special Study Task Force (or, as all the kids are calling it, RMPSSTF, only they're sticking in random dollar signs like they do with that Kei$ha character when they "text" each other their kickin' PDFs of air rights schematics).

So what's been doin'? Well, after our friends at Reston 2020 started grousing about a lack of agenda or documents or whatnot for this evening's meeting, county planning officials slapped a bunch of stuff together at 4:59 p.m. last night, including a "strawman" document of guiding principles, which are intended to "create a bridge from Mr. Simon's goals to future plan recommendations that will be more specific in nature."

Sweet! We like bridges. The document, linked above, is a fascinating read, including a nice copy-and-paste job from the seminal work A Place Called Reston. Here are the strawman's guiding principles:

• Preserve the long-term stability of Reston by protecting and enhancing existing neighborhoods throughout the community;
• Continue to encourage a development pattern which provides residential, commercial, recreational and other entertainment uses in proximity to each other to maintain Reston as a community in which to live, work and play;
• Promote a wide range of mobility options throughout Reston to address pedestrian, bicycle, shuttle, and bus service needs as well as personal vehicle use;
• Encourage a transportation network that appropriately supports the planned land uses;
• Identify and pursue opportunities to improve connectivity throughout Reston, particularly north-south connectivity in the vicinity of the Dulles Airport Access and Toll Road (DAAR);
• Encourage the expansion of housing diversity within Reston to achieve an even broader range of housing types and prices to fully meet the needs of residents throughout their lives;
• Respect and build upon Reston’s tradition of fostering natural and structural beauty by:

• Continuing to encourage environmentally sensitive development;
  
• Preserving existing open space to the extent possible;
  
• Ensuring that high-quality green and open space are incorporated into new development;
  
• Promoting the provision of new facilities for cultural and recreational activities and public art;
  
• Encouraging innovative and high-quality site design and architecture.

Other community groups who have expressed interest in the Master Plan process will also be given time to discuss their own principles. We've talked about one such plan; now the Reston 2020 folks have come up with principles of their own:

1. Comprehensive Planning--"must consider the Reston community as a whole"
2. Excellence in Planning, Design, and Architecture--"held to the highest standards of excellence and innovation"
3. Infrastructure and Transportation--"must be planned and funded in concert with approved development projects, and must be completed concurrently with that development"
4. Density--"Higher densities... should be confined to the RCIG, Town Center, and the various Village Centers."
5. Reston Urban Core (RUC)--"must be developed into an integrated, dynamic and vibrant urban center"
6. Existing Residential Neighborhoods Outside the RUC--"re-development of existing residential neighborhoods must maintain the essential character of the neighborhood as defined by the current residents."
7. All Ages/All Families--"(Reston) must continue to accommodate people of all ages, physical abilities, economic circumstances, and families of all sizes and at all stages of family life."
8. Open Space--"at least 25% of all future developed and re-developed land must be reserved for open space"
9. Natural Areas--"must not be developed, and should be extended to the extent possible"

In a commentary on the Reston 2020 Committee's proposed planning principles, Dick Stilson, co-chair of the committee, said the following:

"Many of the principles in the committee’s “Planning Principles” paper are already incorporated in the county Comprehensive Plan. In general we think the Plan is good, although it must be updated with the coming of Metro and other development that will affect the community. That, of course, is what the Task Force is charged to do. There are, however, several ideas contained in our paper that we think are important that are not in the current Plan. We think they should be discussed and considered by the Task Force for inclusion in the Plan."

Tonight's meeting starts at 7 at Langston Hughes Middle School. If you go, be sure to share your reactions, or just dash off a bunch of random principles of your own, in the comments. C'mon, it's fun! Here we go, to start you all off:

1. I am NOT going to pay a lot for this muffler!
2. No strawmen taller than 4" can be displayed in anyone's yard
2a. Unless that yard has red mulch and/or white stone. Then anything goes!
3. Juiceries in every village center and a submerged roller derby arena underneath Lake Anne
4. All RA filing cabinets must be alphabetically, not chronologically, ordered.
5. No Bratz dolls north of the Toll Road
6. More nekkid plays, plz. Thx!
7. Rad '80s art in all Metro stations, funkadelic '70s art at all bus stops
8. More rock, less talk

You're welcome.

Jersey Shore: Reston Man Takes His Weapons Cache to the Garden State; Does Not Take Out 'The Situation'

Restonians have definitely been overachieving of late! Along with showing the "can-do" spirit embodied in crossing the state line to find a bank to rob, another Reston man decided to take his massive cache of weapons on a little vacation, specifically to the "Garden State."

Somerset County investigators seized a cache of weapons including a grenade launcher and hundreds of rounds of ammunition today from the Branchburg motel room of a Virginia man, who also had maps of a U.S. military facility and an out-of-state civilian community.

Lloyd Woodson, 43, whose last known address was Reston, Va., today faces multiple offenses, including second-degree unlawful weapons possession and fourth-degree possession of prohibited weapons, Somerset County Prosecutor Wayne Forrest said.

At the time of his arrest, Woodson was wearing a military-style ballistic vest with a reinforced steel plate and carrying a .223-caliber assault rifle that had been altered to fire .50-caliber ammunition, Forrest. He was also carrying four loaded magazines with hollow-point ammunition, Forrest said.

Branchburg police confronted Woodson at 3:55 a.m. at the Quick Chek convenience store on Route 28 after receiving a call reporting a suspicious person. Branchburg Patorlman Steven Cronce noticed a large bulge beneath the green, military-style jacket that Woodson was wearing, which was later determined to be the assault rifle with a defaced serial number, Forrest said.

Woodson appeared "extremely nervous" as Cronce questioned him, and he ultimately ran from the convenience store toward the Regency Trailer Park on Route 22, Forrest. Officers found Woodson hiding in the bushes and he attempted to run, Forrest said.

Officers tackled him and used pepper spray to subdue Woodson, Forrest said. Detectives later searched Woodson’s room at the Red Mill Inn on Route 22 and found weapons including a .308-caliber semi-automatic assault rifle with a defaced serial number, a grenade launcher, hundreds .50-caliber and .308-caliber rounds, a police scanner, and the maps of a U.S. military installation and an out-of-state civilian community, Forrest said.

Investigators also found Middle Eastern red and white traditional headdress, Forrest said.

