RN Golf Management has been given a Board of Zoning Appeals hearing date of 9 a.m on Jan. 21 — and the president of Reston Citizens Association says it is hoping Restonians will support the organization as they fight to preserve open space in Reston.
RN Golf, owners of Reston National Golf Course, first asked for the zoning appeal two years ago, after its inquiry with the Fairfax County on whether the 166-acre parcel could be considered residential came back as “no.”
Fairfax County responded that the course is open recreational space, and if the owners wanted something different, they needed to seek a rezoning. RN Golf, which deferred its quest in the summer of 2013, wants to reclassify the space without going through the rezoning or comprehensive plan amendment process, according to county documents.
Attorneys for RN Golf, a subsidiary of Northwestern Mutual, asked the county to reactivate the issue earlier this month.
RCA president Sridhar Ganesan says his organization will join Reston Association and Rescue Reston in opposing redevelopment of the public course.
“In response to RN Golf’s bid in Summer 2012 to explore rezoning of RNGC land for non-open space uses including residential development, RCA passed a resolution on August 27, 2012 rejecting the use of the land for anything other than its current use as open space, specifically its current use a golf course or as open space dedicated to parks and recreation,” Ganesan said.
RCA says that with additional development coming to Reston with the arrival of the Silver Line, “preserving open space dedicated to parks and recreation is critically important, and RNGC is integral to Reston’s longstanding vision and plan as a diverse planned community in which people are able to live, work and play.”
“Just as in 2012, Reston organizations such as Reston Association (RA), Rescue Reston (RR) and RCA are aligned in their opposition to any potential rezoning of the land,” Ganesan said. “Fairfax County Supervisor Cathy Hudgins, Hunter Mill District (which covers RNGC land), has also said that she continues to support the Fairfax County Zoning Administrator’s determination with regards to RNGC and RCA thanks her for publicly stating her support for the original zoning determination.”
RCA says it also supports RA’s willingness to consider purchasing the golf course, if needed, to continue to maintain it as a Reston recreational asset.
This is an op-ed from Connie Hartke of Reston Citizens Association. Lake Anne Fellowship House had recently planned a redevelopment project. That recently fell through, and the affordable senior housing faces an uncertain future.
RCA feels it is urgent that the greater Reston community understands the implications of development on one of our Reston Comprehensive Plan 10 Planning Principles, which is “housing provided for all ages and incomes.”[1] Our community support is needed to ensure that land owners and potential developers respect and honor our Plan.
Who Lives at Lake Anne Fellowship House (LAFH): Folks 62 or older on limited fixed incomes and those of any age with a qualifying disability and income. A good description is at fellowshipsquare.org/fsf/who-are-we.
Who owns it: Fellowship Square Foundation (FSF), a non-profit provider of affordable housing for the elderly and disabled in the DC metropolitan area. They own and operate LAFH, Reston’s Hunters Woods Fellowship House and two others.
The FSF website does not currently post a mission statement, but we find this on page 5 of their 2013 annual report:
“We specialize in financially fragile residents. We celebrate that we make a difference in their lives and the life of the community they live in.”
The original purpose of the Foundation according to its founder Dr. John Scherzer, told to the RCA on March 13, 1970:
“The purpose of the Foundation as set forth in our Charter is to sponsor adequate retirement facilities for lower and middle income people who must depend for their livelihood upon the fixed income from civil service retirement and/or Social Security.”[2]
Sridhar Ganesan has been elected as the Reston Citizens Association new president.
He replaces Colin Mills, who did not run for re-election.
Ganesan is an RCA board member from the North Point District who has been involved in many local issues and organizations the past several years.
John Hanley, Hunters Woods District director, was re-elected by the Board as RCA’s Vice President, a position that he has held for the past two years. Board Member Nick Georgas was elected as Secretary and Joe Leighton was reelected to the position of Treasurer.
Incumbent Hunters Woods District Director Constance Hartke was re-elected to the Board. Dennis Hays was elected to the Board as an At Large Director.
Hank Schonzeit joined the Board as a new Director from Town Center/Lake Anne/Tall Oaks District, while Robin Hogan also joined the board as a new Director from South Lakes District.
