Fairfax County supervisors on Monday will weigh a developer’s request to build four high-rises and a bevy of shops and offices on a plot in Reston, a plan derided by surrounding residents who fear being inundated by new traffic.
The development from JBG Cos. — dubbed Reston Heights — won approval from the Planning Commission in November and will come before the board at its first meeting of 2008. If approved, the development along Sunrise Valley Drive would bring a 10-acre cluster of dense urban growth to the outlying planned community.
It’s one of numerous projects that developers hope to install along the path of the planned Dulles Rail extension, and the local opposition that has mounted around it could be a warning sign of many land-use fights to come.
“We know we’re dealing with a juggernaut here,” said Fred Rothwarf, who lives in the Hunters Green cluster and is working to mobilize opposition to JBG’s proposal. “And the possibility of having the Board of Supervisors rule in our favor is very small. But we’re making the effort nonetheless, to at least be on record as [to] how bad it is, and how bad it’s going to be.”
Rothwarf and other critics in nearby neighborhoods say the project is too big and that the county hasn’t studied the damage it would do to an already distressed system of roads.
The plan would add nearly 500 new multifamily dwellings and 2,839 parking spots, and will funnel traffic only onto Sunrise Valley Drive, according to a Fairfax County staff report.
Dozens of residents have signed a petition calling for the board approval to be delayed pending an independent traffic study.
Efforts to reach a JBG spokesman were unsuccessful.
Hunter Mill District Supervisor Catherine Hudgins, whose district encompasses Reston, did not return phone calls Wednesday or Thursday.
The project sits close to the Reston Parkway Metro station, which is planned for the second phase of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project. That station is not scheduled to open until at least 2015.
