RESTON, VA — Residents of Reston will have more time to provide input before the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors votes on the proposed update to the Reston Comprehensive Plan.
“We recently became aware that the county needs to adjust the public hearing schedules on several items, including the proposed Reston Comprehensive Plan,” Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn said, during Tuesday’s board of supervisors meeting.
Amendments to the Code of Virginia that went into affect on July 1 require public bodies to provide sufficient notice whenever it defers or continues a decision to a future meeting.
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At at a June 28 public hearing, the Fairfax County Planning Commission originally deferred its decision on the Reston Comprehensive Plan to July 12, with a public hearing before the board of supervisors scheduled for July 25. The county attorney determined that the hearings needed to be pushed further back in order to comply with the new public notice requirements.
“According to the county attorney’s office, these hearing changes are being made out of abundance of caution in response to new statutory amendments regarding public notice and hearing requirements,” Alcorn said. “They’re similar to changes being made in other jurisdictions.”
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With the undated statutes, the board of supervisors and planning commission can still hold a public hearing and defer the decision to a later meeting. However, if they decide to defer the decision, they’re now required to hold another public hearing before that meeting, according to Alcorn. That new public hearing has the same notification requirements as other public hearings, so the decision meeting has to be pushed back
The update to the Reston Comprehensive Plan will have an additional hearing before the Fairfax County Planning Commission on July 19, which pushes back the board of supervisor’s public hearing to Sept. 12. Alcorn will also be hosting a town hall meeting about the plan amendment on July 27.
The changes will also affect Reston’s Site-Specific Plan Amendment process and the work being done by the Reston Town Center North Task Force, according to Alcorn.
“It’s an unintended consequence of the statutory amendments, but we want the county to move forward on all these items in a manner that leaves no doubt about the soundness of our public hearing process,” Alcorn said.
John Farrell, the president of the Reston Association Board of Directors, told Patch on Tuesday that RA was pleased to see the extension.
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“We are gratified with the progress we’ve made with [Planning Commissioner John Carter] and Supervisor Alcorn and getting changes to the comprehensive plan that reflect the concerns of our Reston Association members. We believe that the extra time will enable us to complete that process.”
Lynne Munston, the president of the Reston Citizens Association, was also happy to see the new meeting dates. During the June 28 public hearing, she asked the planning commission to defer moving forward in order to allow the public more time to consider county staff’s addendum to their report.
“RCA criticized the county for releasing a supplement to the draft plan less than 24 hours before the public hearing,” she told Patch on Tuesday. “RCA is thankful to Commissioner Carter and the Planning Commission for deferring their vote and thereby leaving the window of opportunity for public comment open until July 19. 2023.”
The county attorney’s decision to proceed with caution helps to avoid any potential legal action similar to the lawsuit filed by three county residents over the 2021 zoning ordinance update. In March, the Virginia Supreme Court voided the update adopted by the board, saying that the board failed meet state open meeting requirements. This temporarily invalidated the zoning ordinance, known as zMod, which the board then voted to readopt in May.
Related: Staff Report For Reston Comprehensive Plan Released By County Planners
Alcorn kicked-off the plan review process when he proposed it as a board matter during his first meeting in January 2020 as a newly sworn-in member of the board of supervisors.
Over the subsequent two years, a 31-member task force made up of members of the Reston community conducted 58 meetings, before delivering a 162-page draft amendment for public review.
The lengthy document covered a number of topic areas, including planning principles, heritage resources, transportation, public facilities, land use, affordable housing, parks, environmental stewardship, public art and economic development. In addition, the task force added chapters about community health and equity, which are not currently included in the Fairfax County Plan.
In May, the Fairfax County Department of Planning and Development released the staff report for the proposed Reston Comprehensive Plan. The report called for extending the existing residential densities at Reston’s three Village Centers — Hunters Woods, South Lakes, and North Point — while keeping higher, mixed-use density around the Reston Transit Station Areas.
In addition, the amendment aims to protect, maintain and provide transitions between the higher density of the transit areas and the residential neighborhoods.
More detail about the staff’s recommendations can be found in Appendix A of the staff report.
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