Online voting was open to all Small Tax District 5 (Reston) residents in June. More information on the RCA directors can be found on RCA’s website, www.rcareston.com.
After three years as President of the Reston Citizens Association, having written weekly about community issues for Reston Patch and Reston Now since August 2011, this is my final column.
RCA is in the process of counting and verifying the results from our recent election. When the Board sits down to meet next Monday, someone else will be sworn in as president, and my three years in charge will officially come to an end.
Now that I’ve reached the end of the road with RCA, I have mixed emotions. On some level, I’m sorry to be stepping down; it’s still a very exciting time in Reston, between the Silver Line’s (finally scheduled) opening, the further revisions to the Master Plan, the question of how we’ll meet our community’s transportation, recreational, and environmental needs as we redevelop and grow in the future. I feel that RCA will have a key role to play in those community conversations, and I’m sorry I won’t be there to guide the organization on those issues.
On the other hand, I also feel more than a little relieved. The schedule of meetings, emails, and other ancillary duties is tough on someone with a family. I’m really excited about getting to spend more time with my wonderful wife Jennifer and my amazing daughter, Leslie. And I also look forward to having the chance to tackle something new. I’m the kind of guy who likes to look ahead to the next challenge, the next hill to climb, and now I’ll have a chance to do just that.
I’m proud of all that RCA has accomplished in the last 3 years under my leadership. When I took over as president, I wanted RCA to have a much stronger voice on Reston’s political and social issues. We succeeded. In the last three years, RCA has informed and advocated for our citizens on a wide variety of issues, from the funding of the Silver Line to the rewriting of our Master Plan to the funding and administration of County libraries to the re-planning of Baron Cameron Park. Our Reston 2020 Committee has become a widely-recognized authority on planning, development, and transportation issues. We held forums, wrote articles, performed analysis, and spoke up in hearings on behalf of Restonians.
Last night, I attended one of my favorite meetings. I got together with RCA Vice President John Hanley, RA President Ken Knueven and CEO Cate Fulkerson, and ARCH President Jerry Volloy. We had a couple drinks and talked about the hot issues in Reston, what we’re each working on, and how we can help each other out. We laughed a lot and teased each other a fair bit, but we left feeling like we understood each other and the community a little better.
This is the Gang of 5. We’ve been gathering, in various configurations and at various times, for the last two years. Meeting with the Gang has been one of the highlights of my RCA presidency, and I believe it’s been a great benefit to our organizations and to Reston as a whole.
Our meetings are very informal. There’s no agenda, no one takes minutes, and Robert’s Rules of Order definitely don’t apply. It’s a chance for us to let our hair down, say what’s on our minds, smooth out any bumps in the road, and find ways to better serve our constituents.
One of my goals when I became RCA president three years ago was to strengthen our relationship with other Reston organizations. We’re all serving the community and we share many of the same broad objectives; why shouldn’t we work together more? If we don’t, we risk duplicating efforts or, worse, fighting where we could collaborate. We may not agree on everything, but I suspected we might agree on a lot if we sat down and talked things out.
This wasn’t the first effort to bring Reston organizations together. About 10 years ago, the leaders of many Reston groups formed the Coalition of Reston Organizational Leadership (COROL), to share information about what everyone was working on. But that effort faded quickly, and since then, our organizations had largely been stuck in their silos. Too often, we didn’t talk to each other, we didn’t really trust each other, and we spent too much time guarding our own turf instead of looking for ways to help each other.
The “Gang of 5” concept was John Hanley’s idea. John is a great raconteur, and he believes that big things can happen in casual meetings. So he proposed a get-together with Jerry, Ken, and then-RA VP Andy Sigle. Happily, they were all on board. We met at the now-closed Greenberry’s Coffee, and spoke about our organizations, our projects, and our goals for the community. The relationship bloomed from there. Read More
Elections for Reston Citizens Association (RCA) board of directors will be open online through June 22.
RCA is a citizens advocacy group that was founded in 1967 to promote and protect Reston’s founding principles and quality of life by serving as a non-partisan forum for all residents and business owners.
