Got an Extra $25 Lying Around? The RA Is Here To Help

The Reston Association board voted yesterday to increase assessments to $590 next year, a $25 increase from 2012. The RA board could have raised assessments to as much as $600, but opted for the lowest possible option, so good on them.

To be fair, the RA is getting squeezed from both ends. The awesome demolition of half of Parc Reston has resulted in a loss of $48,000 in revenue for the RA, and more households are qualifying for tax relief and reduced assessment rates. Meanwhile, the RA is spending $25,000 in legal fees as part of its involvement in opposing the redevelopment of Reston National Golf Course. There's been lots of handwringing over this issue on this filthy "web log" of late, but to our thinking, this is still one of the smartest decisions the RA Board has made in recent years -- it's not just a defense of some homeowners with fancypants golf course views, but the authority of the RA to oppose any undesired project. And rest assured, there will be more of those on the way. If you want to get picky about what the RA's spending its money on, there's always the $50,000 it plans to contribute to South Lakes High School's planned turf field, and $20,000 for a "documentary about Reston for its 50th anniversary in 2014." Even though we've already got that second bit covered, we're happy to throw a few of our ducats to both projects.

As our BFFs at Reston Patch pointed out, only one person spoke up about the increased assessment at a meeting last night.

The resident of Sagewood Lane encouraged the board to find creative solutions other than consistently raising assessments.

"Eighty-two units are gone at Parc Reston," she said. "We are going to see more and more of this kind of thing. Isn't there some sort of tax the developers can pay? They are making big bucks. Those of us who are retired are not making big bucks."

The RA needs to keep pushing to ensure that future residents of all the bollardy projects on the table become assessment-paying members for just that reason.

Here is a Map That Will Freak Out Any Remaining Minutemen in Herndon, And Absolutely No One Else

The Connection "news-papers" ran this fancy map (PDF) illustrating the numbers of students in the county's elementary schools who speak a language other than English at home, which should come as no surprise to anyone who has, well, been outside of their homes in the last 15 years. As represented by varying shades of color straight from the DRB palette, Dogwood, Hunters Woods, and Forest Edge are the Reston schools with the highest numbers of students who speak another language at home. Of course, it's hard to ignore the fact that the elementary schools in "Great" Falls are among those with the lowest number of students who speak another language at home, which isn't surprising when you consider that they feed into a high school whose mascot is the (Anglo) Saxons, the end.

Fewer BMWs, More Ford Focuses: Welcome to Our Hellish Post-Modern Future

Remember how planners envisioning a bollardy, dense and high-rise laden Reston have often cited research by some fancypants boffin at George Mason to justify their high-growth scenarios?

Yeah, that was awesome. Now, with the federal government about to careen off a metaphor-laden fiscal cliff facing budgetary challenges, maybe not so much.

"This makes you almost want to cry." That's what George Mason University economist Stephen Fuller told the 2030 Group at their meeting Thursday at National Harbor. He was talking to the group of elite business leaders (mostly from the development and real estate world) about how the past four years have changed the region's long-range economic prospects.

The upshot: the structure of the local economy is changing, and the golden goose of federal spending that has propped us up is going away. We need to look hard at what will replace it, and gear our economy toward that. That replacement may well be the health and education sectors.

When the group launched a few years back, Fuller used data through 2008 to pull together a long-range forecast of what this region might look like in 2030. Thursday, he updated that forecast based on current figures, and the change was pretty stark.

Due to things set into place during the past four years, the forecasts for this region's gross regional product in 2030 dropped $97.4 billion, the number of jobs fell by 211,100 and the projected population fell by 77,500.
He also talked about wage compression, pointing to the last year's decline in federal payroll spending — the first decline in decades.

All these numbers are giving us a major migraine, Stephen. How's about a nice soundbite?

"The economy is going to grow. We're going to have lots of people, but they'll be working in jobs that don't pay quite as much. And they'll be different kinds of jobs," he said, adding later: "It'll be less BMWs and more Ford Focuses."

