New Dock at Lakeport Cluster Held Up Due to Permits

The building of a new dock for the Lakeport Cluster homes still has not begun, due to permitting issues, said a representative for the project this week.

Paul Renard, chair of the Lakeport Cluster Association’s Dock Oversight Committee, said the project has been held up by permitting issues with Fairfax County.

“Because we were doing the project as a [homeowners association] rather than as an individual, Fairfax decided that we fell into a ‘critical commercial structure’ category, and we had to provide a great deal of additional engineering information that we had not included with our original permit request,” Renard told Reston Now this week.

The existing dock and nearby bulkhead have grown old and decayed over the years. Renard said members voted to use HOA funds to pay for a rebuild, though Renard said the group as a whole has decided not to disclose the project’s total costs to the public.

“In the end we will have a beautiful and much more usable dock with decades of life ahead, better lighting along the Reston Association path, and a newly landscaped focal point next to the dock for the community to enjoy,” the Lakeport Cluster Association said in a previous statement.

Furthermore, Renard added this week, “We expect about a 30-year lifespan for this dock, and perhaps longer given the quality of the design [such as] the pile depth, and the building materials.”

Though the project’s groundbreaking has been delayed due to the permit issues, Renard said they expect to be approved any day now.

“The good news is that we had done all the engineering work, so we were able to gather up the various reports, stress loads, etc. that were needed,” he said. “But this has put us at least a month behind schedule.”

“Our permit is currently with the Fairfax architectural reviewers and we hope to have a positive report in about a week.”

Renard said once they have been given the green light, they expect the construction to take about 60 days. During that time, the Reston Association-managed pedestrian pathway that extends through the area will be closed.

Photo: Rendering of the redesigned dock, courtesy of Lakeport Cluster Association