The Reston Perspective

What other people have said.

The intent of this column is to "facilitate" what Mr. Hoppe hopes will turn into a frank. lively, on-going, much needed, and loooooong overdue discussion about "The Future of Reston" that every resident of Reston is invited to join into. "Since the past is prologue, it follows that we must first determine where we came from and where we are (stand) today, BEFORE we can even BEGIN to figure out where we want to go, much less, how we are going to get there. Hence, the following five articles in which I will attempt to set the stage.", says William Hoppe, who is its author and who will act as a moderator during the ensuing discussions.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

William Hoppe is a (Dutch educated) garden architect in private practice. As a result of his professional background and of having observed the Reston scene for the 20 years that he has lived and worked in this town, he has garnered a great deal of experience in land-use, urban/suburban, and community planning issues especially as they relate to Reston and its future. Since 1993. he has served Reston as an At Large Director on the Board of the Reston Citizen's Association (RCA) and. yes, he is running for re-election again in April 1996 for yet another 2 year term.

HAVE ANY REACTIONS?

Well, that's the whole point, isn't it? How can we have a "discussion" if folks won't let us know what THEY are thinking? Don't be shy. Speak up. Do it often. You disagree with something that has been said...... Let's hear it. You agree......Let's hear that too. Somebody said something rather interesting to us the other day, he said: "Too many people feel that their civic responsibilities end at the edge of their lawn or -at best- at the borders of their own neighborhood." Let's get with it folks!! Remember, the future of Reston (the town you love and live in) is at stake. Remember also, that the future of Reston is largely in YOUR hands; that you CAN make a difference!

Bill Hoppe will gladly acknowledge and answer ALL of your COMMENTS, IDEAS, OBSERVATIONS, OPINIONS, VIEWPOINTS, and what have you. Your SUGGESTIONS as to how to reach and to engage a majority (?) of the residents of Reston in this discussion, will be welcomed with open arms. Programmers and other folks wise to the ways of the Internet (and to Public Relations and the press) are also cordially invited to roll up their sleeves and pitch in. PLEASE, we will need ALL the help we can get! Reston needs YOU!

You will be able to reach Bill Hoppe at outlook@townweb.com, or directly..... by regular (snail) mail at 1747 Ivy Oak Square, Reston, VA 22090, via Fax at (703) 437-0646, and via personal E-mail at hoppe@erols.com

PART I : Reston's Genesis

Influenced by the work of his father who, as a developer, had invested heavily in the ("new") town of Radburn, NJ, which was billed in 1929 as America first "Garden City", and by the writings of Ebenezar Howard and scores of other proponents of the English "Garden City", "Greenbelt", and "New Town" movement popular during the first quarter of this century, Robert (Bob) E. Simon, Jr., after having worked on a series of shopping center projects that bore him no satisfaction, decided to try his hand at developing and building a new town from scratch and on his own!

After having bought the 6,750 acre former Bowman family property for about $12.8 million and another, adjacent 750 acre tract in 1961 (while Dulles Airport and the Dulles Access Road were still under construction), he hired (Whittlesey) Conklin & Rossant, a small New York architectural firm experienced in the design of large-scale residential projects, to help him think through and arrive at an overall development scheme for his new town which he named Reston ("ton", the French/English name for town wedded to the 3 initials of his name).

As originally conceived by him and his team, Reston was planned to be developed as an interrelated and interwoven network of seven "villages" each with its own (mixed use) village center composed of stores, schools, child-care facilities, churches, cultural and recreational facilities, restaurants, townhouses, apartments, and housing for the elderly, designed for a total population of some 10,000 residents per village. In turn, the seven villages were planned to be grouped around a central core, a "downtown", meant to house the town hall, the police and fire departments, the junior and senior high schools, the main library, the main post office, a civic center/auditorium, a hospital, one or more hotels, the usual banks and office buildings, appropriate retail stores, eating and dining facilities, theaters and other cultural establishments, and a small, permanent population of its own.

