Bulkheads & Retaining Walls
Galvanized steel, vinyl, FRP composite or heavy timber, drawn to the code envelope and detailed for engineer seal — with concrete meeting the 2,500 psi minimum where it is used.
Lakes We Serve · Harris County, TX
Boat docks, boathouses and bulkheads on Lake Houston.
Lake Houston is a city permit, not a river authority permit — and every bulkhead, jetty and pier on it has to carry a Texas engineer's seal. Here is how the process actually runs, and what the code lets you build.
The Permit
Everything built on Lake Houston runs through the City of Houston.
No river authority counter, no Corps district office. One municipal permit desk in Huffman, and a code that is more specific than most owners expect.
The City of Houston owns Lake Houston; the Coastal Water Authority operates it. Shoreline construction is governed by City Code Chapter 23 (Lake Houston) and Houston Building Code Chapter 62 (Lake Houston Structures), and it is administered by Houston Public Works out of the Lake Houston Office at 22627 W. Shorewood Loop Dr., Huffman, TX 77336 — 832-395-6620.
There are separate construction permits for stationary and floating piers, for bulkheads, and for dredging, with an Annual Pier License plus shoreline and vessel licensing layered on top. The requirement that reshapes the whole job comes out of Chapter 62: all bulkheads, jetties, and piers shall be designed by and bear the seal of a professional engineer licensed by the State of Texas. There is no residential carve-out. A hand sketch will not clear this counter, and an application that arrives without sealed drawings simply waits.
Applications are filed in person at Huffman with a plat showing property lines and the bulkhead layout, along with any state and federal permits, proof of insurance, and financial assurance where it applies. Once the Lake Houston Office approves the plans they are routed to the Kingwood office to complete the permit. The building official inspects the site before the permit issues and again at completion — both scheduled through 832-395-6620.
Published fees give a sense of scale: a bulkhead permit runs $130.08 for the first 100 linear feet plus $19.51 for each additional 100 feet, with a $33.56 administrative fee. The Annual Pier License is $384.88 for the first 100 square feet plus $6.41 per additional 100 square feet.
Chapter 62, In Numbers
The design envelope you get to work inside.
Lake Houston publishes hard dimensional limits. Knowing them before the drawings start is the difference between a permit that issues and a design that gets sent back.
1
Pier width and reach
Private piers are capped at 8 feet wide, commercial at 12. No pier may extend more than 30 feet past the 5-foot depth contour, and none may cross more than a third of the width of the water it sits in.
2
Deck and boathouse area
An upper deck is limited to 600 square feet. Deck plus boathouse combined is capped at 1,300 square feet. A floating pier is limited to 300 square feet — which is a real constraint on how a floating layout gets drawn here.
3
Loads and materials
Private piers are designed for a 50 psf live load, commercial for 100 psf. All wood must be pressure-treated. Concrete used in a bulkhead has to reach a minimum 2,500 psi at 28 days.
4
Sealed drawings from the start
Because the engineer's seal is mandatory, the engineering is not a formality bolted on at the end. Shoretech builds the layout inside the code envelope first, so what the engineer seals is what actually gets built.
42.4′
Conservation pool, NAVD88
45′
Approximate maximum depth
1954
Impoundment began April 9
4M+
Cubic yards of sediment removed since Harvey
Bottom & Bank
Sand and silt, not rock — and a lake that keeps filling in.
Sedimentation is the defining condition on Lake Houston, and it is also the defining work.
This is a shallow, sediment-loaded reservoir on the San Jacinto River, where the West Fork and East Fork join inside the lake and Caney, Peach, Luce and Cypress creeks add to the load. The bottom is sand and silt rather than rock, and Texas Parks & Wildlife describes very little natural cover or structural habitat outside the upper river forks. Water runs moderately turbid. Banks are low and wooded, cut by numerous bayou and creek arms, with flooded terrestrial growth, native emergents, and invasive water hyacinth, alligatorweed and water lettuce.
That bottom is easy to drive and easy to lose. A 2011 Texas Water Development Board study found the lake had given up roughly 21 percent of its capacity since 1954, and since Hurricane Harvey about $222 million has gone into removing more than 4 million cubic yards of sand and sediment from Lake Houston and its tributaries. For a waterfront owner the practical consequence is straightforward: slips shoal, boathouse depth disappears over a few seasons, and dredging belongs in the maintenance plan rather than the emergency budget.
Water Level
Active Storm Management, not a seasonal schedule.
Conservation pool is 42.4 feet above mean sea level (NAVD88), with a maximum design water surface of 54.23 feet.