RCA is currently working on educating the community on the new development spurred by the arrival of the Silver Line and Phase II of the Reston Master Plan while also recommending smart growth solutions for transportation, education, environment, and accessibility to local and County officials and associations.
The following seats are up for election: North Point Director, Lake Anne/Tall Oaks/Town Center Director, South Lakes Director, Hunters Woods Director, and an At-Large Director. Each seat
carries a three-year term.
RCA Bylaws say an election must be held even if candidates are running unopposed, which they are this year. The South Lakes district has no candidate but is accepting write-ins. Anyone over age 18 who resides in SMall Tax District 5 is eligible to vote.
To cast your vote, visit the RCA website.
Continue reading after the jump for bios on the candidates.
Last week, I announced that I will not be running again for the RCA Board. I’m not the only one stepping down this year, however. Two other RCA stalwarts, Terry Maynard and Dick Rogers, are also retiring at the end of this term.
This week, I’d like to pay tribute to Terry and Dick. They have both served Reston well in their time with RCA, and I’m glad to count them as trusted colleagues and as friends. I will greatly miss working with them both.
Dick and Terry have a lot in common. They have served with RCA for quite a while (Terry joined the Board in late 2009, Dick in early 2010). Both are retired CIA analysts, and they brought that analytical skill to their work with RCA. Both are most interested in planning and transportation. But although they’re similar in background, they have different approaches and have contributed to RCA in different ways.
If you’ve followed the planning for Reston’s future — whether it’s the Silver Line, the Master Plan revisions, or the RCC rec center proposal — you’ve probably heard Terry Maynard’s name. He has been quoted more often than anyone else on the RCA Board, and with good reason. Over the years, Terry has become one of Reston’s preeminent experts on development issues.
Terry’s analytical reports, full of charts and footnotes, are legendary. If you think I’m verbose, you should take a look at one of Terry’s reports, which can run 100 pages or more. But they are lengthy for a reason. Most people don’t have the expertise or the inclination to dive into spreadsheets full of numbers and figures and dig out the real story, but Terry does. Whether he’s examining the accuracy of Toll Road revenue forecasts, quantifying the impact of development on Reston’s traffic and recreational facilities, or raising unanswered questions about the rec center, you can count on Terry to provide a rigorous, reasonable analysis.
In addition to his reports, Terry has taken on a leadership role on planning issues. He has been the co-chair of RCA’s Reston 2020 Committee, serving as a community watchdog on key development-related matters. He also served with distinction as RCA’s primary representative on the Reston Master Plan Task Force, standing up for Reston’s citizens to protect our founding principles and quality of life. While the final Master Plan recommendations weren’t quite as Terry wanted, his staunch advocacy and thoughtful analysis made the final plan better for Restonians. Read More
All good things must come to an end. After losing my election for the Reston Association board earlier this month, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what the future holds for me, including my future with RCA.
With our elections just around the corner and the candidate filing period now open, I felt that I owed it to the RCA and to potential candidates to make a decision about my plans. And after long and careful thought, I announced to the Board at last week’s meeting that I have made the difficult decision not to run for re-election to RCA.
Many factors have gone into this decision. One of the driving factors is the needs of my family. My new wife and my daughter have been very supportive of my work with RCA, but they need and deserve more of my time than I’ve been able to give them.
But perhaps the deciding factor is my belief that it’s time for me to do something different. I have served the community actively for almost a decade, and I have been with RCA for almost all of that time, including the last 3 years as president. I have learned a lot and grown a lot in that time, and now it’s time for me to start a new chapter in my life.
I’m proud of everything that RCA has accomplished under my leadership. We have raised RCA’s profile tremendously, and made ourselves part of the community conversation again. We have been a strong voice for Reston’s citizens on issues like the Master Plan, transportation, open space, parks and recreation, our library system, and many more. We have forged strong relationship with fellow community organizations like RA, ARCH, Rescue Reston, and others. We have renewed our focus on keeping the citizens informed (one of RCA’s original missions) by hosting and co-sponsoring community forums, producing analytical reports, and starting the new Reston 411 series of quick facts.
The Reston Citizens Association (RCA) says it is changing its election process and structure in order to be more in line with other Reston-based organizations and position RCA for continuing its active role in Reston.