More from another story:

A U.S. Navy spokesman, Lt. Justin Cole, said Woodson joined the service in February 1998 and served aboard the USS Orion, a submarine tender, before deserting in April 1989. It would be eight years before he was returned to Navy custody, Cole said. A month later, in August 1997, Woodson was discharged.

It remained unclear last night whether he was passing through New Jersey or settling in for a longer period. He took a room last week at the Red Mill Inn, on Route 22. Shortly before 4 a.m. yesterday, he was in a Quick Chek convenience store on Route 28 when someone in the store called police, saying Woodson had been acting suspiciously.

Somerset County Prosecutor Wayne Forrest declined to speculate about Woodson’s intentions but remarked on the suspect’s arsenal, which included hundreds of rounds of ammunition, some of them hollow-point bullets, and a night-vision scope.

"In our experience, for private citizens to have this type of armament is quite unusual in Somerset County," Forrest said. "If you’re over in Afghanistan, it wouldn’t be rare."

All joking aside, that's legitimately scary. Let's hope that "out-of-state civilian community" wasn't Reston.

This Week in Crime: Low-Rent Peeping Tom Arrest Balanced Out By High-Class White Collar Conviction

What is it with Freetown Court? For the second time in less than a month, a Reston man was arrested for peeping after lurking about in the dark, as Reston criminals seem to be wont to do.

A man was arrested for peeping into a 21-year-old woman’s window on Sunday, January 17. The victim was inside her home in the 2100 block of Freetown Court around 1:30 a.m. when she noticed a man peering through her blinds. She picked up a phone to call police and the suspect fled. [The suspect] was transported to the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center and charged with peeping and drunk in public.

Lest we start worrying about the tawdry nature of many Reston crimes, here's some "good" news: a good 'ole white-collar conviction, much like you'd see in McLean or "Great" Falls!

[The suspect] pleaded guilty today to willful failure to file a tax return, the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced. He appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Theresa C. Buchanan in Alexandria, Va.

According to court documents and statements made at the change of plea hearing, he owns and operates a consulting business that helps private businesses secure contracts with the government.  Although he received $328,440 in income during 2004 as a result of services he rendered through Dalcorp, he failed to timely file a federal income tax return for tax year 2004.  The tax loss associated with the charge to which he pleaded guilty is $42,770. 

Judge Buchanan scheduled his sentencing for April 27, 2010.  He faces a maximum sentence of one year in prison and a maximum fine of $100,000.

Flashback Monday: Reston's Pioneer Days: Mud, Burning Trash Piles, More Mud... and Dinner Theater?

When Reston's first residents moved to our lovely beige community, it was lacking in some basic amenities. On the bright side, though, there was plenty of mud:

Asked about Reston’s first Christmas, Julia Rogers recalled planting flower bulbs on Christmas Eve and her husband taking the family’s trash out into the front yard and burning it, as it would still be two or three weeks before garbage pickup was available.

"I remember mud. A lot of mud," said her daughter, Katherine, who was in seventh grade when the family moved into the community on Dec. 10, 1964.

They were the "new town’s" first residents. Lake Anne still hadn’t been filled and construction was ongoing.

Reston "pioneers" -- a term which sounds vaguely Soviet -- recently reminisced about Reston's early days. We can mock all the mud, but since our favorite planned real estate development was carved out of the countryside of 1960s Virginia, it's astonishing that it was as forward-thinking as it was. Especially in terms of integration:

"I came here for one reason and that was because it was the only place in Northern Virginia that was open to black professionals," said Tom Wilkins. Moving to Reston in 1969, he had spent 27 years living under segregation.

Bob Webb said he had been one of three Washington Post editors who had moved to the community because it was integrated. "We just felt that somehow, by witness if nothing else, we could make a contribution just by coming out here," he said, adding that he had wanted his children to grow up in an integrated neighborhood. His hopes were realized within about an hour of moving in, at which point, he said, his children were already playing kickball with neighboring black children.

Despite all the mud and the burning trash fires and whatnot, Reston quickly became a cultured place.

Bob Simon, Reston’s original pioneer, also had a story. He remembered sitting in the farmhouse where his office was located, surrounded by a riding ring and stables, when a man walked in and asked to borrow the grounds to stage a production. What he was attempting was "ridiculous," Simon said — an original musical about Wall Street to be put on in a community that still only had 400 residents. But, 100 of those people got involved, raising $5,000, and selling 2,000 tickets. "Anybody who bought tickets would get a free dinner in a Reston home," Simon recalled.

A young black girl had tried out to be in the cast but wasn’t much of an actor, he said. The show’s producers were so eager to have her in the performance, though, that they asked her what she could do. So a tap dancing routine was created.

The group that put on the play was the Reston Players, which became the Reston Community Players, and the little girl was Beverly Cosham, who now performs across the country as a singer, is a regular attraction at Reston events and has acted in numerous plays around the D.C. area.

"The Greatest Game in Town" was a success, and almost all of the $5,000 was recouped, Simon said.

And that was before they even started staging nekkid productions.

This and That: A Random Walk Around Reston News

• South Lakes' Alan Webb, who recently decamped for the Pacific Northwest, was named ESPN's Track and Field Boys Athlete of the Decade. "Webb-mania still all the rage," the headline says, followed by a long series of seemingly random numbers separated by colons which presumably represent the many records he broke.
  
  
• As we all know, the demise of the nifty indoor rec center proposed for Brown's Chapel Park also meant that no fun juicery would be built. But Reston's apparently getting the next best thing: a cupcakery!
  
  
• The new phone books are here! Actually, no. New Town Publications, which published the A Place Called Reston phone book whose cover featured the snosage-diving dog, has filed for bankruptcy.

  Nancy Larson, New Town board chairman, mailed a letter to clients this week that announced that the company had run out of funds and would not be able to publish the "A Place Called Reston" and "Hometown Herndon" books in 2010.
  
  "It is my sad assignment to advise you that New Town Publications (like many others in the print media field) has totally run out of funds and will be filing for bankruptcy protection," Larson wrote in her letter. "This means that no additional editions of the directories will be printed and distributed, at least not by New Town Publications."

  
  
• Some random development news: Reston Excelsior has filed an "application for construction" to build two multifamily residential buildings at the intersection of Reston Parkway and Sunset Hills Drive -- near the Oracle building if memory serves. This was actually approved by planners back in 2006, but it's yet another hint at the construction to come. With a fancy name like Excelsior, we're guessing it's not going to be Section 8 housing and have a high coriander-to-wood ratio in the kitchens. Also, Reston Hospital Center's planned expansion to add 152 beds and a six-story medical center to its campus here won approval by both the Reston Planning & Zoning Board and the Planning Commission. Good things, too, as the number of coriander-related kitchen accidents could be set to shoot through the roof!
  
