RA Tongue-Twisters: Say 'Covenant Citations at Crumbling Stucco Soapstone Shopping Site' Three Times Fast

After citing the owners of the small "convenience center" on alien landing strip Soapstone Drive for a variety of violations, the Reston Association appears to be moving beyond its usual "write a letter and scare the beejeesus out of the homeowner" tactics, maybe. Give us some good blockquote, BFFs at Patch:

Reston Association has been trying to get the owners of the Soapstone Convenience Center to abide by RA covenants for several months now.

In July, it flagged the center, owned by C and R in Reston, LLC, for a long list of violations. Among them:

*Dead trees, soil erosion, refuse and debris exposed to view on the property consisting of, but not limited to: "Barrels, wood, plastic bags, plastic bottles, chairs, PVC pipe."

*The entire asphalt parking area is faded, cracked, and has holes and must be repaired or replaced; the asphalt pad to the right side elevation of “2303” building is weathered, cracked, disintegrating and must be repaired.

*The asphalt pad on the right side elevation of the “2335” building is cracked, disintegrating and must be repaired; the entire sidewalk areas located at “2303” and “2335’ buildings are discolored, cracked in several places and must be cleaned and repaired or replaced.

*Faded and cracked stucco on several buildings; fascia and trim that is faded, weathered, discolored warped, rotted and must be cleaned, repaired or replaced and painted.

*The pergola, screening and trash enclosure on “2335” building is faded, weathered, discolored, rotted, warped and must be cleaned, repaired or replaced and painted.

*Chimney flues that are faded, weathered, discolored, rusted,leaning and must be cleaned, repaired or replaced and painted; skylights full of debris; cracked landscape timbers and stucco planters; a cracked slate walkway and graffiti on the “2303” building.

Yeah, but other than that, are there any problems? Now that Soapstone has been resurfaced and painted with fancy suicide lanes traffic calming features and the neighboring watershed has been gussied up, it's time to go upscale! At great personal expense, we hired an architect to come up with a proposed, DRB-pleasing "new look" for the Soapstone Convenience Center. So long, dated stucco!

YOU'RE WELCOME. We especially like how the background in the rendering shows how the design would complement the natural splendor of planned changes at the nearby golf course.

But we digress. How have we left things with the current shopping center, RA?

RA directed the shopping center owners to clean up the violations by the end of August. At last check, the violations had not been remedied, and, in fact, neighbors complained when trees were removed from the property last weekend but most of the other violations remained.

The issue has since gone to the RA legal committee. Legal committee proceeds are private.

Addressing these longstanding issues isn't the worst use of our assessment money.