In Reston, A Push To Become A Real Town

Opponents Fear Change Would Bring Tax Hikes

At a festival yesterday celebrating Reston's 41st birthday, Mike Corrigan proudly donned a "ResTOWN in 2006" lapel sticker. To Corrigan, Reston is the ideal suburban town.

Plenty of folks live, work and play within its borders, a rare luxury in a region of commuters, he said. With its 55 miles of walking trails, a person can walk to the store or one of 15 swimming pools, or just take a stroll through the trees, inevitably running into a friend or neighbor on the way. All the while, he said, that person might never realize that nearly 60,000 people live within the booming town's borders.

Yet, for all its townness, Corrigan lamented, Reston isn't a town at all.

Yesterday he and others were collecting signatures of Reston residents on a petition in the hopes of transforming Reston from an unincorporated corner of western Fairfax County into a full-fledged town.

"It's just time we had the clout, the wherewithal that towns with a mayor and a town council have," said Corrigan, president of the Reston Citizens Association, a political organization spearheading the effort. "It's time we had a stronger voice for Reston on major issues."

Corrigan and others are in for an uphill struggle. Reston residents voted down the issue by a 2-to-1 ratio in a 1980 referendum. It has surfaced occasionally since then but never got beyond the idea stage, partly because of vehement opposition by residents and business owners who feared an increase in their taxes and more restrictions on development. Another potential hurdle is that the county supervisors and General Assembly must approve the change.

Under the current proposal, many of Reston's community boards and neighborhood associations would be rolled into a single town government able to levy taxes for townwide projects.

As a town, Reston would remain part of Fairfax County, which would continue to provide education, police, fire, court, library and social services and other programs.

The new draft charter is better and stronger than the 1980 one, town supporters say, and with a single government entity overseeing town operations, taxes probably would roughly match the $425-per-home that residents now pay in dues to the Reston Association, Reston's largest homeowners association. Many could pay less.

But more important, supporters say, town status would give Reston a unity and a voice that they feel are lacking.

A primary motivation for the latest effort is the planned coming of the Wiehle Avenue Metro station, part of the Dulles rail project connecting West Falls Church, Tysons Corner, Dulles International Airport and Loudoun County.

Town status, supporters say, would help Reston exert more influence over the financing and design of the station, which is likely to worsen traffic and parking problems in the area.