For the second time in seven months, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors has shrunk the special tax district which funds the Reston Community Center.
This time, eight neighborhoods at the western and northwestern edges were cut out of Small Tax District Five.
During the public hearing, representatives from the affected neighborhoods came to speak in favor of being taken out. Similar to the arguments made by others in March, they said that they do not feel like they are part of the Reston community, and do not use the community center.
"Our homes have never been included in the Reston Master Plan," said Julie Reiss. "While we have never been part of the community, we have been funding Reston's Community Center for over 30 years."
Small Tax District Five funds the operations of the Reston Community Center. The tax is added to homeowners property taxes, and last year was 4.7 cents per $100 of assessed value. The owner of a $500,000 home would pay $235 per year to fund the center.
IN MARCH, the Board of Supervisors changed the boundaries of the tax district. It removed homes with addresses in Vienna, Oakton and Herndon, and added some new homes with Reston addresses, for a net decrease of about 300 properties.
But at the time of that realignment, there were other neighborhoods which also wanted out. It is these eight neighborhoods, representing 687 households, which the board removed. The new lines more closely mirror the boundaries of the Reston Master Plan.
The resulting decrease will leave 21,376 taxable parcels of land within the tax district, according to county documents. As a result of the reduction, the center will lose about $326,000.
When combined with the reduction in March, the center will see a cut of about $536,000. In reports prepared about each of the two reductions, county staff said that the lost revenue can be made up for by the increase in property tax assessments.
The new boundaries will go into effect on Jan. 1 and will apply to the next tax year.
Joseph Lombardo, former chair of the center's governing board thought the proposal didn't go far enough and that the tax district should be abolished. "Small District Five is bad for the taxpayer. It's bad for the county. It's bad for making Reston an attractive place to live and work," said Lombardo, who was the head of an anti-tax, conservative group on the center's board.
Lombardo claimed that the center is poorly run and that the county should take over its operations.
Supervisor Cathy Hudgins (D-Hunter Mill) said she still thinks the community center does good work and is an asset to Reston and to the county. "I think we all still believe that we provide services for the common good," she said.
She said that the community has changed dramatically since 1975, when the tax district was first created, and that this change fits in with the spirit of that time. "I think it's consistent with the objectives when it was drawn," Hudgins said.
The board approved changing Small Tax District Five by an 8-0 vote. Supervisors Elaine McConnell (R-Springfield) and Gerry Hyland (D-Mount Vernon) were not present for the vote.