  
• Meanwhile in Tysons, Fairfax's glittering urban jewel is reeling from the news that plans to build a fancy Reston Town Center-like mixed-use development, in the words of the Post, collapsed.

  The deal to sell WestGroup's holdings in Tysons Corner to a McLean shopping mall developer is dead because the buyer could not secure financing, the parties said Thursday.
  
  It's also a reminder that the recession could continue to slow one of the nation's most closely watched redevelopment efforts even as a subway is built through Tysons to Dulles International Airport. WestGroup, the largest landowner in Tysons, had signed a contract six months ago to sell 142 acres to an investment group led by Robert Pence.
  
  Pence, president of Pence-Friedel, had floated plans to build big-box stores and other retail and residential projects modeled after Reston Town Center on the WestGroup property.

  Guess the proposal didn't wow 'em.
  
  
• People who live in Fox Mill are unhappy because someone got a bus stop moved from in front of their house. You can read far more than you'll ever want to know about this by clicky clicky.
  
  
• BET co-founder Sheila Johnson was keynote speaker at Reston Community Center's 25th annual MLK day celebration. Among other things, she discussed why she supported Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, in last fall's election. The short answer: Jackie Robinson.
  
  
• InScope Solutions, a "technology consulting company" (aren't they all!) is moving from Alexander Bell Drive to Two Reston Crescent, expanding its headquarters by 10,000 square feet. What, do they need room for filing cabinets?
  
  
• Do you know how cool Reston is? It's so cool that TV's Alec Baldwin actually has friends who live here!

  His college-days friends are all still in Washington, he says: "They're K Street lawyers, and they live in Herndon and Reston and have kids. If I had stayed, I might be living in Herndon or Reston or Old Town."

  We should be so lucky.

Reston: Bastion of Political Correctness, If Not Goats

Okay, so maybe calling a fundraiser a "Chinese auction" isn't exactly the most enlightened choice of words in the world. It could be worse, though. In our progressive neighbor to the west, they're talking about letting people keep goats in their back yards.

Reston Master Plan: Community Input TBD, FYI

Still more proof that all that fancy "book learning" isn't worth a tinker's cuss, at least when it comes to land use decisions. Turns out the fun task force charged with revising the Reston Master Plan may not use volunteer community workgroups, after all, meaning all those midnight cram sessions people put into last year's Reston Land Use College were pretty much worthless.

According to Jerry Volloy of ARCH, the special study task force will not use community workgroups but invites groups of community members to continue to provide input.

Meanwhile, county planning staff is worried about public outreach, according to memos obtained by the Reston 2020 task force.

County staff is concerned about the whole public communications effort associated with the Reston Task Force. Staff officials believe it is critical to have a strong communications effort, and the approved task force proposal called on the task force effort to encourage community input and participation. Nonetheless, according to County officials, we will have to wait and see how the public engagement is carried out. Some resources are available for communications outreach, such as inhouse facilitators, but the staff may need some assistance with public outreach. At this time, no decisions have been reached yet.

The county also needs money to help develop studies and other materials to inform the task force's work. Good thing there's plenty of that to go around!

Reston 2020 had proposed that six community work groups assist the task force. While it's not clear how the task force will use the input from these groups, two Reston residents have already come up with their own fancy "citizen's master plan." Written by Guy L. Rando and Kathy Kaplan, it has what they call "specific planning principles," including:

1.  Measurable qualitative criteria based on community values and specific guidelines for the quality of life. 
2.   World class design.  Example:  Boston Properties in Boston—Prudential Center. 
3.  33 1/3% open space (currently 50% under RCIG covenants) with 20% as soil bedded in the earth with native vegetation.  Parkland will be provided for residents on site by developer.   
Task Force to create a definition of open space that reflects the culture of Reston.  Open space will not include cement sidewalks (except for plazas and pavilions), parking spaces, public roads, private roads, driveways, or roof areas of buildings.  Open space will be green and open to the public.  It will allow passive and active recreations.  It will include bodies of water, i.e., ponds, streams, and unpaved or porous paved pathways.    
Portions of green space in corridor will be naturescaped to provide natural areas for new residents and to provide a continuity of experience of nature throughout the entire community of Reston.   
4.  FAR 2.0 at station and over the Dulles Toll Road with air rights.  1.5 FAR for remainder of corridor.  50 units/acre high density. 
5.  No building height limits on the south side of Sunset Hills between Reston Pkwy and Wiehle or over the DTR with air rights.  22 story limit elsewhere in corridor. 
6.  Complete separation of pedestrian and vehicular traffic. 
7.  If RCIG deed vacated, then all properties come under RA DRB review. 
8.  Climate-controlled space with galleria, pavilion.  Art trail in RCIG from stations directly connected to Town Center art trail and to existing trails. 
9.  Living green roof technology, cleaned water and clear air standards.  Gold LEED standard. 
10.  Green buffer 150 ft wide along Sunrise Valley Drive adjacent to residential neighborhoods (counted as part of open space). 
11.  All parking will be underground. 
12.  All development plans include affordable and workforce housing.  No redevelopment of existing residential neighborhoods in areas contiguous to stations. 
13.  School building standards uniform across district. 
14.  All transportation infrastructure must be adequate and in place before additional development commences. 

Art trails? Passive recreation? The Prudential Center next to the Macaroni Grill? Sign us up!

The task force meets again next Tuesday at 7pm at Langston Hughes Intermediate School.

This Week in Crime: Apple Store, Fox Mill Exxon and Hunters Woods Pedestrian All Robbed

"Grab-n-go" now has a different meaning at the Fox Mill Exxon, the Apple Store, and a tunnel near Hunters Woods Plaza, all sites of recent robberies, according to police.

The Apple store in Reston Town Center got hit for the third time since it opened last summer, though this time police got their man boys:

Police responded to a report of computers and electronics being stolen from the Apple store, located at 11949 Market Street on Jan. 7 at about noon. The suspects grabbed the merchandise and fled in a silver minivan. A passerby provided police the license plate number of that suspect vehicle and officers found it on the Dulles Toll Road. A felony vehicle stop was conducted and seven subjects were detained.

