The flat short-grass High Plains of the Texas Panhandle, with a shallow playa basin holding water and pale caliche showing on a low rise.
Potter County Edition set by the jurisdiction

Barndominium Builders in Potter County, TX

Potter County is the northern half of Amarillo plus 900 square miles of High Plains and Canadian River breaks, and the split between the two is the first thing to understand. Of the county's 114,453 people, 98,509 live inside Amarillo's city limits. That leaves 15,749 on unincorporated land — fewer than twenty to the square mile. This page is about that thin outer county, not the city. The ground is mostly caliche: the Potter soil series, named for this county, carries 69 percent calcium carbonate a foot down, which bears well and digs hard. But not all of it. Pullman on the flat tableland runs a plasticity index of 29 and the playa floors run 46, so the soil under your tract is a question rather than an assumption. What gates a build here is the septic authorisation, the plat if land is divided, a groundwater district that checks well spacing before drilling, and the restrictions recorded against the land.

Potter County at a glance

County
Potter County
Population
114,453
Where we build
Amarillo, Randall County

ZIPs 79010, 79058, 79098, 79101, 79102, 79103, 79104, 79106 and more

Site visits
Site visits across Potter County, from Amarillo to the far side of the county
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Building conditions in Potter County

What actually changes from one Texas jurisdiction to the next: who issues the permit, whether the residential code is enforced there at all, what the structure has to be engineered to, and what the ground is like. These are the numbers your drawings have to satisfy.

Build conditions for Potter County , Texas . BUILD CONDITIONS POTTER COUNTY, TXPotter CountyEDITION PER JURISDI…ADOPTED RESIDENTIAL CODEEDITION PER JURISDI…This jurisdiction publishes no design wind speed. It is settled in writing with the authority overyour parcel before the frame is ordered.ZONING · NONE — A TEXAS COUNTY CANNOT ZONESet by the state septic rule the hea…Local Government Code section 233.153(d)(2) does not authorise acommissioners court to adopt or enforce zoning, and Potter County…WHO ISSUES THE PERMITPotter County Commissioners Court, w…Potter County Courthouse, 500 S. Fillmore, Amarillo, TX 79101, (806)379-2246, info@co.potter.tx.us. Commissioners Court meets the 2nd…
Build conditions for Potter County, drawn from the sourced facts on this page. Every figure above is cited in the quick-facts panel below, with its source and vintage.
Fewer than twenty people per square mile live outside a city limit here
Potter County had 114,453 people in the Census Bureau's Vintage 2025 estimates, and 98,509 of them were inside Amarillo's city limits, with another 195 in Bishop Hills. The balance of the county — everyone on unincorporated land — was 15,749. The county's land area is 908.4 square miles and Amarillo's whole corporate area, both counties together, is 103.6 square miles. So however Amarillo divides between Potter and Randall, unincorporated Potter County runs between about 17 and 20 people to the square mile. For comparison, the same measure is roughly 129 in Smith County and 43 in McLennan. This is genuinely rural ground with a city of 200,000 sitting in one corner of it, and the two halves of the county answer to completely different rules.

U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program, sub-est2025.csv, records for Potter County, Amarillo city (pt.), Bishop Hills town and Balance of Potter County — https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest/datasets/2020-2025/cities/totals/sub-est2025.csv; U.S. Census Bureau 2024 Gazetteer, counties and places national files

The county's septic programme is run out of the city's health district, and it covers the whole county
TCEQ's authorised agent register lists one agent for Potter County: the Potter County Authorized Agent, area served recorded as the entire county, administered by the Amarillo Area Public Health District. There are no city carve-outs, which is unusual — most Texas counties are listed as the county with named cities excepted. The permit office is at 808 S Buchanan Street in Amarillo and the named contact is a city employee. The county's own revised subdivision regulations describe the same body under a slightly different name, the Amarillo Bi City-County Health District, and say that in Potter County on-site sewage facilities are permitted, inspected and approved by that district under rules promulgated by TCEQ, with minimum standards at 30 Texas Administrative Code Chapter 285. Two instruments, two spellings of the agency's name, one office to ring.

