Golf Course redevelopment will disrupt Reston’s planning legacy

by Rescue Reston

Reston National Golf Course from above. Photo by Benjamin Burgess

A curious partnership has teamed up to upend Reston’s long history of careful planning.

Since 2012, Reston has fought to protect its private open space from development. Its two golf courses—though privately owned—are a legacy to Robert E. Simon’s original vision for Reston and are vital to Reston’s biophilic character, serving to connect residents with nature where they work, live, and play.

As former Reston Citizens Association President Colin Mills wrote in the Patch in August 2012: “It’s a fundamental question of what our community will look like in the future. If the golf course, which is designated as open space in Reston's Master Plan, is ruled to be developable, what will that mean for the rest of Reston's open space? If the open space designation in our zoning has no meaning, what's to stop the rest of it from being filled up?

Allowing Reston National [Golf Course] to be redeveloped sets a dangerous precedent. Open space and greenery is a key part of what makes Reston special; to allow it to disappear would endanger the long-term vision and plan for our community.”

For those worried that Reston does not have enough housing, we have 11,000 units zoned but not built. There will be more added to that number as the Site-Specific Plan Amendments work their way through the County process.

Reston National Golf Course has held the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf certification since at least 2010, using practices that cut water and chemical use while expanding wildlife habitat. This 18-hole public course is a key recreational amenity and integral to the community’s original design. Despite the owner’s claims—rooted in having overpaid—that the course is failing, it could become a nationally recognized eco-friendly destination if funds were shifted away from legal fees and PR firms.

But let’s focus on the money.

The names behind the published LLC ownership of Reston National Golf Course: Scott Plank and his company War Horse Cities out of Baltimore, MD. Plank and his previous partner overpaid greatly for non-developable land, betting that they could find a way around the open space designation. That’s a risk Plank decided to take, and Reston citizens have no obligation to bail him out by sacrificing our open space. He knowingly bought property with a land use designation of golf course and zoned PRC (open space).

Now Plank has teamed up with NVR, Inc., one of America’s largest home builders. The faces behind NVR are billionaires Paul Saville, Executive Chairman, and Dwight Schar, NVR’s Founder.

NVR, Inc. and their attorney have come up with several plans to attempt to force housing on portions of Reston National Golf Course. But do they have a longer game in mind?

On a side note, Dwight Schar is the father-in-law of Comstock Holding Companies CEO Chris

Clemente, who has been the central figure lobbying to bring a casino somewhere along the Silver Line.

Open the door to housing on the golf course, and you may be opening the door to a casino on the greens.

Learn more at RescueReston.org, a grass-roots organization of community volunteers who oppose redevelopment of Reston National Golf Course into residential housing or any site development other than a golf course or comparable open space.