Meanwhile, the Fox Mill Exxon was burglarized by someone cunning enough to know how to turn off the alarm system, which probably rules out this guy:

The Exxon gas station, located at 2601 Quincy Adams Drive, was burglarized between 11 p.m. on Jan. 11 and 5 a.m. on Jan. 12. An employee discovered the burglary. An investigation determined the alarm system was disabled. The cash register and safe were opened and an undisclosed amount of cash was taken. The suspect was not located.

Finally, the Reston paths are as tranquil as ever, especially around Hunters Woods Plaza:

A 30-year-old man was robbed on Jan. 8 while walking outside. At about 9:26 p.m. the man was approached from behind on a pathway just east of the Colt’s Neck Road tunnel. Three men assaulted the victim, knocking him to the ground. They took the victim’s cellular phone and money then fled on foot. The victim walked to the Hunters Woods Village Center and called police. He did not require medical attention. The suspects were described as black, 20 to 30 years old. They all wore black, hooded sweatshirts and black pants.

Don't they always, though. Don't they always.

Targetville Is Back, But Its Namesake Retailer Reaches Out to Its Residents

After a pre-winter cleanup, Targetville has returned to its former glory, its motley and distinctly non earth-toned collection of tarps and tents clearly visible through the thinned foliage along Sunset Hills Road.

Given the incredible cold snap of late, a cynic might see this as a sign of an uncaring society, unwilling or unable to help those who might need it the most. But nothing could be further from the truth! In fact, on the same "fact-finding" mission which led us to verify the re-emergence of Reston's signature community of homeless people, we visited the nearby Target from which the encampment gets its name. (After all, those 24-packs of Michael Graves-designed, BPA off-gassing plastic cups weren't going to buy themselves!) And all we had to do was walk through the front door to see immediate proof that the giant retailer is trying to "reach out" to its less fortunate neighbors, giving them the respect and support they deserve:

That's right -- hobo bags. And reasonably priced to boot!

Know hope.

Icecapades on Lake Audubon? Yet Another Reston Mystery to Crowdsource

Restonian operative "Ryan" sent us this eyewitness account of police and fire activity on Lake Audubon on Friday:

When I drove by this morning, there were about a half-dozen fire trucks and a few police cars parked in the parking lot at the Lake Audubon pool. Firefighters were out crawling on the ice about 30 feet from shore. I drove by again at 3 pm and they were still out there.

Training exercise? Looking for stolen bottles of Tequila? Seems weird even for Reston.

Anyone know what was going on? Sound off, in the comments.

Update: Mystery solved. Sadly, the reenactment of the most recent RA board meeting by tutu-wearing former Olympians will have to wait until the next cold snap.

Reston(R): The Magazine Is Finally Here; We Read the RA's Foray Into Magazine Publishing So You Don't Have To

Reston: The Magazine is "a magazine that says 'Reston,'" according to the introductory text in its first edition, which we found "on-line" yesterday. It also "provides an identifiable Reston brand, if you will." Okay, we will.

So what will you find in this 124-page magnum opus once it arrives at your doorstep? Here's what jumped out at us when we flipped through the magazine yesterday, in no particular order:

• Sweet clip art of a pen.
  
  
• A letter from Cathy Hudgins, encouraging us to get involved in the master plan.
  
  
• Some actual news about the master plan timing, including the fact that Herndon-Monroe gets studied first, followed by Wiehle Avenue, then Town Center and Reston Parkway. The village centers will be reviewed in 2011. News to us!
  
  
• A Q&A with Bob Simon, who says "I don't have a crystal ball," but says the community's future depends on "decisions made by its governing politicians and the people who elect them." Quite right!
  
  
• Something called "On the Street," which would up not being nearly as hip as that title suggests.
  
  
• Some weird avant-garde prose poem about the brutalist statues at Lake Anne, including this: "The grass is crisp and moist as a jogger and her Irish wolfhound glide past me, through the tunnel and into the distance. I hope they stop for a moment and take a seat on The Sun Boat, but I know The Pyramid is inviting at first dawn." Weren't those the lyrics from a Led Zeppelin IV B-side?
  
  
• All the camp, tennis and pools stuff that used to get mailed separately. It actually looks really good.
  
  
• An interview titled "Katie, Katie, Nature Lady," about the RA employee of the year. "A grateful and delighted look came over Katie's face," the article reads, mirroring the "New Journalism" attention to detail and narrative that drove such luminaries as Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion and Hunter S. Thompson, only they didn't generally write about earth-toned planned real estate developments.
  
  
• A surprising number of ads! We're starting to feel a bit jealous.
  
  
• Clip art of a CFL light bulb in the grass. We think this has to do with clubbing baby seals or something.
  
  
• The lengthy "List of Rules for the Use of the Reston Association Common Area." It's not the centerfold, but it should be.
  
  
• The "Stroke of the Week." Minds out of the gutter, please! Also, an ad for some guy known as the "Racket Bear" (again, minds out of the gutter.)
  
  
• Clip art of smiling senior citizens flashing the "thumbs up" sign. Matlock must be on!

All in all, it looks really good, conspicuous lack of New Yorker style cartoons featuring talking dogs notwithstanding. We can't wait until a federal uniformed agent delivers a "hard copy" to our mailbox, but if you have to see it now, click here for a "portable document format" version you can read on your fancy "portable document format reader" "soft-ware" on your "personal computer." If you start reading now, you might get to the last page by the end of the long weekend!

Meanwhile, in the Other Other Other Other Reston: A Children's Treasury of Photos of Reston, Canada

Who needs one of those new-fangled "maps" or "Google Earths"? Our favorite correspondent, the Peasant From Less Sought-After South Reston, has made another important discovery, one which rivals the unearthing of the Northwest Passage. You see, Reston has yet another evil twin... in America's own evil twin, "Canada." Read on:

Proof of ongoing cosmic expansion, the alternate universe Restons just keep multiplying by the day. We count, among others, our satanic twin in Howard County; our namesake in Scotland; the clones we have inspired in Ireland and South Korea; and even our serving as the anti-Christ role model for Nashville and Collingwood, Ontario.

So...in The Peasant's continuing mission to explore strange new mauve worlds, to seek out new DRB-approved civilizations, and to boldly go where no Peasant has gone before, we plunge into hyperspace via that whirling vortex of a black hole at 1930 Isaac Newton Square and emerge a nanosecond later in...Reston, Manitoba.

