Question 1

Can I build a metal barndominium inside the Midland city limits?

Accepted Answer

Not with metal walls on the house. Zoning Ordinance Sec. 11-1-6.04(B) requires the exterior facades of a single-family main building to be 85 percent Class 1 Masonry Construction, and adds that no individual exterior wall may be less than 50 percent Class 1. Class 1 means fired brick, natural and manufactured stone, granite and marble, and the section expressly adds fiber cement siding to that list for single-family construction. Metal wall cladding is in none of the three masonry classes for a house — architectural metal panels are named in the ordinance only for the Light and Heavy Industrial districts. There is one further instrument you should raise with the city yourself: Texas Government Code Sec. 3000.002 provides that a governmental entity may not establish a material or aesthetic standard more stringent than a national model code published within the last three code cycles, and Sec. 3000.002(e) says a conflicting regulation is void. Midland's code contains no clause conceding or denying the point. That is a question for the Planning Department at (432) 685-7100, and it is worth asking before you commission drawings, because the city issues the permit either way.

Question 2

What changes if my lot is bigger than five acres?

Accepted Answer

The shop changes completely. Sec. 11-1-4.09(D)(1) requires a detached accessory building of 400 square feet or more to meet the same masonry standards as the house, and then says that an accessory building located on a lot greater than five acres is not subject to those requirements. That is the sentence that makes a metal shop workable inside the city. The accessory-building table adds the rest: on lots of five acres or greater the combined footprint of accessory buildings may reach 15 percent of the property rather than 10, up to four accessory buildings are allowed rather than two or three, and a single structure kept for storing equipment, materials or agricultural products necessary to maintaining the property may stand 40 feet tall. Read the two thresholds carefully, because the ordinance does not use the same one twice: the table says five acres or greater, and the material exemption says greater than five acres. A tract of exactly 5.00 acres gets the height and the building count but not the release from the masonry rule.

Question 3

What code does Midland build to, and has the city changed it?

Accepted Answer

The 2018 International Residential Code with appendices A, B, C, D, E, J, N, P and Q, adopted at Chapter 4-11 of the City Code by Ordinance No. 9925 on 28 May 2019, with the city's building codes page giving 1 July 2019 as the effective date for the adopted set. Yes, the city has changed it. Section R313, automatic fire sprinkler systems, is deleted in its entirety. R105.2 loses its second exempt item and gains an eleventh for tree forts. R105.8 is added to require a $10,000 contractor bond before any permit issues, along with a construction site debris containment plan specified before the permit is granted. R112.2 through R112.4 are deleted and appeals routed to the building code's board of appeals on a 20-day clock. Table R301.2(1) is rewritten in full. On the plumbing and gas side the city adds an above-ground exterior shutoff valve on all new gas service lines, requires Type L copper for the last 36 inches of water service to the meter, and sets its own test pressures. Two later ordinances, 10597 of February 2025 and 10677 of October 2025, amended the amendment list. Ask Development Services for the current list before drawings are finalised.

Question 4

Does Midland publish design criteria, or do I have to get them from an engineer?

Accepted Answer

Midland publishes them, which is unusual in Texas — most cities on this side of the state publish nothing and leave the whole table to the engineer of record. When Midland adopted the 2018 IRC it rewrote Table R301.2(1) into the ordinance and filled every cell. It gives a basic wind speed of 115 mph in the city's own wording, a ground snow load of 3.5 psf, no topographic effects, seismic design category A, moderate weathering, a frost line depth of 12 inches, a termite rating of moderate to heavy, decay slight to moderate, a winter design temperature of 21 degrees, no ice barrier underlayment requirement, an air freezing index of 1500 or less, a mean annual temperature of 65 degrees, an elevation of 2,851 feet and an altitude correction factor of 0.901. Two notes on reading it. The city labels the wind row Basic Wind Speed rather than the 2018 edition's Ultimate Design Wind Speed, so quote it as Midland writes it and let your engineer handle the distinction. And these are Midland's figures for Midland — a neighbouring city's table is not a substitute, and this one should not be carried anywhere else.