Much better.

We've said it before, but we'll point out again that Fair Lakes is an illustrative concept of what can happen when reality conflicts with the champagne wishes and caviar dreams of developers. When it was first envisioned, planners imagined boulevards of high-end stores, all the Tiffany's and Gucchis and the like. Instead, thanks to the recession of the ought-nineties, we got schlocky big-box stores and an endless inland sea of parking lots that make the Spectrum look cozy by comparison. It'll be interesting to see how the changing economy alters plans slated for our neck of the woods, though a younger and less affluent workforce won't change the projected trend away from the single-family house with the white earth-toned picket fence around it.

As for us, we'll look forward to trying to find a parking space for our sweeeeet Ford Focus on Level G-17 of the Wiehle Avenue Metro parking garage, where we'll park on our way to work at our gig in Tysons, which is already gearing itself up for the "new kinds of jobs" that will be available to us, the end.

On the YouTubes: A Very Caddyshackpocalypse Thanksgiving

Did you all have a good Thanksgiving? Maybe get into an argument over politics enjoy a good meal with family? Pick up some good bargains on Black Friday Thanksgiving night "cyber Wednesday"? Well, our BFFs at Rescue Reston made this fancy video instead. Watch it, and work yourselves into a frenzy about inappropriate development get into the holiday spirit!

The Only Holiday Season-Themed Tweet You'll Need To Read, All Holiday Season

Someone just won Twitter.

Reston Station Developers Win Coveted Award From… Other Developers

Fancypants Reston Station, viewed in the photo above from the aerie of one of its many construction cranes, has won a fancy award from NAIOP, which, as everyone knows, is the acronym for the "Commercial Real Estate Development Association." We're not sure if they call the coveted award the NAIOPIE, or maybe just NOPE for short, but specifically everyone's favorite Sleestak transfer station underground parking garage won the Best Master Plan: Award of Excellence in the Best of NAIOP Northern Virginia Awards on Nov. 14. So yay Reston! Suck on that, Tysons, with your own fancy mixed-use development! Let's enjoy a few photos from the awards brochure.

As we've pointed out before, we're totally moving Restonian World Headquarters to the building with the helipad, as ready access to a helicopter will shave at least 30 seconds off our runs to the Soapstone 7-11.

Here's a rendering that we don't remember seeing before. Somehow, the parallelogram looks a little less intense and a little less like something from an earth-toned remake of Tron in simulated daylight. It almost looks classy, even. Plus lots of CGI trees, which soften even the most frightening designs.

So congrats, Reston Station! BTW, there's no truth to the rumor that the statuette Reston Station brought home looks like this:

Don't look for it on level G17 of the garage, where you'll arrive at 7:01 am to find the last parking space taken, the end.

(Thanks to Confidential Restonian Operative "Alexis" for the find.)

Flashback Monday: The Original Apple Store

Its facade wasn't made completely of glass and it wasn't populated by T-shirt clad hipsters eager to tell you about the latest, whazzitcalled, iPhone, but if you lived in Reston in the late 1980s or early 1990s, maybe you could have shown up at the doorstep of Apple's Reston offices off Sunrise Valley Drive and ask them why the handwriting recognition in your fancypants Newton was so unbelievably bad.

Well, maybe not, since the office was for "federal sales," although there were no long lines of bowtie-clad bureaucrats camping out overnight to be the first to get their Performa 475lci to run simulations of their dolphin-bomb-strapping operations in MacPaint. Apple is notoriously secretive about their operations, but some web-logger shared this little anecdote about Apple's Reston office.

In spring 2001, the Apple federal office in Reston, Va., was remodeled to look more like the main campus in Cupertino, Calif. The architect in charge of the remodel removed the large American flag hanging on the lobby wall, since it didn't fit into Apple's design. Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, Apple promoted a video on their HR website as they unrolled a huge American flag at 1 Infinite Loop. A quick post to the Can We Talk section pointing out the irony immediately fixed the problem, and the American flag was replaced in the Reston office lobby.