TCEQ On-Site Sewage Facility authorised agent search, county code 188, record 620389 for POTTER COUNTY AUTHORIZED AGENT — https://www6.tceq.texas.gov/oars/index.cfm?fuseaction=search.results (POST, CNTY_CD=188); Potter County Subdivision Regulations, Rev. 12-2023, section I

A county with no building code adopted the City of Amarillo's drainage manual
Potter County's subdivision regulations were revised by unanimous vote of the Commissioners Court on 11 December 2023. They require a drainage study and plan for any subdivision, prepared by a licensed and qualified engineer, and then say the calculations and design standards shall be made consistent with the City of Amarillo's Storm Water Management Criteria Manual, which the Commissioners Court expressly adopts and incorporates so far as it is relevant to road development and maintenance. The drainage plan must identify any part of the subdivision inside a 100-year flood plain, identify lots that carry an elevated flood risk anyway, and recommend minimum foundation elevations for structures in those areas. A county that has no residential building code has nonetheless routed foundation elevation through an engineer's report on a plat.

Potter County Subdivision Regulations, Rev. 12-2023, Order Adopting Revised Subdivision Regulations 11 December 2023, sections C.7(a) and H — https://www.co.potter.tx.us/upload/page/0174/docs/RB/PC%20Subdivision%20Regulations2.pdf

An exempt domestic well still has to clear the district's spacing, and the district checks it before you drill
Most of Potter County sits inside the Panhandle Groundwater Conservation District. The district describes itself as all of Carson, Donley, Gray, Roberts and Wheeler counties plus parts of Armstrong, Hutchinson and Potter, and its management plan puts a number on the parts: it prorates county water-use figures by the share of county area inside the district, and the Potter multiplier is 94.12 percent — against 100 percent for the five whole counties, 92.36 for Armstrong and 4.24 for Hutchinson. So nearly all of Potter County is in, and a thin edge is not. A well used solely for domestic supply or for livestock is exempt from the district's drilling and operating permits if it cannot produce more than 17.5 gallons per minute or is completed with production pipe under 2 inches. That exemption is from permitting only. Rule 5.1(b) says all registered wells are required to meet the district's spacing requirements, and that as part of registration the owner must have the district confirm the well meets spacing before drilling. For a one-inch pump the spacing is at least 50 yards from the nearest well of the same size and at least 25 yards from the nearest property line. Rule 8 is headed spacing of permitted wells, which reads as though registered wells escape it. They do not.

Rules of Panhandle Groundwater Conservation District, approved 9 July 2026, Rules 5.1(a), 5.1(b) and 8.1 — https://www.pgcd.us/rules; Panhandle Groundwater Conservation District Management Plan 2024–2029, amended 6 June 2024, district description and Potter County water-use multiplier

Caliche, expansive clay and playa clay are three different soils inside one county
The NRCS soil survey for Potter County, Texas is survey area TX375, and it will not let anyone describe the Panhandle as caliche and leave it there. Caliche is the biggest story: the Potter series, named for this county, carries 25 percent calcium carbonate in the top six inches and 69 percent between six and fifteen; Veal reaches 39 to 48 percent below three inches; Mobeetie, the largest component at about 95,000 acres, is 66 percent sand with a plasticity index of 7 to 8. Good bearing, hard digging. Then the flat tableland: Pullman, about 53,600 acres, runs 32 percent clay at the surface and 47.5 percent between seven and twenty-three inches, with a plasticity index of 23 to 29 and a linear extensibility of 7.5. Then the playa floors, mapped as the Randall series, 3,411 acres of it — 60 percent clay, plasticity index 46, linear extensibility 11.4 to 12.6. That is a Vertisol and it is the most expansive ground measured anywhere on this site. Three soils, one county, and only a site-specific investigation tells you which one you bought.