Question 5

There are earthquakes around Midland. What does that mean for my build?

Accepted Answer

Two separate things are true and it is worth keeping them apart. The first: the Railroad Commission of Texas publishes a Seismicity Response List of areas where it has taken regulatory action against saltwater disposal wells, and one of the three is named Gardendale (Midland-Odessa). The Commission describes it as an area of the Midland Basin running from northeast Ector County to southwest Martin County; its December 2021 action records four earthquakes in northwest Midland County and suspends deep disposal permits across the area; and its 19 December 2022 action reports an earthquake at the northern edge of that area in southwestern Martin County, approximately 13 miles north of Midland, which TexNet at the Bureau of Economic Geology and the USGS catalogue at magnitude 5.2. The second: the seismic design category in Midland's own adopted code table is A. Both statements are accurate and they answer different questions. We are builders, not engineers, and we will not tell you what your foundation should be designed for. That belongs to a Texas-licensed engineer looking at your parcel, and it is a fair thing to raise with them early.

Question 6

Does Midland make me put fire sprinklers in a new house?

Accepted Answer

No. Chapter 4-11 of the City Code, at the section amending the adopted residential code, states plainly that Section R313, Automatic Fire Sprinkler Systems, is deleted in its entirety. R313 is the correct section number for the 2018 edition Midland adopted — the model code renumbered it in a later edition, so a section number quoted from elsewhere may not match Midland's book. The state statute points the same way for one- and two-family dwellings: Occupations Code Sec. 1301.551(i) provides that after 1 January 2009 a municipality may not enact an ordinance, bylaw, order, building code or rule requiring the installation of a fire sprinkler protection system in a new or existing one- or two-family dwelling, while allowing a city to let a contractor offer one for a fee. If you want sprinklers, that is a design decision and not a code obligation.

Question 7

Who is allowed to pull the permit, and what is the bond about?

Accepted Answer

Texas issues no state licence to a residential builder — there is no such credential to hold or to check, and you should be sceptical of anyone who advertises one. Midland fills part of that gap locally. Its Contractor Registration page states that to build or renovate property in the city, contractors must be registered with the City, and that prior to issuing any permits a bond of ten thousand dollars must be provided and approved by the City Attorney. The same requirement sits in the code: the amendment to IRC R105.8 says no building permit shall be issued by the Building Official unless and until the bond has been tendered to and approved. The Building Permits page adds that a bonded contractor must be listed on the permit for it to issue. There is also a homeowner route — R105.8(c) preserves the right to maintain, alter or add to your own home where the work is done by you for your family — and it expressly does not waive the permit or the fees. When you are choosing a builder in Midland, asking to see the City registration and the approved bond is a concrete, checkable question.

Question 8

What will the city charge, and how long does review take?

Accepted Answer

Review of a residential submission usually takes about five to seven business days, on the city's own published permitting process. Commercial work runs longer — 20 business days for new buildings and additions, seven to ten for alterations, accessory structures and pools. The fee is split: 25 percent is paid at submission with the application, and the remaining 75 percent when the plan reviewer approves. The published fee schedule prices a residential construction permit at 31.5 cents per square foot with a residential street improvement fee of 23 cents per square foot, a detached accessory structure at $50 up to 120 square feet and $100 from 120 to 200, and over 200 square feet on valuation instead. Reinspections are $50 on every permit type. Separately, impact fees under Ordinance 9960 are collected at permit issuance. Applications and payments are not accepted after 4 p.m. Once issued, work must start within 180 days and must not stop for more than 180 days or the permit expires. One caution: the published fee schedule is itself dated effective 1 May 2019, so confirm the current figures with the permitting clerk at (432) 685-7390 before you budget.

Question 9

What is the ground actually like out here?