"Manitoba, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain and the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet when the wind comes right behind the rain.." Oops, wrong show biz analogy. But at least we have landed in our good neighbor to the north. Oh Canada, the country that embodies every single Boy Scout virtue -- kind, courteous, helpful, trustworthy, cheerful, etc. -- and all in two languages to boot, eh!?

Our Canadian namesake turns out to be a small farming town in southwest Manitoba, set amidst the rolling wheat fields of the Canadian Great Plains. First impressions are positive. With a population of only 600, 1/100th the size of our beloved new town, this Reston nevertheless boasts a weekly newspaper, a museum, a B&B, an elementary and high school, and affordable housing.

As we examine further, we begin to note some startling similarities between the two Restons that offer convincing proof of the mirror universe theory. Here, for example, is their constabulary setting off to patrol Manitoba's version of Section 8 housing:

Just slightly smaller than this year's graduating class at South Lakes High, here's the entire class of 2010 -- all 15 of them -- at the Reston Collegiate Institute in Manitoba:

If you can't get enough of that awesome bike race through Reston Town Center in the summer, check out the Reston, Manitoba, version (or perhaps it could be some hapless cyclist of ours who turned north on the Lawyers Road velodrome and like the Energizer bunny just kept going and going):

Interested in a McMansion? Theirs appear a lot better constructed than ours; these were built in 1913 with nary a scrap of particle board (and ironically in South Reston, not North Reston -- who's less sought after up there?):

Reston Town Center, Manitoba-style. Unlike our own fake downtown, note from the structure in the foreground how those crafty Canadians built their high-rise in an architecturally appropriate prairie style that exactly resembles a grain elevator:

And finally, what with all the hullabaloo about patiently waiting for Metro's Silver Line to reach Wiehle within our lifetime, note that our brethren to the far north have the last laugh on that count. To judge by this painting, they've had rail a lot longer than us. And look at the station's 80's-style rad art...1880's, that is:

So many questions. Does Dear Leader have a Canadian clone, separated at birth? Do the Mounties enforce the color of decorative stone and mulch? Does our Canadian doppelganger have its own "web log," only with more polite commenters, as is Canada's wont?

Get Off the Bus: Changes to RIBS, Connector Service Begin Sunday

The Fairfax Connector/RIBS bus service is about to get even more so, thanks to budget cuts discontinuing front-door-service to a variety of Reston locations. On the bright side, there's a shiny new RIBS 5 route, taking riders on an exciting ride between Reston Town Center and Herndon, our tolerant neighbor to the west, depositing blue light-seeking thrillseekers at the K-Mart. Don't forget your cameras!

Read on for the full list:

RIBS 1 and 3 - Effective Jan. 17

Peak Service Changes (weekdays, 5 - 8:45 a.m.; 3:30-6:45 p.m.)
Discontinue front door service to:
Hunters Woods Village Center
Lake Anne Fellowship House

Off-Peak Service Changes (weekdays, 9 a.m. - 3:15 p.m.; 7 - 9:15 p.m.)
Discontinue front door service to:
Reston East Park and Ride, keep bus on Wiehle Ave. during midday only on

RIBS 1
Hunters Woods Fellowship House (RIBS 1 only)
Continue front door service to:
Lake Anne Fellowship House
Lake Anne Village Center
Hunters Woods Village Center
Hunters Woods Fellowship House (RIBS 3 only)
Late Night (weekdays, after 10 p.m.)

Discontinue front door service to:
Hunters Woods Village Center
Hunters Woods Fellowship House
Lake Anne Fellowship House
Lake Anne Village Center
Tall Oaks Village Center

RIBS 2 - Effective Jan. 17
Routing Changes
Modify RIBS 2 at the start of the route so that it leaves Reston Town Center and travels west on Bluemont, north on Town Center Parkway and then east on New Dominion.

Modify RIBS 2 at the end of the route so that, from Sunset Hills, it travels north on Town Center Pkwy, east on New Dominion Pkwy, south on Reston Parkway, then west on Bluemont to Reston Town Center.
Peak Service Changes (weekdays, 5 - 8:45 a.m.; 3:30-6:45 p.m.)

Discontinue front door service to:
Kaiser Permanente
Hunters Woods Village Center
South Lakes Village Center
Hunters Woods Fellowship House
Off-Peak Service Changes (weekdays, 9 a.m. - 3:15 p.m.; 7 - 9:15 p.m.)

Discontinue front door service to:
Reston East Park and Ride (midday only)
Hunters Woods Fellowship House
Continue front door service to:
Hunters Woods Village Center
Kaiser Permanente
South Lakes Village Center
Late Night (weekdays, after 10 p.m.)

Discontinue front door service to:
Kaiser Permanente
Hunters Woods Village Center
Hunters Woods Fellowship House
South Lakes Village Center

RIBS 4 - Effective Jan. 17
Routing Changes
AM and PM peak route provides weekday service between Lake Newport, Bennington Woods, Walnut Branch and Reston Town Center.
Off-peak route provides weekday service between Wiehle Ave, North Point Village Center, Center Harbor Road, Bennington Woods and Reston Town Center.

Some bus stops will be moved or combined to enable more efficient service.

New Route RIBS 5 - Effective Jan. 17
Routing
AM and PM peak route provides weekday service between Reston Town Center and the Town of Herndon, via Sunset Hills and Elden Street.
Off-peak routing is the same as weekday peak routing; however, front door service is provided to K-Mart on Elden Street on eastbound trips.

Routes 642 and 644 - Effective Jan. 17
Buses on combined Routes 642 and 644 between Vienna Metro and Centreville (Stone Rd.) Park and Ride will operate on a 12-minute frequency during AM and PM peak periods.
Service to Sully Station Drive will be added to Route 642.
An additional Route 642 westbound reverse-commute trip will be added that includes stops on Lee Road and Conference Center Drive, departing at 8:35 a.m.

Routes 505, 605 and 950 - Effective Jan. 17
Minor routing changes around the Reston Transit Station will be made to routes 505, 605, and 950.

Reston Town Center Transit Station - Effective Jan. 17
Bus routes at Reston Transit Station will be moved to different bus bays (passenger loading/unloading areas) to facilitate smoother transfers between routes. View the new bus bay assignments, or look for information posted at each bus bay.
New bus bay assigments are as follows: Bay A -- Route 950, Bay B -- Route 605, Bay C -- RIBS 1, Bay D -- RIBS 2, Bay E -- RIBS 3, Bay F -- RIBS 4, Bay G -- RIBS 5, Bay H -- Route 505, Bay J -- open, Bay K -- Route 574

Everyone got all that? We think we'll just stick with hitchhiking.

