Bulkheads & Retaining Walls
Full-height walls built to a 825-foot pool that barely moves — galvanized steel, vinyl, FRP composite or heavy timber — plus replacement of walls that have reached the end of their service life.
Lakes We Serve · Burnet & Llano Counties, TX
Bulkheads, boathouses and boat docks on Lake LBJ.
Texas Parks & Wildlife describes the dominant structure on this lake in four words: miles of bulkhead. Lake LBJ holds a constant level across five towns, and the work here is the continuous replacement and upgrade of a waterfront that is already fully built.
On the Water
The dock rule, and where it stops.
The Lower Colorado River Authority governs the water and the lakebed. It also holds a lakewide permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that covers a good deal of routine repair work.
For a dock, the rule is permissive with hard edges. LCRA requires no permit, no registration and no fee for a residential dock of 1,500 square feet or less. It must meet the Safety Standards for Residential Docks on the Highland Lakes, and on Lake LBJ it may extend no more than 50 feet from shore — and only where an additional 40 feet of lake access remains beyond it.
Cross the 1,500-square-foot line with a floating structure and the category changes entirely: a floating dock occupying more than 1,500 square feet is treated as a marina, requiring an LCRA permit under the Highland Lakes Marina Ordinance. That ordinance has tightened. Since May 2023 it bans new community marinas serving neighborhoods and set a two-year deadline to replace unencapsulated foam flotation. Floating habitable structures are prohibited outright. On a lake where subdivisions once solved boat storage with a shared floating facility, that is a live constraint worth knowing before a neighborhood group starts planning.
On the Lakebed
Every wall on Lake LBJ is “Fill.”
The Highland Lakes Dredge and Fill Ordinance sets Lake LBJ's regulated pool elevation at 825 feet msl and defines Fill as “any material, structure, wall, rip-rap or revetment below the Regulated Pool Elevations of the lake.” A bulkhead is not a building project that happens to be near water — under the ordinance it is fill placed in the lake, and it is reviewed that way.
1
Tier I — notification only
Dredging under 500 cubic yards and disturbing under 500 linear feet of shoreline needs written notification to LCRA Water Quality — P.O. Box 220, Austin, TX 78767-0220, 512-578-2324, or online through MyGovernmentOnline. No permit, but the notice is not optional.
2
Tier II — permit, notice, security
At or above either threshold the project moves to a Tier II permit with public notice, financial security and a formal review. Knowing which side of those two numbers a job falls on is a planning decision, not a discovery you want mid-project.
3
Designated commercial dredge and fill zones
Lake LBJ is one of only two Highland Lakes with designated commercial dredge and fill zones — Zones B, C and D. Where a commercial project sits relative to those zones shapes what is possible.
4
The repair route
Repairs to existing retaining walls and bulkheads, and maintenance dredging during a lake lowering, can run under LCRA's Corps of Engineers lakewide permit — provided the work is registered with LCRA before it begins.
And Then the City
LCRA clears the water. The city clears the ground.
Five incorporated towns sit on Lake LBJ, and the land-side building permit comes from whichever one you are in.
Horseshoe Bay, Granite Shoals, Sunrise Beach Village, Highland Haven and Marble Falls each issue their own building permits; Kingsland is unincorporated and falls under Llano County. The order matters, and Horseshoe Bay is the clearest example: there, Architectural Committee approval is required before any soil or vegetation is disturbed — retaining walls included — and only after that does the City of Horseshoe Bay issue the building permit. A crew that shows up and starts clearing has already created a problem.
Shoretech's approach on a lake with this many overlapping authorities is to settle the sequence in writing first: which LCRA track the work falls under, whether the job needs a Tier II permit or a lakewide-permit registration, and which municipal or committee approval has to land before anything is disturbed on site.
825′
Normal elevation and regulated pool, msl
50′
Maximum dock reach from shore
90′
Approximate maximum depth
1951
Impoundment began in May
Scope of Work
What Shoretech can build on Lake LBJ.
A constant level means structures get built tight to the waterline — and that the demand is replacement and upgrade, not pioneering new shoreline.
Custom Boathouses
Covered slips and entertainment-grade boathouses on a lake where nearly every lot is already walled and roofed, with lifts, lighting and storm-rated substructure.
Boat Docks & Piers
Fixed and floating docks kept inside the 1,500-square-foot line and the 50-foot reach limit, so a residential dock stays a residential dock rather than becoming a marina.
Precision Dredging
Slip and access dredging scoped deliberately against the 500-cubic-yard and 500-linear-foot Tier I thresholds, and timed to a lake lowering wherever it can be.
Bottom, Bank & Level
Two different lakes in one.
Near Wirtz Dam the bottom and banks are rocky and the water is clear. Toward the upper end, where the Colorado and the Llano come in at Kingsland, it turns sandier and more stained.