This photo, from the mid-eighties, was also used to celebrate the 10 millionth square foot of office space built in Reston -- more than downtown Richmond, which is really saying something since every midlevel exec's office in Virginia's capital was required to have a few extra square feet to accommodate the obligatory spittoon, the end.

Toll Road Hikes: The True Value of a Trip to Tysons

Surprising absolutely no one, the airports authority has formally approved increased Dulles Toll Road fees for next year and 2014, though they compassionately held off on formalizing rate hikes in 2015 on the off chance a giant pot of money falls from the sky more federal or state money materializes to pay for Metro Silver Line construction, which would help mitigate future toll increases.

So starting January 1, it will cost $5.50 to make a round-trip from Reston to the wonders of Tysons Corner. In 2014, that will go up to $7. But those are just numbers. In the spirit of News You Can Use, we did a little research (googling) to see just what $5.50 can get you at the epitome of the increasingly urbane and sophisticated nexus of commerce and business known as "Fairfax County's downtown:" the Tysons food court.

Wow. Even the most expensive hand-rolled fatty tuna rolls at Wasabi, the fancy conveyor belt sushi place in the middle of the mall, cost 50 cents less than the round trip to get there. Just take Rt. 7 instead, and the world is your oyster! (We're not sure they serve oyster there.)

Pony up an additional 9 cents, big spender, and you can get a burger at Five Guys, with unlimited toppings! Of course, you could save the $5.50 in tolls by going to one of the Reston locations instead, but then you'd miss the sophistication and cosmopolitan flair of Tysons whilst enjoying your charred animal flesh broiled in peanut oil.

Okay, we finally managed to find something more expensive -- and just slightly longer and more tedious -- than a trip down the Toll Road to Tysons. At least for the next two years, anyway.

Nearly a Week Late, Here Are Some Nearly Naked Pictures From RTC

Now that's how you write an SEO-friendly headline! Please to be enjoying a couple of pictures from last weekend's Nearly Naked Mile race at Reston Town Center, courtesy of Potomac River Runners' exhaustive Flickr feed.

These two women were wearing outfits made of cling wrap, which begs the question of how they managed to walk, let alone run.

Lest anyone accuse us of crass sexism, here's some beefcake dude wearing a tie. And that's all we've got to say about that.

A few more posts like this, and we'll be up to our second millionth page view in no time flat.

Restonian: Over 1 Million Served

What does this filthy "web log" have in common with an emporium of fried foods? Besides the surly service, at some point between the hurricane and the election, we served up our millionth fancy "page view," most likely to someone searching the Google for "reston nudists". Of course, we didn't set up our highly sophisticated "web counter" for a few months after this site launched way back in ought-seven, but we're relatively sure hardly anyone was reading it at that point anyway. (Or now, for that matter.)

Proper websites, with SEO-friendly headlines ("How Do I Paint Over My Lavender Trim Before the Covenants Inspector Gets Here?") and whazzitcalled, "linking," tear through those kinds of page views the way the Macaroni Grill goes through kitchen grease. But for us, this is v. v. exciting. So yay! Time to go out and buy a new keyboard, as we seem to have worn out the CTRL+R keys on this one for some unknown reason, the end.

Flashback Monday: If You Build It, They Won't Come

Set the controls of the Earth-Toned Wayback Machine to South Reston, where we've unearthed this v. v. exciting photo of construction of the original Hunters Woods Village Center. Note the open-air steel girders from which festive banners would be unfurled during the center's heyday, long before it became an almost uninhabited zombie wasteland before being demolished and triumphantly rising from its earth-toned ashes as a perfectly ordinary strip mall, the end.

