BLUE SKY COUNTRYREAL ESTATE
BLUE SKY COUNTRYREAL ESTATE
Navarro County, Texas
Septic, the driveway, the address, and which permits are real in the unincorporated county. Two of these work differently in Navarro County than most people expect.
Before you buy raw land
The first is that a septic system on ten acres or more does not need a permit. That is in the state rules, and Navarro County took it out of its own. The second is that Texas counties have no building code, so nothing is inspected outside a city. That is the general rule, and this county opted into the residential code in 2010. Both of those catch buyers, and both are cheaper to find out now. What the land will carry is the other half of this — water, soil and cover. Water on a piece of land goes further on the one that stops most builds: who can sell a meter at that address, and what a well in this county actually means.
Septic
Navarro County Planning and Development is the authorized agent for on-site sewage — 601 N. 13th Street, Suite 1 in Corsicana. The exception is the lake: within 2,000 feet of the Richland-Chambers flood pool the authority is the Tarrant Regional Water District instead. Which office you apply to depends on where the tract sits.
State rules exempt a single home on ten acres or more from septic permitting. Navarro County abolished that exemption in its own order — approved by the state in 2013 — so a permit is required regardless of how much land is owned. It catches buyers who read the state rule and stopped there.
A site evaluator or a professional engineer digs two borings or backhoe pits at opposite ends of the proposed disposal area and classifies the soil, checks for groundwater within two feet of the bottom of the excavation, takes the slope, and determines whether any of it is in the 100-year floodplain.
The state classes soils I to IV. Class IV — silty clay and clay, which is most of the west and center of this county — makes a conventional absorptive drainfield unsuitable by rule, as does groundwater or a rock or clay layer within two feet. What is left is an aerobic unit with spray or drip, an evapotranspiration bed, or low-pressure dosing. That is a soil decision, not a preference.
The county’s order allows no homeowner installations: the system has to be built by an installer licensed by the state. Aerobic systems using spray also have to run on a timer set between 1 and 5 in the morning.
An aerobic system carries a two-year service policy from first use, after which the owner either re-contracts or maintains it personally, and a maintenance affidavit is recorded in the county deed records. The permit itself transfers to the new owner on sale. For a buyer that is a title-level fact worth checking rather than assuming.
A drainfield, a spray area or drip irrigation has to stand 100 feet off a water well, and the tank 50 feet. Spray keeps 20 feet off a property line and 25 off a swimming pool. On a small tract those distances, the well and the driveway together often decide where the house can sit.
The county sets its minimums above the state’s, and they turn on whether there is a public water supply. The county’s order says one acre where public water serves the lot and two acres where it does not; the county’s own procedure sheet states a one-acre minimum for Class IV soils. Those two documents do not agree, so confirm the figure with Planning and Development before relying on either — and before dividing anything.
Getting in off the road
Which office you deal with is decided by who owns the road in front of the tract, and the two run on different rules.
A new driveway onto an SH, FM, RM, US or interstate needs a permit from TxDOT — Form 1058 — and no work happens on the right of way until it is issued. TxDOT approves the size of the drainage structure, the landowner furnishes the materials, and safety end treatments are required on any driveway with a culvert. For this county the office is the Ellis/Navarro area office in Corsicana.
Before a culvert goes in a county right of way the owner applies in writing for a permit, and the Commissioner determines the size and the location. The county’s fee for it is $250. Stakes go in to mark the spot, the Commissioner comes back with a size, and the road crew is given at least 48 hours’ notice so the installation can be inspected.
The county accepts reinforced concrete, double-walled HDPE or galvanized corrugated steel, at least 15 inches inside diameter and 20 feet long. Keeping the ditch and the culvert flowing is the property owner’s job afterward, and a driveway put in without a permit that turns out to obstruct drainage can be removed at the owner’s expense.
A mailbox may sit in the public right of way. Entrance gates, pillars and similar permanent installations may not. That is worth knowing before the stone columns are ordered.