USDA NRCS Soil Data Access, SSURGO survey area TX375 (Potter County, Texas — note that Potter and Randall are both soil series names as well as county names), legend, mapunit, component and chorizon tables queried 1 September 2026 — https://SDMDataAccess.sc.egov.usda.gov/Tabular/post.rest

The county cannot adopt a fire code, and the numbers say why
Local Government Code section 233.061(a) lets a commissioners court adopt a fire code only in a county of more than 250,000 people or in a county adjacent to one. Government Code section 311.005(3) keys population to the decennial census. Potter County's 2020 base is 118,622, and its neighbours are Randall at 140,670, Moore at 21,363, Hutchinson at 20,611, Carson at 5,799 and Oldham at 1,759. Nothing clears 250,000; the nearest county that does is Lubbock at 310,646, well over a hundred miles away. So the bracket is closed and there is no county fire code to comply with. Potter County does have a Fire Marshal and a six-station Fire & Rescue Department, operating under Local Government Code section 352.016, which carries no population bracket, and the Commissioners Court issues outdoor burning bans under section 352.081. Fire hydrant locations in a new subdivision go to Fire & Rescue for approval under the subdivision regulations.

Texas Local Government Code secs. 233.061, 352.016 and 352.081; Government Code sec. 311.005(3); U.S. Census Bureau sub-est2025.csv 2020 estimates base for Potter, Randall, Moore, Hutchinson, Carson, Oldham and Lubbock counties; Potter County Fire and Rescue Department and Commissioners Court burn ban order of 7 July 2026 — https://www.co.potter.tx.us/page/Fire.Rescue.Dept

Also worth knowing before you build in Potter County

The county publishes eight regulations, and none of them is a building code
Potter County's home page carries a section headed County Regulations and Ordinances. It lists exactly eight documents: a Dangerous Wild Animal Regulation, a Dog Restraint Ordinance, Nuisance Abatement, Sexually Oriented Businesses, two sets of Tax Abatement Guidelines, a Request for Use of the county Trash Truck, and the Storm Water Management Criteria for Unincorporated Urbanized Areas. There is no codified county code, no numbered chapter series, and nothing addressing residential construction. That is where a Chapter 233 Subchapter F opt-in would most naturally live if the county had codified one, and it is not there — though section 233.152 does not oblige a county to publish such an order, so the list settles less than it appears to.

Potter County official website, County Regulations and Ordinances section — https://www.co.potter.tx.us/

The county's own words on building permits, from its own published programme
Potter County's Storm Water Management Program for Unincorporated Urbanized Areas, still linked from the county's regulations list and from Road & Bridge, contains two passages that matter to anyone building outside a city here. Under Regulatory Mechanism Restrictions for Counties it says the Texas Constitution and state statutes do not grant Texas counties the ability to create and enforce ordinances, as home-rule cities may. Under the construction runoff measure it says the county lacks the authority to require building permits or site plans from homebuilders or commercial building contractors who are not subdividing property in accordance with the county's subdivision regulations. Read the date with the words: the document runs to the storm water permit term of 13 August 2007 to 12 August 2012, so it speaks from before the 2009 statute that let counties opt into a residential code.

Potter County Storm Water Management Program, Unincorporated Urbanized Areas, sections 2, 3 and 5.D — https://www.co.potter.tx.us/page/open/1637/0/Storm%20Water%20Management%20Criteria%20-%20Unincorporated%20Urbanized%20Areas.pdf

Most of the unincorporated county sits inside Amarillo's extraterritorial jurisdiction
The urbanized unincorporated pockets the county's storm water programme covers are described in that document as lying within the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the City of Amarillo, and it records that under Local Government Code section 242.001 Potter County and the City entered an interlocal agreement for the review and imposition of plat and construction detail standards for subdivisions in the ETJ. The subdivision regulations carry the practical effect: a plat inside Amarillo's ETJ must carry the approval of the city, obtained before final approval by the Commissioners Court, and after the County Judge signs, the plat goes back to the City, which prepares the instrument for recording with the County Clerk. Two approvals, in a fixed order. Outside the ETJ the county alone approves it.