Starting in 2014, the president of RCA will be elected by its Board of Directors instead of being elected directly by Reston citizens during RCA’s annual elections held in each June of every year.
At its first meeting after every annual election, the RCA will now elect the President, who must be a Director who has served on the Board for at least a year. As in the past, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer will also be elected at this meeting.
This is the same process Reston Association uses to elect its officers.
While the President will continue to serve a one-year term at the pleasure of a new board, RCA has changed the terms served by its elected directors from the current two-years to three-year terms.
“The Board has been evaluating changes to its electoral process to best enable RCA’s mission of supporting and recommending smart growth solutions for Reston,” said RCA president Colin Mills. “After many months of consideration, the Board amended its bylaws to reflect these changes as of the 2014 elections.”
The RCA Board will continue to have 13 seats representing four Districts and At-Large positions as before, but those seats have been divided into three groups that will each come up for reelection as a class.
A call for candidates was announced by RCA, and more information about the election can be found on RCA’s website.
Meanwhile, Mills said he will not run for another term on the RCA board. Mills, who ran for an RA at-large director seat this spring, has served eight years on the RCA Board, including three as president.
Terry Maynard, RCA board member from the South Lakes district and well-regarded analyst on all things Reston, also plans to retire at the end of the current term to continue his leadership and activities at Reston2020, a RCA committee that he co-chairs.
Dick Rogers, RCA Board member from the Lake Anne/Tall Oaks/Reston Town Center District, is also retiring at the end of this term, but will continue to drive RCA’s transportation planning issues. He serves on both RCA’s and Reston Association’s transportation committees.
This is an important and exciting time for Reston. As we celebrate our community’s 50th anniversary and our founder’s 100th birthday, we’ve been looking back at our past and ahead to our future. And as we look ahead, it’s clear that major change is in store for our community.
The Silver Line will soon be open, and that will trigger major redevelopment that will bring great opportunities and great challenges for Reston.
Our original village center, Lake Anne, is about to begin a major revitalization. Our other village centers may have redevelopment awaiting them as well. We’re going to see thousands of new residents and new jobs in the coming decades, which will bring new vitality, but also new demands on our infrastructure. We’re going to need roads, schools, fields, parks, and open spaces for those new Restonians, and we’ll need to provide them with limited resources and without damaging the quality of life for existing Restonians.
There’s a lot going on! And it’s a great time to be involved. There’s no better evidence of that then the large field of candidates (myself included) who ran in the recent Reston Association election. If you’re interested in all the change in Reston and want to be involved, I’d encourage you to get involved in planning our community’s future by running for the RCA Board.
From the beginning, one of the Reston Citizens Association’s key missions has been keeping the citizens informed about what’s going on in the community and serving as the voice of the citizens on key issues.
In keeping with that mission, last week we had our first “ResTown Hall Meeting.” Our goal was to inform and to listen to Restonians on a subject that is essential to Reston’s recreational future: the draft master plan for Baron Cameron Park developed by the Fairfax County Park Authority.
Based on the attendance, it was clear that the community cares about the future of Baron Cameron. We had strong turnout in spite of cold and rainy weather and the NCAA men’s basketball championship taking place that night. Not only that, the attendees came from all parts of Reston, not just the neighborhoods closest to the park.
We opened with a presentation by RCA’s Terry Maynard. Terry summarized the changes and upgrades proposed in the draft master plan. He placed the plan in the context of Reston’s planned growth, explaining Baron Cameron’s location relative to the coming Metro stations (not very close) and the Lake Anne redevelopment (quite close). He also described the other park facilities in and near Reston. Read More
According to the Chinese zodiac, 2014 is the “Year of the Horse.” But in Reston, it seems like it’s shaping up to be the “Year of the Master Plan.”
In February, the Board of Supervisors approved changes to Reston’s Master Plan to allow for mixed-use development around the Silver Line Metro stations. And now, the County Park Authority is preparing a Master Plan for Baron Cameron Park.
RCA and our Reston 2020 Committee is very interested in what happens at Baron Cameron, particularly in light of the projected athletic field shortage in Reston when the aforementioned mixed-use development is built. But more importantly, we’re interested in hearing what the community has to say.