Reston: Live, Work, Play, Watch YouTube

Here's something that'll make us all feel better: One of those new-fangled "videos" illustrating Reston's many benefits, including having D.C. "a 20 minute drive away" (perhaps at 3 a.m. when the police are on strike), plus being able to pull tires out of lakes and sit through mind-numbing "community input" meetings. Reston: It's more than a planned real estate development. It's a way of life.

America's Next Top Smyers: Three Open Positions on RA Board of Directors

Say one thing about the RA: whether it was its headquarters referendum or stream restoration or the proposed indoor rec center/juicery at Brown's Chapel Park, it got a lot of people's attention last year. So you'd think there would be a lot of interest in filling the three open positions on the RA Board of Directors. You would think:

Reston Association Members are invited to attend an Election Information Session on Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010, 7 p.m. at Reston Association, 1930 Isaac Newton Square.

Reston Association is seeking candidates to fill three open positions on the Board of Directors this spring. These positions are one at-large director, the North Point District director and the Lake Anne/Tall Oaks director.  Directors determine the Association’s goals and policies, making a significant and lasting contribution to the community. For additional information log on to Reston Association’s Web site, www.reston.org or call 703-435-6512.

The proposed changes to Reston's master plan promise to make the upcoming years even more important for our community's future. It'll be interesting to see who steps up and throws their hats into the ring to lead the RA.

Reston Master Plan Meeting Tonight; Inspires 'Web Logs' and 'Communiqués' (Whatever That Means)

The Reston Master Plan Special Study Task Force -- say that three times fast! -- meets tonight at 7 p.m. at the Jo Ann Rose Gallery in Lake Anne.

The special task force appointed by Supervisor Cathy Hudgins will meet the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month to develop a set of recommendations on amendments to the Reston Master Plan.  These recommendations will be presented to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors later in the year.  Meetings are open to the public.

This filthy "web log" has been joined by others who are starting to pay attention to the impact the master plan will have on our beige community. A new group has taken the first and most important step to tackling a complex planning document: starting its own filthy "web log":

The Reston 2020 Committee, an open committee of Reston citizens created by the Reston Citizens Association (RCA), in partnership with Reston Association (RA) and the Association of Reston Clusters and Homeowners (ARCH), is pleased to announce the launch of its blog, Reston 2020: Citizens Shaping Reston's Future.

The blog reflects the Reston 2020 Committee's view that Reston's citizens ought to have the opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to efforts to re-think the future of Reston. The Committee has created this blog to keep Restonians and others interested in Reston informed about what the recently launched, County-created Reston Master Plan Special Study Task Force is doing. The task force is charged with re-thinking development in Reston as reflected in the County's current Comprehensive Plan.

At present, the Task Force is beginning to look at proposed modifications of the Plan for the Dulles Corridor area. Over the next two years, it will re-evaluate planning for all of Reston, including Reston Town Center, Village Centers, and residential areas. The intent of this blog is to provide timely accounts of schedules, agendas, and events as well as reports by Reston 2020 and other Reston civic organizations in a way that encourages citizen participation. The blog will include responsible posts and comments of all viewpoints by individuals and organizations who wish to contribute. The Committee's belief is that a broad-based community dialogue and other participation in the county's planning effort will lead to more informed and wiser decisions consistent with Reston's role as a model for a 21st century planned community.

The blog may be at this link: http://reston2020.blogspot.com/

We can definitively say it more than "may be at this link." It's actually there.

Meanwhile, ARCH has developed its own draft principles to guide the work of the task force. They include:

ARCH acknowledges that increased commercial and residential development in the greater Reston area may be inevitable. But that development must be well planned and supported by all necessary infrastructure (public facilities and transportation - vehicular, bicycle and pedestrian), lest it degrade Reston's quality of life and its world-renowned special character. Fundamentally the task force should distinguish between how much additional commercial and residential development might be possible versus how much would be appropriate, define the latter as the limit, and then identify what infrastructure improvements need to be undertaken to support that level of development.

The task force should update the facilities and transportation exhibits to the Reston Master Plan (including adopting the unfunded recommendations of the Reston Metrorail Access Group [RMAG, April 2008 Study]). The Reston planning documents should then be amended to require that what have been identified as necessary infrastructure improvements to support specific new development must be put in place before or concurrently with that new development.

Reston's open space and recreational amenities are vital to Reston's quality of life. With increased growth comes demand for additional open space and, potentially, recreational amenities that must be identified and incorporated in the Reston planning documents. We accept that innovative solutions may be required (such as elevated parks or plazas).

In addition to open space and recreational amenities, Reston's world-renowned and unique character rests in part on its encouragement of environmentally sensitive development, public art and affordable housing for our teachers, nurses, police, firefighters, service industry and professional support staff, and others essential to the Reston work force. Accommodating these interests should remain important in defining the future growth of our community.

Reston's existing residential neighborhoods outside the RCIG (Reston Center for Industry and Government), Town Center, and Lake Anne (per its approved redevelopment plan) should essentially remain stable at their as-built densities.

The task force should promote innovative architectural designs for the Reston Metro stations - especially for the Reston Town Center station. These are critical gateways into this unique community and they should reflect that uniqueness.

Because the task force must deal with many issues in a short time, it must be efficient and focused. Nonetheless, it should provide for a suitable level of transparency and opportunity for broad community awareness and input.

ARCH will hold a meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Hunters Woods Reston Community Center to "take further input and finalize the communiqué." No word on whether the first point of business will be to define what exactly a "communiqué" is.

A Restonian World Exclusive: First Photos of Tall Oaks Compare Foods

At incredible personal risk, Restonian operative "Joel" sent us this exciting spy camera-like shot of the interior of the possibly soon-to-be-opened Compare Foods supermarket at Tall Oaks Shopping Center, where shelves have been stocked with nonperishable items following an earlier kerfluffle involving permits.

Why, you may ask, do we care? Mainly to have another excuse to post a video like this:



Sigh. We miss "Susie de los Santos."

Flashback Monday: Reston, the Inspiration for Epcot, Except Maybe for All That Meat on a Stick

We all know how seminal Reston has been for generations of urban planners, and how it singlehandedly won the Cold War. But did you know Reston was also one of Walt Disney's inspirations when he was knocking around the idea of building the Epcot Center?

