Keep after them Reston Association! This is an area with quite a bit of petty crime. Rudy Giuliani cleaned up NYC with the "Broken Windows" approach (cracking down on minor offenses sends a clear message of what won't be tolerated). This area needs that same message.

What about the eyesore on fairfax cty pkwy just past the w&od trail overpass. It's a construction site/yard- looks like a junkyard. There are beautiful townhouses that face the mess- I'm surprised they are ok with it. I drive by everyday & think that it certainly doesn't fit into the Reston aesthetic.

Is there not a legal process whereby the Reston Association can give written notice to the owner of the property to correct the violations within a specified period, and if the owner fails to comply the RA corrects the violations and places a lien on the property for the amount of the costs for doing so? If not, there should be!

It took us over a year to get RA to get a neighbor to clean up his property and they never acted on another house that was in very bad shape. They don't act very fast and never do neighborhood inspections. More bark than bite most of the time

I own the 7-Eleven in that plaza and for the past 3, coming up 4 years now, I have yet to see any decent renovations other than the interior which was done by 7-Eleven. The land lord has charged all the residing stores a heft CAM (Common Area Maintenance) Fee every month over our rent. When the property management company comes over to talk about fixing and renovating, they also ask for us and our companies to pay more to get these things done. The real reason why there has been no progress in any plans to fix this place is basically because the landlord does not want to pay a single penny out of the rent money he's collecting.

We have been working with RA for over FOUR years on a property in our neighborhood, with little to no results. It is very frustrating to follow the rules, and yet live next to a property that many have mistaken for abandoned. Four years is too long to wait for action.

My son's scooter was stolen from that shopping center when he popped in to 7-Eleven. So there may not be any petty crime in John's neighborhood, but there certainly is some at the shopping center.

From what I've seen, the biggest violator of Reston Association covenants is the Reston Association itself.

Sounds like the real story is an ineffective RA. I'm new to the area, are the members elected?

Jeez. RA is worried about blight at that dinky strip mall and yet does nothing about the gawd awful ugliness of cars along Soapstone from South Lakes back to that strip mall? Amazing.

Don't get it twisted y'all. All kinds of drug deals go on outside that shopping area. Plus the loitering is ridiculous: up-to-no-good kids, "winos", bums, deralicts and others to be wary of. The 7-11 owner is a nice guy, but I wish the whole thing could be replaced with more upscale shops. It looks 1970's hideous IMHO.

I sure wish that investors like Northwestern Mutual would put their investment dollars into needed spots like this, Tall Oaks Shopping Center, Lake Anne Center . . . instead they want to take the green space that offsets the already approved development around RTC and the metro.

Name the owners!

I've stopped going to the 7-11 for coffee because the entire place is a disgrace. I now go the the Circle K/Exxon because it is cleaner and neater, though I could easily walk to 7-11.

Name the owners of the center!

Connie has the real problem nipped in the bud. If only NW Mutual could invest where it is needed, instead of where they think they could earn a higher profit.

My message to NW Mutual - you, along with a few others are slowly taking away that which makes Reston a very special, unique community. Not only will we Restonians loose if you get your zoning - so will you...
Since when is an insurance company's goal to destroy the very fabric of a community?

Can this thread not get hijacked by the RNG issue, please?! Or about the people who live in the neighborhood or patronize the businesses in the Center.

This story is about the crass venality of local small businessmen who have treated our community with extreme disrespect for years and about the total failure of RA to protect us all from the blight that directly results from their petty greed.

Chipperson - let's keep it civil. Please make your point without name calling. Also, Shadowood is a condo owned by individual owners, so "Section 8 housing at its finest" is an unfair description.

Golly, I hope that RA is successful at getting the Soapstone Center spiffed up. It has been run-down for far too long.

Is anyone else dismayed over the overhaul of the Hunters Woods Shopping Center? I wonder how in the world RA let that color scheme pass muster. The white buildings look totally cheap; not at all Restonian. Dark and light grays would have been such an improvement to the "new" look. How very unfortunate!

This will be a shocker...I was a resident of nearby Hearthstone Court in the mid-1970's, when the residents vehemently opposed the new High's Dairy store going in due to loitering concerns and littering concerns. It went in anyway, and sure as 5hit, the problems popped up. 10 years later, the other strip mall stores were built.

I graduated from nearby South Lakes High School in 1987, and frankly, most of us moved away from Reston due to its decline. Boring Reston in the 1970's became the gang-infested liberal wasteland Reston of today. At SLHS, gone are the AP classes and high test scores, replaced by the mess of illegal immigration, low goals, and government handout dependency.

Why do I write this? Because this convenience store--so opposed in the 1970's--is fulfilling its role today, just as predicted. Reston, you get what you get. I am glad I left in 1987.

So the slumlords of the Soapstone Convenience Center went before a DRB panel last night and got slammed.

Their drawings were so incomplete (no drawings of the dry cleaners building) and lacking in detail (like the color of the roof shingles, current & proposed) that the panel deferred the case so that they could make a complete submission.

Why did RA staff even let this pathetically incomplete case get on a DRB panel agenda?

Then the panel took up the two trees that were illegally cut down. The number of inaccurate statements by the slumlords representatives were so numerous as to defy repetition. In the end the panel voted to deny the ex post facto application and let the matter proceed to the Legal Committee for action.

This landowner has shown such disrespect for the standards and expectations of Reston that any reasonable person must be left in shock as to why the RA staff has allowed violations issued in July to not already be the subject of an enforcement lawsuit.

I've watch in revulsion as hours are devoted by the RA Convenants staff berate homeowners for green mold accumulating on fences and aluminium siding but this eyesore gets the kid glove treatment.

What gives?

The covenants are enforced (or not) in such an arbitrary manner as to make them useless. I really don't know if the covenants would stand up to a legal challenge.