Routine day-to-day fluctuation on Lake Houston is low, which is why fixed piers and full-height bulkheads work well here. What moves the lake is weather. Rather than a fixed seasonal drawdown, the City and the Coastal Water Authority run what they call Active Storm Management: gates are opened ahead of forecast rain — for example dropping the lake about 12 inches over 24 hours, to 41.4 feet, when 3 inches or more is forecast in the watershed.
Release capacity through the existing gates is roughly 10,000 cubic feet per second, far less than Lake Conroe upstream can send down, which is exactly why the pre-release matters. For construction it means the schedule has to stay flexible around forecasts, and it means a structure gets designed for a storm surcharge well above the day you stood on the bank.
What We Build Here
Full-scope waterfront work on Lake Houston.
Every service below is designed to the Chapter 62 envelope and to a shoreline that moves sand.
Precision Dredging
Slip, shoreline and access-channel dredging under a separate City dredging permit, with material pumped for backfill reuse instead of trucked away.
Boat Docks & Piers
Fixed and floating piers sized inside the 8-foot width limit, the 30-foot rule past the 5-foot contour, and the 300-square-foot cap on floating structures.
Custom Boathouses
Covered slips and entertainment decks planned against the 600-square-foot deck cap and the 1,300-square-foot combined limit, with lifts, lighting and storm-rated substructure.
Around the Lake
Where the waterfront actually is.
Dense suburban shoreline on Houston's northeast side — bulkheads, piers and boathouses line the Kingwood, Atascocita, Huffman and Crosby frontage.
Communities and neighborhoods
- Kingwood
- Atascocita and Atascocita Shores
- Huffman
- Humble
- Crosby
- Sheldon
- New Caney
- Walden on Lake Houston
- The Commons of Lake Houston
- Kings River Estates and Kings River Village
- Summerwood, Lakeshore and Waters Edge
- Newport, Barrington and Eagle Springs
Landmarks and access
- Lake Houston Marina
- BJ's Marina
- Ponderosa Marina
- Alexander Deussen Park
- Dwight D. Eisenhower Park at the dam
- Bank access under the FM 1960 bridge
- Lake Houston Wilderness Park, upstream on Peach Creek
Lake Houston lies in Harris County, with its upper arms reaching into Montgomery County. Published surface acreage differs by source — Texas Parks & Wildlife gives about 11,854 acres and the Texas Water Development Board gives 11,282 acres at normal operating elevation — and no authority publishes a shoreline mileage figure for the lake.
Questions We Hear
Lake Houston FAQ.
Who issues the permit for a dock or bulkhead on Lake Houston?
The City of Houston. Houston owns the reservoir and the Coastal Water Authority operates it, so this is a municipal permit rather than a river authority or Corps of Engineers permit. Applications are filed in person at Houston Public Works' Lake Houston Office, 22627 W. Shorewood Loop Dr. in Huffman, 832-395-6620, under City Code Chapter 23 and Houston Building Code Chapter 62.
Do I really need an engineer for a residential bulkhead here?
Yes. Chapter 62 states that all bulkheads, jetties, and piers shall be designed by and bear the seal of a professional engineer licensed by the State of Texas. There is no residential exemption from that sentence, and it is the single most common reason a Lake Houston application stalls.
How far out can my pier go on Lake Houston?
Chapter 62 caps a private pier at 8 feet wide, and no pier may extend more than 30 feet past the 5-foot depth contour or across more than a third of the width of the water. Upper decks are limited to 600 square feet, deck plus boathouse combined to 1,300 square feet, and a floating pier to 300 square feet.
Why does so much Lake Houston work involve dredging?
Sediment. The West Fork of the San Jacinto and Cypress Creek deliver enormous volumes of sand into a shallow reservoir. A 2011 Texas Water Development Board study found the lake had lost roughly 21 percent of its capacity since 1954, and since Hurricane Harvey about $222 million has gone into removing more than 4 million cubic yards of sand and sediment from the lake and its tributaries. Slips silt in, and dredging is routine maintenance rather than a one-time fix.
Is Lake Houston inside Shoretech's service area?
Yes. Shoretech is based in Trinity, an easy haul north of the lake, and works across Texas and western Louisiana. Call Dave at 936-662-5100 to talk through access, scope and scheduling for your frontage.
Nearby Water
More lakes in this region.
Start With a Conversation
Planning a project on Lake Houston?
Tell Dave where your frontage sits, how deep the slip still is, and what you want the finished waterfront to do. The design, the engineering and the City permit sequence follow from there.