What the county requires
Texas counties have no general building-code power, which is where the belief comes from. But Navarro County adopted the optional residential code regime in March 2010, so new single-family and duplex construction in the unincorporated county has to meet the International Residential Code. The builder gives the Planning and Development office notice before starting, and three inspections are required — foundation before concrete, framing and mechanical before it is covered, and completion — by a licensed engineer, architect, TREC-licensed inspector or certified code inspector. Manufactured and modular homes are outside it.
Before construction the county issues a development permit and assigns an address, currently $300 outside the lake zoning area, and it takes a week to ten days. The address is set from where the primary driveway is, so moving the driveway changes the address. If the only way in is across someone else’s land, the granted easement has to be produced with the survey.
Any development in a mapped special flood hazard area needs a floodplain development permit from the county, and “development” is defined broadly enough to include fill, grading, excavation and storing materials — not just a building. The county has been in the flood insurance program since 2004 and its current maps date from 2012. Several small communities in this county do not participate in the program at all, which changes whether flood insurance can be written.
Within 5,000 feet of the lake, voters gave the county zoning authority, and there it issues actual residential building permits priced by the square foot, with zoning districts, specific use permits and variances. For a large part of this county’s recreational land market that is the rule that applies, and it is nothing like the rest of the county.
Inside city limits the city permits and addresses, not the county. In a city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction a city may not regulate use, height, bulk or density, but if it has adopted a building code there, that code governs instead of the county’s. The law on extraterritorial jurisdiction changed in 2023 and again in 2025, so this is one to check as it stands on the day rather than to assume.
A plat is required when a tract is created without 150 feet of frontage and direct access to a public road, whatever its size. Building setbacks run 50 feet from a TxDOT right of way and 25 feet from other public roads, and a subdivision without fire hydrants has to provide stored water for firefighting. That is a bigger subject and it has its own page.
Straight answers
In the unincorporated county: a septic permit from the county, a development permit and 911 address, a driveway permit from either TxDOT or the County Commissioner depending on the road, a floodplain permit if any of it is in a mapped hazard area, and residential-code inspections during construction. The order matters, because the driveway sets the address and the soil evaluation sets the septic.
Not for septic in this county, which is the trap. The ten-acre exemption in the state rules was removed here, so acreage does not exempt a system from permitting. Acreage does still matter for platting and for what a lot has to be.
Not in Navarro County. The county’s order requires a licensed installer, and it warns of a daily penalty for an unpermitted system. Anyone helping with the trenching has to be licensed too.
Almost certainly the soil, and possibly the water table. Clay soils rule out a conventional drainfield under the state’s own table, and the line between one soil class and another can run through a single tract. The soil evaluation is what settles it, and it is worth having before a price is agreed.
It is the list as the county and the state published it, read in September 2026, and the rules move. This is not legal, engineering or code advice — the county, TxDOT and a licensed installer are the ones who decide. What it is for is to let a buyer or a seller ask the right questions early enough for the answers to matter.
Where this comes from. Navarro County’s on-site sewage order approved by the state in 2013 and its permitting procedures; the county’s order adopting the residential code, March 2010; its culvert policy and court order; its flood damage prevention order and subdivision manual; the state’s on-site sewage rules at 30 TAC Chapter 285; TxDOT’s access management manual and 43 TAC 11.52; and FEMA’s community status records. All read on 8 September 2026. Rules change and offices apply them; check anything here against the county before you act on it.
Which road it fronts and therefore whose permit, what the soils suggest about the septic, whether any of it is in the mapped floodplain, and whether it sits in a city’s reach or the lake zoning area. Better to know before an offer than after an option period. Email reaches me fastest, and I answer it myself. If you call and get voicemail, leave a message and I will call you back.
Call (903) 695-2978 · Email what you have · What your land will carry · Dividing land
The survey, the appraisal-district notice, a couple of photos. Whatever is in hand. Email reaches me fastest, and I answer it myself. If you call and get voicemail, leave a message and I will call you back.
Call (903) 695-2978 · robert@blueskycountry.com
205 S Fordyce, Blooming Grove, Texas 76626 · by appointment. Robert Phipps, Broker · TREC #0460512.