In all, Reston was planned to have a total population of some 80,000 people; the 70,000 who would live in the seven villages, 5,000 folks who would live in the downtown core, and yet another 5,000 who would live along the corridors (sinews) connecting the villages (see 2c, below). In this connection it is interesting to note that, as of this writing (April 1996), the best estimate of Reston's current population stands at around 55,000, 25,000, or 31.3% FEWER people than what Bob Simon's original Reston Concept Plan called for!

Along the roads leading in and out of his town, along both sides of the Dulles Access Road, and within certain well defined and buffered corridors and areas, he planned to create office parks and other commercial developments meant to house the many private companies and governmental facilities he hoped would come to provide a suitable employment base for his town.

Most importantly, Bob Simon wanted his town:

1. to be as unlike the cookie-cutter, sterile "bedroom communities" served by strip shopping centers that were mushrooming at an alarming rate (thanks to Bill Levitt, the Lerners (?), and others) all across the suburban landscape during the 1950s and 60s. With a total population of about 80,000 people, his town, covering some 7,500 acres, was to have an overall density of about 11 people per acre, par for the course then, as well as now, for most standard suburban communities. However, by creating high-rise (condominium) apartment complexes and "clusters" of single family detached houses as well as attached "townhouses" (revolutionary concepts in the 1960s that have been widely copied, nationally, since), he expectd to achieve densities of 33, or more, people per acre in the built-up sections of his town while leaving 3,750 acres, half of the total, available for buffering, screening, public gardens and parks, and diverse public and private recreational purposes. At the same time this would allow him to create a town that would be well integrated with a natural looking, pleasant countryside that had not been bulldozed, slashed, burned, and raped into submission first (as was, and -to an extent- STILL is, the predominant development process of the day), while it offered all of the advantages of an urbane, core city.

   In other words, Simon wanted to create a "town" that would be "New" NOT in a chronological sense, but in the sense that it would offer its residents the opportunity to live in and enjoy the best of BOTH worlds; all of the qualities that make cities exciting and stimulating places to be in, AND all of the pleasures that can come with living in the countryside. An extremely TALL order, to be sure!

2. to be pedestrian oriented (friendly) despite the fact that even in 1961 it had already become patently obvious that any "New Town" in America, his included, would have to be automobile dependent and oriented to a significant degree. To make his seven villages pedestrian friendly and their centers inward looking, he planned; a.) to build his village centers first (!) and then to build their associated villages around them such that all of them would become "self sufficient", fully integrated wholes (i.e. such that each "village center" would indeed be the center of a real "village" rather than just a "center" in name only); b.) to incorporate housing into each one of the village centers such that they would have a life of their own; c.) to connect all of the centers, and -thus- all of his seven villages, with mixed-use (residential/office), low-rise yet high density corridors (sinews) and; d.) to keep the distances separating each village center from its nearest two neighboring centers, and from the town's downtown core (which, as I mentioned above, was to have a residential component also), to no more than 1.5 miles, a distance that can be covered on foot in about 20 minutes.

   In addition, he planned to separate auto and pedestrian traffic by means of differing grade elevations, over- or under passes, and other such strategems. Given the relatively short distances involved, he felt that six grocery stores, each accessible on foot to some 13,500 people, would be needed to serve the needs of the population. To accommodate those who wanted (or needed) to do their shopping by car, he planned for ample and readily accessible parking at each village center. In this context it is interesting to note that the 15,000 sq.ft. Safeway Store at the Lake Anne Village Center (which became the Fresh Value Store in the early 1980s which, in turn, closed its doors in April 1995) opened for business when Reston had a total population of less than 1,000 people (sic), and that both it and its sister store at the Hunters Woods Village Center (which closed in 1994), were as large as they came in the mid 1960s and designed to serve a population of from 12,500 to 15,000 people, each;