Near the end of his life, Disney turned his attentions to the plight of America’s cities. “I don’t believe there’s a challenge anywhere in the world that’s more important to people everywhere than finding solutions to the problems of our cities. But where do we begin?”[4] For Walt Disney, the answer was central Florida, on a 27,400-acre parcel purchased largely for that purpose.

The new city Disney described was to be part of the ‘Florida Project,’ a multi-year development on a huge tract of Florida swamp and scrub, the first portion of which was to become the East Coast version of Disneyland. But while his staff toiled on plans for the new theme park, Disney himself was consumed with the prospect of planning an urban landscape unlike anything that had come before. He read voraciously about city planning, and even made special trips to the new towns of Reston, Virginia and Columbia, Maryland.

As to who would live in EPCOT, Walt was somewhat explicit: “There will be no retirees. Everyone must be employed. One of our requirements is that people who live in EPCOT must keep it alive.”[12] This proposition seems counterintuitive for a man well into his sixties, whose business partner and older brother (Roy O. Disney) was considering retirement. But it does fit with EPCOT’s grounding in capitalism and industry: a city designed to ‘showcase American free enterprise’ should, by this logic, be filled with those who would work and produce. It should also be noted that Walt had spent his entire career providing and marketing entertainment to the American nuclear family. The middle class family was his focal point, and he designed a city just for them.

Sadly, he died before his plans could come to fruition, and instead of a mauve planned residential community, Epcot became a theme park known mostly for its purportedly "international" collection of meats on a stick.

Walt would not live to see the ground-breaking at Disney World, and never had the opportunity to construct EPCOT in the way he envisioned. He succumbed to cancer in December 1966 after a brief but heartbreaking battle. A Disney theme park called Epcot eventually opened in Florida in 1982, but it more closely resembled a permanent World’s Fair than Walt’s technology-driven utopia. Many of Walt Disney’s urban planning ideas, however, have manifested themselves in the absolutely unique blend of public and private space found today in Florida’s Magic Kingdom.

Also, there's no truth to the rumor that his cryogenically frozen head is located in a secret underground facility at the base of the fountain in Lake Anne.

This Week in Crime: Peeping Toms, Moorings Robbery and Hammer Time

The first week of the new decade in Reston crime pretty much picked up where the last one left off, with your usual arrests for peeping, theft and hitting people on the head with a hammer. Wait, what?

A 26-year-old man was struck with a hammer on Tuesday, December 29 while attending a party in the 2200 block of Cocquina Drive. Around 1:30 a.m., a woman at the party allegedly noticed money missing from her purse. Two men, who were acquaintances with the woman, walked outside and returned holding a hammer and a cutting tool. They demanded that everyone empty their pockets. The victim refused and one suspect struck him multiple times with the hammer; both suspects fled. The victim was transported to the Reston Hospital Center with non life- threatening injuries. Officers have obtained warrants for aggravated malicious wounding, abduction for pecuniary benefit, and robbery.

We'll skip the obvious "hammer time" reference and go with something a bit nerdier more obscure:


After that, we're almost embarrassed to report something as boring as a peeping tom incident, but here you go:

Police charged a man with peeping on Tuesday, December 29. A 13-year-old girl was inside an apartment in the 2300 block of Freetown Court. She passed by a window around 1:24 a.m. and noticed a man standing on the outside peering in. She told a 63-year-old woman who was in the apartment with her and the woman confronted the suspect, who turned and walked away. Officers located the suspect nearby and a brief investigation led to his arrest.

And finally, someone was robbed in the parking area of Reston's most selfish cluster:

A woman was robbed in the 1500 block of Moorings Drive on Tuesday, January 5 as she exited her car. The 35-year-old victim parked her car around 12:30 a.m. and as she got out, someone struck her in the face and she fell to the ground. The suspect took her wallet and fled. The victim did not require medical treatment. Anyone with information is asked to contact Crime Solvers by phone at 1-866-411-TIPS/8477, e-mail at www.fairfaxcrimesolvers.org or text “TIP187” plus your message to CRIMES/274637 or call Fairfax County Police at 703-691-2131.

Also, someone stole a 2007 Audi from Breton Court, and police are asking people countywide to be aware of an uptick in thefts of catalytic converters, these things that hang off your muffler and make your car belch slightly fewer pollutants into the sky. We'd check to see what Al Gore's been up to lately, but that's just us.

High-Low: The Reston Real Estate Game, 2010 Edition

With the white-hot 2010 Reston real estate market bouncing back like a feral cat on steroids, it's time to dust off our HUD paperwork, adjust our ARMs and get ready to play everyone's favorite game of wheeling and dealing, the High-Low Game!

Why hello, it's a fancy-pants "pent-house" in the Paramount building across from Reston Town Center! For a mere $1.1 million, you could live in the "creme de la creme," as the breathless marketing prose promises. (We're assuming this also says something about the skin tone of your would-be neighbors, but not in a way that violates fair housing laws.)

Anyhoo! We could go and on about the bamboo floors and quality countertops and whatnot, but let's just look at this front door:

Wow. That's quite a door. It says, "I have arrived. I am the creme de la creme. Tradesmen, please remove your shoes before entering to service my plasma TV."

On the other end of the price spectrum is this $150,000 home on White Cornus Lane, a perennial High-Low Game favorite. What does the Realtor (tm)(R) have to say about this gem?

SHORT SALE. SUBJECT TO THIRD PARTY APPROVAL. SHOW IT ANYTIME

When your Realtor (tm)(R) cares enough to type in ALL CAPS, a sale is right around the corner!


Let's say you don't want the hassle of townhouse living, what with having to speak with your neighbors and the draconian rules about party walls and whatnot. Just a cool $65k more will get you this single-family home on Coquina Drive. What does the Realtor (tm)(R) have to say about this diamond in the rough?

***SHORT SALE*** SUBJECT TO THIRD PARTY APPROVAL, shows well

Hmm. We're noticing a trend here. And that's all the time we have for this thrilling edition of the High-Low Game, so until next time, keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for that subprime, no-cash-down mortgage!

This Week in Crime: Reston Man Ignores Large Numbers of Convenient Local Banks to Rob

A 24-year-old Reston man was arrested earlier this week for allegedly robbing a bank in Tennessee.

Virginia State Police say a routine traffic stop led to the capture of two Tennessee bank robbery suspects.