On the YouTubes: Fun, Beauty, Fantasy, and More Brutalist Statuary Than You Can Poke a Stick At

It's been a stressful couple of weeks for us Type A DC types, so let's take a quick breather by enjoying this calming and (seriously) excellent video on Reston's long history with public art, courtesy of our BFFs at IPAR. If you enjoy lots of black-and-white archival shots of brutalist concrete statuary and B-roll footage of Reston Town Center, then consider your Friday officially made.

Rt. 7 Super-Sizing: Brother, Can You Spare $300 Million?

Plans to add a lane in each direction to the Reston Zoo-Krystal Koons Expressway Rt. 7 between Reston Avenue and Tysons Corner are moving forward. There's now even talk of bike paths and some interchange improvements. The only catch? A piddling $300 million price tag.

After receiving $10 million to study the Rt. 7 super-sizing last year, VDOT and Fairfax County have done some studies and whatnot, sent letters to adjacent property owners in anticipation of surveying, and built a nifty website. They've even come up with a fancy logo for the project and its working group (which includes a representative of the Reston Association, BTW). Behold!

There's also some cool traffic flow charts we don't quite understand, like this:

Given the growth in the area (and in the shlocky strip-mall nirvana encountered just further west as soon as you cross the Loudoun County line), expanding Rt. 7 probably makes sense. It's also probably a recognition of how much traffic will be diverted from the Toll Road once it starts demanding entire rolls of quarters just to get to the Sunglass Hut in the middle of Tysons' walkable downtown shopping malls. But given the state's reluctance to fund other needed infrastructure, we're not holding our breath for that $300 million anytime soon.

VDOT is holding a public information meeting about the project at 6pm Nov. 28 at Colvin Run Elementary. Stop by with questions, and if you happen to have an extra $300 million or so lying around, we're sure they wouldn't complain if you brought it by, the end.

Election Shocker: Obama Ekes Out a Win in Reston by Razor-Thin 65-35 Margin, Almost Certainly Tipping Virginia and the Nation Writ Large

It's morning in America, or at least in Reston, where a strong showing in Virginia and other swing states allowed us to thumb our noses at Florida with its comical "recounts" and "hanging chads."

We're not Nate Silver or anything, but by our count, Obama won the combined Reston precincts by a 65.4-34.6 margin. Romney did win 9,686 votes in Reston precincts, ensuring some crowded trailers in the FEMA camps once the re-education program "grand bargain" gets underway.

Our BFFs at Patch have precinct-by-precinct results. In Reston's predictably hippy-dippy Lake Anne precincts, Obama captured more than 73 percent of the vote. In the fancypants astronaut school/Sunrise Valley precincts, it was more like 57 and 58 percent in Obama's favor.

But there is a Troubling Trend for those on the blue side of the aisle. Back in 2008, Obama won Reston 66.4 percent to 33.6 percent, meaning his support in Reston slipped by a SHOCKING 1 POINT over the last four years. If this trend continues, he could be in a dead heat with his cyborg Republican counterpart 15 presidential elections from now in 2076. Bet you won't hear Nate Silver talking about that!

Did Fairfax County decide the election by tipping Virginia into the blue column, as observers like Forbes had predicted? Anything's possible -- and if so, Obama has Reston to thank for an outsized share of the vote count, as we outperformed Fairfax's overall 59-39 percent margin of victory by 6 points.

So that's Election 2012 in a nutshell. And now, another four-year break from doing math of any kind that involves decimals, the end.

Indecision 2012: Reston Goes to the Polls, Disenfranchises Non-Bipedal Mammals

So the reasoned debate of ideals that has been the 2012 presidential election has stayed in character right down to the wire. What, no empty chairs sitting by the roadside?

On a more bipartisan note:

Meanwhile, this blurry cellular telephone photo from the polling place at Lake Anne forwarded by a Confidential Restonian Operative is even more discouraging in terms of the state of our polity: apparently dogs are being disenfranchised from the vote.

There are no words.