3. to be as varied, interesting, exciting, and beautiful in architectural terms as possible by promoting a judicious mix of housing and building designs, styles, groupings, massings, and heights both in the central core (the downtown) and in each of the villages;

4. to offer a wide variety of housing choices from large and expensive to small and economical; from single family detached homes to townhouses and (condominium) apartments, to make it possible for Restonians to remain within the community throughout the various stages of their lives and to make the town accessible to people from a wide range of socio-economic milieus. By creating a stew composed of a complex variety of societal ingredients (by enriching the melting pot), Simon reasoned, one could develop a more heterogenous, vibrantly alive community full of excitement and stimulation intellectually, culturally, and socially speaking as opposed to the sameness, the dullness, and the sterility offered by most all conventional suburban communities then as well as now. In that same vein, he further decided to open his new town to all people regardless of race and ethnicity, an extremely daring and bold move taken some 20 years BEFORE the enactment of federal open housing laws when most all suburban communities throughout the United States were still ridgidly segregated (!);

5. to offer a wide variety of commercial, cultural, and recreational facilities and opportunities RIGHT FROM THE START rather than at some point years into the future!

At the core of the Reston Dream lies the realization that the physical attributes of any town or any suburban community determine, to a large extent, its potential social viability; that a socially alive community cannot develop and flourish in a sterile physical environment; that BOTH the physical and the social aspects are intimately interrelated and interwoven.

If that realization is indeed correct, it -per force- follows that any degradation in its physical environment and/or any sharp discontinuities in its physical organization and attributes, can be expected to have serious and unforeseen repercussions affecting the continued social wellbeing of any town or suburban community.

-END-
In Part II, "How Does Today's Reston Stack-up, Physically?", I'll examine how Reston was actually built, point out where and why its developers departed from the vision of Bob Simon (as detailed above), what the more obvious and not so obvious consequences were, and where Reston stands today.

In Part III, "How Does Today's Reston Stack-up as a Community?", I'll look at Reston as an economic, political, and social "entity", describe its present day characteristics and "make-up", take its pulse, examine its health, point out its strengths as well as its weaknesses (I will NOT pull any punches!), and show where and how it's congruent with and/or departs from the "Vision" of the Simon "Concept Plan" (or "Dream", if you will).

In Part IV , "What Challenges Await Reston In the Next 24 Years?", I'll clean and polish my crystal ball, consult the folks listed under Acknowledgements, below, as well as dozens of others who can be expected to have a good "feel" for this subject (and who I will name, of course), and let you know what, collectively, "we" think they are.

In Part V , "Planning For The Future of Reston", I'll lay out my recommendations for a planning process involving a public/private partnership organization tasked with the development and maintenance of a "Vision For Reston in the 21st Century", the formation of a permanent "Citizen Advisory Board" (or Panel), and the development of a completely new planning paradigm on the part of Fairfax County that will afford the residents of Reston an honest to goodness "seat at the bargaining table" (beyond merely being allowed to participate in "public hearings") where it comes to future development and redevelopment plans and projects.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I would NOT have attempted this five part series were it not for the encouragement, advice, and help of such folks as Priscilla Ames, Robert Bidwell, Ivan Cole, Patrick Kane, Marcia McDevitt, Bill Nicoson, Lee Rau, Robert Simon, Walter Webdale, and numerous others to whom I owe a debt of gratitude.

There are also some very worthwhile books on Reston that I highly recommend you read. The first one is "Reston: The First 20 Years", written by Tom Grubisisch and Peter McCandless, and published by Reston Publishing Company (Prentice Hall) in 1985. The second one is "Reston: A New Town in the Old Dominion", written by Nan Netherton, and published by The Downing Company in 1989. Copies of both books can. no doubt be made available by their authors. They are available also, of course, in the Fairfax County Public Library. In the event that you are reading this in the newspaper (and not on the Internet), I might call you attention also to a nice History of Reston" which appears (along with this five part series) on the Reston Web.

Stay tuned for Part II in this series which will appear here next week!

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