This is granite country, and the conditions a crew meets change materially from one end of the lake to the other. Alongside the miles of bulkhead and boat houses, Texas Parks & Wildlife notes thousands of docks and submerged brush piles. Vegetation includes water willow, bulrush, Eurasian watermilfoil and spatterdock, and a power plant in the Horseshoe Bay area discharges warm water seasonally.
The level is the reason the waterfront looks the way it does. Lake LBJ is a constant-level lake at 825 feet msl with an LCRA target operating range of 824.4 to 825 feet, so full-height bulkheads and fixed piers work here in a way they do not on a storage reservoir. The planned exception is the periodic LCRA lake lowering for dock, wall and dredging work — LCRA has lowered Lake LBJ in consecutive years and has lowered it in tandem with Lake Austin. Those drawdown windows are when most wall and slip work gets done in the dry. Exact depth and dates vary year to year and are announced case by case, so the design and the LCRA paperwork want to be finished in advance.
Around the Lake
Five towns on one constant-level lake.
The most heavily built waterfront on the Highland Lakes — spread across five incorporated towns plus Kingsland.
Towns and waterfront areas
- Kingsland
- Horseshoe Bay
- Granite Shoals
- Highland Haven
- Sunrise Beach Village
- Applehead Island
- Deerhaven
- Marble Falls, just downstream
Marinas, ramps and parks
- Lake LBJ Yacht Club and Marina
- Wirtz Dam / Cottonwood ramp near Marble Falls
- Kingsland Lions Park ramp on the Llano River arm, run by the Kingsland Chamber of Commerce
- Horseshoe Bay Resort marinas
- Roughly 19 public parks in Granite Shoals, many with ramps and lake access
- Inks Lake and Longhorn Cavern state parks nearby
Lake LBJ impounds the Colorado River behind Alvin J. Wirtz Dam, formerly Granite Shoals Dam, with the Llano River entering at Kingsland. LCRA and the Texas Water Development Board place it in Burnet and Llano counties, while Texas Parks & Wildlife lists it under Burnet alone. Surface acreage is 6,432 acres at conservation pool per the TWDB 2020 volumetric survey and LCRA, with TPWD listing 6,449. Total shoreline mileage is not consistently published; LCRA gives the lake as 21.15 miles long and 10,800 feet at its widest.
Questions We Hear
Lake LBJ FAQ.
How far out can a dock go on Lake LBJ?
Fifty feet from shore, and only where an additional 40 feet of lake access remains beyond it. LCRA requires no permit, registration or fee for a residential dock of 1,500 square feet or less, but it must meet the Safety Standards for Residential Docks on the Highland Lakes. Floating habitable structures are prohibited, and any floating dock occupying more than 1,500 square feet is treated as a marina requiring an LCRA permit under the Highland Lakes Marina Ordinance.
Does a bulkhead need an LCRA permit here?
It falls under the Highland Lakes Dredge and Fill Ordinance, which sets Lake LBJ's regulated pool elevation at 825 feet msl and defines Fill as any material, structure, wall, rip-rap or revetment below that elevation. Dredging under 500 cubic yards and disturbing under 500 linear feet of shoreline is Tier I — written notification to LCRA Water Quality, no permit. At or above either threshold it becomes a Tier II permit with public notice, financial security and formal review. Repairs to existing walls and maintenance dredging during a lake lowering can run under LCRA's Corps of Engineers lakewide permit if registered with LCRA first.
Is LCRA the only approval I need?
No. LCRA governs the water and the lakebed; the city governs the land side. Depending on where you are that is Horseshoe Bay, Granite Shoals, Sunrise Beach Village, Highland Haven or Marble Falls, with Kingsland unincorporated under Llano County. In Horseshoe Bay, Architectural Committee approval is required before any soil or vegetation is disturbed — retaining walls included — and only then does the City issue the building permit.
When is the best time to build a bulkhead on Lake LBJ?
During an LCRA lake lowering. Lake LBJ normally holds at 825 feet msl inside a target operating range of 824.4 to 825 feet, so most wall, slip and dredging work gets done in the dry during a periodic drawdown. LCRA has lowered Lake LBJ in consecutive years and has lowered it in tandem with Lake Austin, but the exact depth and schedule vary and are announced case by case — so the design and the LCRA paperwork should be finished before the announcement, not after.
Will Dave travel to Lake LBJ?
Yes. Shoretech is based in Trinity and works across Texas and western Louisiana, and Dave travels as far as a project warrants. Call 936-662-5100 to talk through scope, access and the approval sequence for your frontage.
Nearby Water
The rest of the Highland Lakes.
Start With a Conversation
Planning a project on Lake LBJ?
Tell Dave what the existing wall is doing, which town or committee you answer to, and what you want the finished waterfront to do. The LCRA track and the city sequence follow from the design.