Flashback Monday: How Reston Helped Win The Cold War, Using Multiple Choice Questions

Our favorite correspondent, The Peasant From Less Sought After South Reston, has made a shocking discovery: knowledge of the Reston ideal was once de rigeur for foreign service officers seeking to export aesthetically pleasing suburban color palettes democracy to the rest of the world during the Cold War. No, SRSLY, as the kids no longer say:

Whilst idly twiddling his manure-stained thumbs during our recent "severe weather event", the Peasant From Less Sought After South Reston made yet another astounding discovery of incalculable historical and geopolitical implications: in order to represent our nation abroad, aspiring U.S. diplomats once needed to possess an almost-carnal knowledge of Reston.

Yes, really.

The Peasant was perusing a carton of long-forgotten personal papers when he unearthed a dust-covered U.S. State Department booklet of his titled "1974 Examinations For Foreign Service Officer Careers". (Yes, diplomacy was career option #3 for the Peasant, should #1 of rutabaga farming or #2 of goat herding not work out for him). Among the practice questions for aspiring Kissingers such as the Peasant was one that nearly caused his head to rotate 360 degrees, a la Regan in The Exorcist, in stunned disbelief:

Columbia and Reston are examples of which of the following?

(A) Urban sprawl at its worst
(B) Inner-city areas that have been redeveloped successfully
(C) Satellite cities with a full range of community services
(D) Plans of future towns to be built in the 1980s
(E) Scandinavian efforts at solving urban problems

That was easy -- (A), obviously!

This question, despite the unfortunate inclusion of our satanic twin that festers north of the Potomac, offers conclusive evidence of Reston's heretofore unknown influence as a power player in the global arena. Is it not enough that we have inspired nations from Ireland to South Korea to create their own beige new worlds? Is it not enough that our Reston is the linchpin of the secret quadripartite "Reston Republic" spanning the northern hemisphere from Manitoba to Scotland to England? No! The shining beacon on the hill that is Reston inspired an entire generation of American diplomats to bring enslaved people everywhere the accoutrements of democracy, such as covenants enforcement, design review boards, aesthetically pleasing color palettes, inspiring slogans to live by, and ever-rising annual assessments income redistribution plans.

We can only hope that our U.S. diplomats who bestowed these enlightening virtues of civilization upon the unwashed heathen masses were attired in suitably earth-toned pinstripes.

This could explain how our favorite earth-toned community became part of a major hearts-and-minds propaganda push in Eastern Europe back in the day.

Ironic Art/Redistricting in '12

Is there an election or something next week? Well, you (or we should probably say, we) missed a key opportunity to educate ourselves about the American electoral system in Reston's own Fake Downtown Gritty Urban Core. The Greater Reston Arts Center just wrapped up an exhibit called "Campaign Re/Form," which promised "a provocative interpretation of a campaign office, where viewer participation will be solicited through interactive components." Alrighty then!

Fortunately for us, the virtual slough of despond and frenemy humblebrags museum that is Facebook is always open, and you can enjoy a fancy gallery of pictures from the exhibit, all without having to walk past the temptations of Uno's and various purveyors of frozen yogurt and fully constituted salads. Let's get ready to think!

This means… something.

So does this.

This one, too.

But for real political art, look no further than this fancy redistricting map that has moved Reston from the provenance of lifetime Congressional incumbent Jim Moran to that of lifetime Congressional incumbent Gerry Connolley.

Now that took some creativity! We especially like the fist-shaped protrudance inside the Beltway. It looks like it's punching the more affluent parts of Falls Church in the gut.

Reston: The Magazine: The Word Find

We were too distracted by sandbagging the "web log" server at Restonian World Headquarters to pick up the latest issue of Reston: The Magazine when it was delivered to our home by uniformed federal agents last week, but, as always, it doesn't disappoint!

Thinking about a disclosure packet or a vaguely threatening notice from the RA has never been more fun! We'll save the rest for the next time a power outage threatens to plunge us into darkness for an extended period of time, the end.