Potter County Storm Water Management Program section 5.D(2); Potter County Subdivision Regulations, Rev. 12-2023, section C; Texas Local Government Code sec. 242.001

Culverts and driveways are the gate nobody expects, and they have written specifications
Potter County has no residential building code but it does have written standards for what happens where your driveway meets a county road. The revised subdivision regulations require culvert sizes for every lot to be shown on the plat and pre-determined by the drainage study, and set minimum specifications: no single culvert over 32 feet, plastic culverts not acceptable with corrugated tinhorn recommended, the county not responsible for concrete culverts, and a minimum six inches of cover, which may be asphalt, caliche or other soil material approved by the engineer and the Superintendent. Non-compliant culverts may be removed at the Superintendent's direction and replaced at the owner's expense, and installation work done by Road & Bridge is billed at material cost plus labour. Utilities in the county right of way go in the back slope of the drainage ditch, buried at least 36 inches, with electrical and gas at least 5 feet down.

Potter County Subdivision Regulations, Rev. 12-2023, sections G.1 and H.3 to H.5 — https://www.co.potter.tx.us/upload/page/0174/docs/RB/PC%20Subdivision%20Regulations2.pdf

The county is in the NFIP, and its map is newer than most
FEMA's Community Status Book lists unincorporated Potter County as community 481241, participating in the National Flood Insurance Program, in the Regular Program since 4 June 2010, with a currently effective Flood Insurance Rate Map of the same date and an initial Flood Hazard Boundary Map of 6 December 1977. By comparison Randall County entered the Regular Program in 1982 and the City of Amarillo in 1982. The county's storm water programme records that Potter County passed flood plain regulations in 2003. The text of those regulations is not on the county website — the Flood Information link on the Road & Bridge page serves a general FEMA public-awareness flyer, FEMA V-1005 of March 2018, rather than the county's own order. So the freeboard figure, and which Water Code sections the county's order names, are questions for Road & Bridge on (806) 383-2273 rather than something to assume from a neighbouring county.

FEMA OpenFEMA NfipCommunityStatusBook, records for POTTER COUNTY (481241), RANDALL COUNTY (480532) and AMARILLO, CITY OF (480529), refreshed 25 August 2026 — https://www.fema.gov/api/open/v1/NfipCommunityStatusBook; Potter County Storm Water Management Program section 5.D(4)

A new subdivision must prove there is groundwater before the plat is approved
The revised subdivision regulations require, for any new subdivision, a plan for potable water supported by written certification and data on the state forms that adequate groundwater is available for all anticipated needs and uses within the subdivision, citing 30 Texas Administrative Code Chapter 230. On the High Plains, over a declining Ogallala, that is not a formality. A sanitary sewage plan and all associated soil testing must go to the health district and to TCEQ, current tax certificates must be filed with the plat, and a recordable copy of the restrictive covenants to be imposed on the lots must be filed with it too — which is worth knowing, because in a state with no county zoning the covenants recorded against your lot are usually the strictest rules that will ever reach your building.

Potter County Subdivision Regulations, Rev. 12-2023, sections C.7(c), C.7(d), C.7(f) and C.7(h); 30 Texas Administrative Code ch. 230

Amarillo's centre of gravity has crossed the county line
Amarillo straddles Potter and Randall counties, and the balance has just tipped. In the 2020 estimates base, 101,663 of the city's people were on the Potter side and 98,748 on the Randall side. By 2025 the Potter share had fallen to 98,509 while the Randall share had risen to 106,621. Potter County as a whole is shrinking, from 118,622 to 114,453 since 2020; Randall County is growing, from 140,670 to 152,351. For someone looking for land this matters more than it sounds: the pressure on unincorporated ground, and the annexation risk that goes with it, is on the south and west edges of the metropolitan area rather than in the Potter County breaks.