Conroy says a missing front tag and a failure to signal prompted Trooper O.J. Lilly to stop a car occupied by the suspects on U.S. 11 in Wytheville. He says a search of the car turned up an undisclosed amount of cash, a small amount of marijuana and paraphernalia, and five handguns.

The men were charged with being fugitives from justice from Marion County, Tennessee on federal bank robbery and kidnapping charges. The FBI is investigating the robbery of a Citizens Tri-County Bank in South Pittsburg, Tennessee.

Pretty weird, especially considering there are plenty of banks to be robbed so much closer to home.

Photo Pfun: A Look at the Node-Filled Wonderland That Is JBG's Fairway Redevelopment

If you couldn't get enough of our hott air rights renderings, today's your lucky day! Here are schematics of the proposed redevelopment of the Fairway Apartments near Lake Anne, which includes a couple of significant changes since the project was first unveiled last spring. Instead of two 10-story buildings, the plans now call for one 20-story building -- let's call it a mauvescraper -- surrounded by a lot more green space. Look out, Heron House!

The tall building's on the bottom left, surrounded by two mid-rise buildings and a clump of townhomes. The upper right is the second half of the project, which has two more midrise buildings. The parking garages are thoughtfully placed inside the courtyards of the midrise buildings, which is great unless you have windows that look out that way. We're not entirely clear about this whole "node" thing, which sounds like something your ENT would warn you about, or what the two "scenic overlooks" might afford a view of, unless it's middle-aged businessmen playing hooky from work while zipping around on golf carts.

Apparently, the retail space initially proposed for the project is gone as well:

Initially, the builder had proposed a small amount of community-serving retail on the site, but that idea has been dropped due to concerns that new retail services there would compete with Lake Anne Village Center, half a mile away, where businesses are already struggling.

That's actually thoughtful, given recent events. It's also an argument why at least some level of redevelopment will be necessary to keep the parts of Reston we love viable.

We have no idea what these red lines mean. Maybe something about the nodes.

To their credit, JBG has responded to some of the concerns raised by its additional plans. Traffic is still an unknown -- the 940 units represent 594 additional households, once you account for units replaced from the existing Fairway apartments. Capacity at nearby Lake Anne Elementary is also a potential problem. The project goes before the DRB on Jan. 19, before returning to Reston's planning and zoning commission on March 1 and then the county's planning commission on March 18.

This whole process may well serve as a preview of the larger redevelopment projects that are certain to come with the awesome Silver Line. Hopefully other developers will make at least as much of an effort as JBG has to respond to concerns-- at least thus far.

Support Your Restonian Advertisers... We Think

Vigilant Restonian reader "Sean" sent us this screen grab from our very own filthy "web log" a while back, but we just found the message now. Apparently the robot which picks advertising based on the words on the page stumbled across a particularly heated discussion among our commenters, most likely on a page like this. We're assuming it's a typo on the part of a well-meaning copywriter who had precisely two words to work with, but... wow.

This and That: A Random Catch-Up Stroll Through Reston News

• Yay, RA President Robyn Smyers has written another "web log" post, calling 2009 "a phenomenal year in Reston's history." But 2010 promises to be even more exciting, what with the Master Plan, elections, continued stream bed restoration, and a sea of shiny new filing cabinets when the RA moves its headquarters to a "park-like setting," with "large trees and even picnic tables." Sweet!
  
  
• If you've been hearing loud bells every time you've gotten on or off the Toll Road, maybe you forgot that tolls went up on Jan. 1, making a round trip to Tysons or beyond cost a cool $3.50. Fortunately, Fairfax County formally approved the tax districts that will pay for our fancy new Metro stations, meaning that at some point we'll be able to pay $3.50 (or more) to sit on a stalled Silver Line train as the loudspeakers blare incomprehensible static about a "track fire."
  
  
• Speaking of the Metro, the awesome Silver Line station at Wiehle Avenue will have, along with rad '80s art, plenty of bathrooms. Design issues will place them outside of the fare gate, meaning they'll be open to overcaffienated commuters and Targetville residents alike.
  
  
• Kenneth Mitan and Frank Mitan, a father-son duo of scammers from Michigan, were convicted of fraudulently gaining control of a series of businesses and draining them of their assets, including a "printing company in Reston, Va." The company's name wasn't mentioned, but how many printing companies are there in Reston?
  
  
• Usually when high-ranking execs leave a company, it's described as "spending more time with their family" or whatnot. Not at Reston-based QuadraMed, which stone cold canned its chief technology officer.
  
  
• This is now ancient news, but in the interest of closure, we feel compelled to point out that Col. Van T. Barfoot, the 90-year-old Medal of Honor recipient who was battling his Richmond area homeowner's association over his 21-foot flagpole, will be allowed to keep Old Glory flying. Let freedom ring!
  

Breaking: Dear Leader Statue Vandalized

Now what is Dear Leader doing, running with a tough crowd and getting all mixed up with gangs? Tuesday night, vandals defaced Robert E. Simon's statue and a variety of brutalist concrete adornments throughout Lake Anne Plaza, though many of them had been cleaned up by the time our anonymous contributor rolled through this morning with his fancy cellular phone camera. Beats the time the statue was stolen and found in a creek bed, but still pretty pathetic and low.

Wheels of Justice Move Slowly: October Shooting Death of Reston Woman Ruled Homicide

The October shooting death of Reston resident Karen Deck in South Reston's Winterthur Apartment complex has been ruled a homicide, according to Fairfax County Police.

The Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has classified this death as a homicide. The investigation continues but police do not believe there are any threats to public safety. Charges are pending.

While police didn't provide new details Tuesday about the pending charges, the person of interest in the case is 45-year-old Ronald Robertson, who was found in the Winterthur apartment with Deck's body. Police had previously charged Robertson with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon following the Oct. 24 incident.

Update: The Post has slightly more, including the fact that the man who lived in the apartment had called his parents to say "he had accidentally shot and killed his girlfriend."

Indoor Tennis: In North Reston, Cabin Fever Sets In

An alert North Reston resident sent us this shocking, Donner Pass-like picture of the Lake Newport tennis courts taken nearly TWO WEEKS after the snowpocalypse. She writes:

Was walking through the Lake Newport area and noticed the tennis courts are still a mess.

Cabin fever must be running rampant in North Reston!!

This won't be a problem when they're covered with a fancy plexiglass dome disappearing post and tenon beam framing, whatever that is.