Accepted Answer

Hard, shallow and full of carbonate — the opposite of the problem the eastern half of Texas has. Upton loam is the largest single soil in Midland County at 98,573 acres, and USDA soil survey data put a strongly coherent petrocalcic horizon under it at 38 centimetres, with calcium carbonate running 50 to 58 percent from the surface down. Kimbrough loam, another 32,796 acres, is harder still: an indurated petrocalcic layer starting at 25 centimetres and 178 centimetres thick, measured at 82 to 89 percent calcium carbonate. Slaughter, Sharvana, Simona, Stegall and Arvana all carry an indurated pan somewhere between 38 and 71 centimetres. That is caliche, and it is a real line on a budget — it usually bears well and it is slow and expensive to cut through for footings, trenches and a septic drainfield. Shrink-swell is not the headline here: the highest linear extensibility across the county's five largest soils is 4.5, on Reagan silty clay loam. What your parcel actually holds is a question for a soil report on your parcel, because these are survey averages and caliche depth varies over short distances.

Question 10

Who issues the septic permit, and does it change outside the city?

Accepted Answer

It does not change, and that is unusual. The City of Midland Health Department states that it is the local health entity for both the city and the county, and that you apply to it for a septic permit, with an application required for all installations and for any modification to an existing system. So the same office at 3303 W. Illinois, Suite 22, on (432) 681-7613, handles the permit inside the city limits and out on unincorporated county land. What does change is a gate the city keeps on the paperwork. Sec. 11-2-1(E)(9) of the subdivision regulations provides that the Health and Senior Services Administrator shall not issue a septic permit for a new or expanded system within the city limits or within the city's extraterritorial jurisdiction for property for which a plat has not been approved and recorded, that written confirmation must come from the City Manager first, and that a permit issued without that is void at inception. The same chapter excludes from city plat approval a division of land into parts of five acres or larger for agricultural use with no new street — which is a different question from whether the tract you are buying already carries a recorded plat. Establish that before you sign.

Question 11

Is there a groundwater district here, and what does a well involve?

Accepted Answer

There is no groundwater conservation district over Midland County. The nearest one, the Permian Basin Underground Water Conservation District — formerly the Martin County district — states in its state-approved management plan that it is bordered on the south by Midland and Glasscock Counties. So the district registration and well-spacing machinery that governs much of the High Plains does not reach you here. That does not make a well unregulated. A water well driller and pump installer must hold a state licence, and the driller must make and keep a well log and deliver a copy to the state, to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and to you within 60 days of completing the well, under Occupations Code Sec. 1901.251. And inside the city limits Midland has its own rules where no district exists: Chapter 4-6 requires an application with a plat showing the exact location of the proposed well, portable slush pits so nothing drains to a street or a sewer, and casing from at least one foot above the ground to at least 30 feet below it with the entire annulus cemented. It also makes it unlawful to drill a new water well through a sub-irrigated septic drainfield — which is a siting question you want settled before either goes in.

Question 12

Which Midland zoning districts still take real acreage?

Accepted Answer

Two. AE, Agricultural Estate, is described in the ordinance as providing for single-family detached dwellings in a rural setting on lots of not less than two acres, or 87,120 square feet, with a 150-foot minimum lot width and depth, a 40-foot front setback, 15-foot interior sides, a 42-foot height limit and 50 percent maximum building coverage. CE, Country Estate, is a semi-rural setting on lots of not less than 43,560 square feet — one acre — with 100 feet of width, 120 feet of depth, a 35-foot front setback, 10-foot interior sides and the same 42-foot height and 50 percent coverage. Neither sets a minimum floor area, which is worth knowing if the plan is a modest house and a large shop. Everything else in the residential table drops quickly: SF-1 at 9,000 square feet, SF-2 at 7,000, SF-3 at 5,500 and MH at 5,000. CE also carries a driveway standard of its own — residential lots must have at minimum an all-weather surfaced driveway, designed and maintained so the surfacing is not washed onto the public street. And the Building Permits page adds the precondition that catches people out: the property must be platted and zoned for residential use before a permit can issue.

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