U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program, sub-est2025.csv, Amarillo city (pt.) records for Potter and Randall counties and the county totals — https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest/datasets/2020-2025/cities/totals/sub-est2025.csv

The mineral estate is dominant, and a house you have not built yet is not protected
In Texas the mineral estate is the dominant estate: where the minerals under your land were severed from the surface at some point in the past, the mineral owner and their lessee hold the right to use as much of the surface as is reasonably necessary to get to them. The accommodation doctrine gives the surface owner a narrow answer to that, and the Supreme Court of Texas applied it in Merriman v. XTO Energy, No. 11-0494 (2013). Merriman had a house on his 40 acres and still lost. The doctrine protects an existing use, so a barndominium that is only a plan is not protected at all. Whether the minerals under a particular Potter County tract are severed is a title question, not a county question — it comes off the title commitment and the County Clerk's records, and it is worth asking before the contract rather than after.

Merriman v. XTO Energy, Inc., No. 11-0494 (Tex. 2013), opinion of the Court; Potter County Clerk official public records — https://potter.tx.publicsearch.us/

No Potter County instrument mentions playa lakes by name
Playa lakes — the shallow ephemeral basins that collect runoff across the Southern High Plains — are the drainage feature that has no equivalent anywhere else this site covers, and they can decide where a house and a drainfield go on an otherwise flat quarter section. Potter County's three published land instruments do not name them: the word appears nowhere in the revised subdivision regulations, nowhere in the 1994 regulations they replaced, and nowhere in the Storm Water Management Program. The soil survey names them anyway. Playa floors in Potter County are mapped as the Randall series, 3,411 acres of Vertisol at 60 percent clay and plasticity index 46 — the shrink-swell extreme for this county and for this site. So the county's instruments handle a playa only through the general requirement for a drainage plan by a qualified expert covering drainage within a subdivision and water intrusion onto neighbouring property. The soil map is where you find out you have one.

Full-text search of Potter County Subdivision Regulations Rev. 12-2023, Potter County Subdivision Regulations as adopted 25 April 1994, and the Potter County Storm Water Management Program; USDA NRCS Soil Data Access, SSURGO survey area TX375, Randall series component and horizon data; Potter County Subdivision Regulations Rev. 12-2023 section C.7(a)

Dividing the land is what triggers the county, and you cannot sell before the plat
Potter County's authority over land outside city limits is a platting authority under Local Government Code Chapter 232, not a construction authority. Under the revised regulations, an owner of land outside any incorporated city in Potter County who divides one tract into two or more parts to lay out a subdivision, individual lots, or public amenities such as roads, drainage systems or septic systems must prepare a plat that complies with the regulations and submit it for approval, subject to the exceptions at section 232.0015. The consequence is worth reading twice: no portion of subdivided land may be conveyed until the plat has been approved by the Commissioners Court and recorded in the public records of Potter County. Buying half of somebody's unplatted tract is the way this goes wrong, and it goes wrong before anyone has poured anything.

Potter County Subdivision Regulations, Rev. 12-2023, section B.1; Texas Local Government Code secs. 232.001 and 232.0015

An excavator grading a compacted building pad on a cleared lot, with survey stakes and a drainage swale visible.
Below the slab

The expensive surprises are in the ground, not the building

What moves a Texas budget is usually below grade, and it is soil rather than rock: shrink-swell clay. The Blackland Prairie and the Gulf Coast clays move enough between a wet season and a dry one to drive the foundation design across the state's largest markets, which is why several DFW cities require an engineer's seal on the foundation of every new house. Those are the same conditions that decide whether a septic field passes its soil and site evaluation, so the grading plan, the foundation and the drainfield get resolved together rather than one at a time. We price the dirt before we price the building.

What we build in Potter County

All nine of our services — kits, custom plans, post-frame and steel construction, site preparation, permitting and engineering, through to turnkey builds — are available across Potter County. What a project costs depends far more on the parcel than on square footage, so we work from your land rather than from a rate card.

See what we build

What a build looks like

Three stages every Potter County project passes through, from a raw parcel to a finished home. Site work first, because that is where the budget is decided.