That’s why Reston 2020 is holding a “ResTown Hall Meeting” on the Baron Cameron plan on April 7. This is your chance to speak out about the proposed changes to Baron Cameron: what you like, what you don’t like, what you think should be added, and what unanswered questions you have.
Kathy Kaplan, a longtime Restonian and community activist, will be honored as the Reston Citizen of the Year at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Reston Community Center Hunters Woods.
The award recognizes Kaplan’s exemplary leadership, perseverance, effectiveness, and commitment to Reston’s values in her continuing efforts to protect the future of the County’s public libraries, including Reston Regional Library, said RCA president Colin Mills.
“Kathy’s award is a demonstration of the power of individual citizens to make a big difference in the community,” said Mills. “We in Reston love our library, and we’re grateful to Kathy for everything she’s done to protect it.”
A published author of poetry and children’s books, Kaplan is an avid user of the Reston Regional Public Library. She brought to light last year that the library system was no longer recirculating books. Instead, they were dumping them.
After Kaplan noticed that the bookshelves were increasingly empty, she began to investigate why.
Through personal outreach and research of obscure Fairfax County documents, she discovered that the county had thrown away more than 100,000 books, and was slated to reduce the library budget and cut the professional librarian staff as part of a departmental strategic plan.
Reston Regional to be part of the library system’s “Beta Plan,” but Kaplan mobilized citizens to protest the cuts. Read More
The Reston Citizens Association has appointed three new members to fill vacancies on its board of directors.
RCA advertised the vacancies, which were created when one board member resigned and two spots were left unfilled during the last election die to lack of candidates.
New board members:
Nick Georgas has lived in Reston for 4 1/2 years. He is a landscape architect and planner with experience in the Fairfax County planning and development process. He served on the Public Review subcommittee that revised the environmental chapter of Loudoun County’s Facilities Standards Manual. He will bring his expertise on land use and planning issues to the RCA Board, as well as providing a young professional’s perspective on the future of Reston.
Yavuz Inanli has lived in Reston for over two years. He grew up in Cincinnati, where developed award-winning anti-drug workshops as a member of a community coalition. He attended college at Fairleigh Dickinson University, where he led an effort to reignite interest and participation in student government. He has an interest in transportation issues, particularly Bikeshare and public transportation. He hopes to continue Reston’s tradition of being a destination for people to raise their families, regardless of income.
Annmarie Swope has lived in Reston for 12 years. She is the co-chair of the Aldrin ES PTA Health and Wellness Committee, and she founded and currently co-chairs Aldrin’s Business Partnership Committee. She also serves as a Reston Little League coach. She is an experienced marketing and communications professional, and she plans to bring this expertise to RCA. She has a special interest in education and development issues.
The new Board members will serve until the next RCA election in the late spring, at which point they will have the opportunity to run for full terms, said RCA President Colin Mills.
RCA is a nonpartisan citizens group concerned with Reston’s development, growth, transportation and other issues.
As you know, I’m a fan of snowy days. I hope you’re all warm and safe inside right now. But once the cars and the walk have been shoveled, the snowmen have been built, and the day’s sledding runs are complete, you might be looking for something else to do. If you are, and if you care about our community’s future, I have a suggestion: Why not apply for a spot on the RCA Board?
We have three available seats, and we’re looking for dedicated community-minded folks to fill them. If you read my posts on a regular basis, odds are that you’re interested in Reston and community issues. And thank you for that! We need people who care about local issues. If that’s you, I’d like to challenge you to take the next step and get involved in planning our community’s future with RCA.
Last year was one of RCA’s busiest years ever, and 2014 is shaping up to be just as active. It’s Reston’s 50th anniversary, and our community will be looking back at its history, but there are plenty of issues that will have us looking forward as well. The opening of the Silver Line and its surrounding development, the implementation of Phase 1 of the Master Plan and the preparations for Phase 2, the proposed new rec center… these issues are going to change the face of Reston and how we live, work, and play for decades to come.
RCA and its Reston 2020 Committee are active on the front lines of all of those issues and more. If you’re interested in helping to shape the community conversation and help plan for our future, RCA and 2020 are a great place for you to get involved. Read More