Aerial view of an undeveloped rural lot with cleared grass, a live oak and cedar elm treeline, and a pale gravel access track.
Stage one

The parcel

Zoning, setbacks, flood zone and utility access get checked before anything is drawn.

An excavator grading a compacted building pad on a cleared lot, with survey stakes and a drainage swale visible.
Stage two

Pad and permit

Clearing, grading and a compacted pad, while the submittal works through Potter County.

A finished barndominium at dusk with warm interior lighting glowing through its large windows.
Stage three

Frame to finish

Shell erected and dried in, then systems, insulation and interior finish through to CO.

Those are the rules for Potter County. Tell us what you want to build and we will draw it to them.

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Where we build around Potter County

Potter County and the rural land around it. The buildable acreage for a project this size usually sits outside the city limits, which is frequently what changes who issues your permit.

Our Potter County service area, covering Potter County and the surrounding rural acreage. This map marks the territory we serve, not a branch location.

Keep reading

The questions that usually come next once you know what Potter County allows.

Barndominium Cost Guide

Sourced per-square-foot ranges by tier and by size, with a calculator built on the same figures.

Read it

Is It Legal in Texas?

Classification, zoning, the HOA gate, and why "nonresidential farm building" does not cover a home.

Read it

How Long Does It Take?

Census build-duration data, and what actually sets the permit clock where you are building.

Read it

Nearby areas we build in

Others we cover in this part of Texas. The permitting authority, the adopted design criteria and the zoning can all differ from one to the next.

Amarillo

Potter County
Randall County

Randall County

Building in Potter County: common questions

12 questions we get asked most often about building in Potter County. If yours is not on the list, ask it directly.

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Does Potter County require a building permit for a barndominium on unincorporated land?
There is no county building permit for a house in the unincorporated county, and the county has published its own statement that it lacks the authority to require building permits or site plans from homebuilders who are not subdividing property. Two qualifications matter. That statement comes from the county's storm water programme written for the 2007 to 2012 permit term, so it predates the 2009 law that lets a Texas county opt into a residential building code by order, and whether Potter County ever adopted such an order is not settled from what is published. And even if it had, Chapter 233 Subchapter F gives a county no permit, no fee and no inspector; it makes the builder responsible for arranging the inspections. Ring the Commissioners Court on (806) 379-2246 before you rely on it either way. Inside Amarillo's city limits everything changes, and that is the city's code, not the county's.
So what does actually gate a build in unincorporated Potter County?
Four things, none of which is a building code. First, the on-site sewage facility authorisation, which is issued and inspected by the Amarillo health district acting as the county's authorised agent, for the entire county. Second, a plat, if the land is being divided — Chapter 232 platting, with the Commissioners Court approving and, inside Amarillo's extraterritorial jurisdiction, the City approving first. Third, your water well, which the Panhandle Groundwater Conservation District will register and whose spacing it verifies before drilling. Fourth, and often the strictest of the lot, the restrictive covenants recorded against your particular tract. Add a driveway culvert conversation with Road & Bridge, and a floodplain development question if the tract touches a mapped flood hazard area.
Is the shop bay counted when the septic system is sized?
The state rule sizes an on-site sewage facility from bedrooms or living area, whichever gives the larger figure, and a shop bay is not living area. Some Texas counties and health districts publish their own rule that pulls a loft or an attached garage into the calculation, which enlarges the drainfield. Potter County's subdivision regulations point to 30 Texas Administrative Code Chapter 285 as the minimum standard and add nothing of their own on this. Whether the Amarillo health district publishes a stricter measure of its own is a question for the agent's office directly, on (806) 378-9473 — the register lists that number and the permit office at 808 S Buchanan Street. Ask before the plans are finished, not after: it is the single question most likely to change a barndominium's drainfield size.
Does the ten-acre septic exemption apply in Potter County?
The exemption at 30 Texas Administrative Code section 285.3 is real and it is not dead statewide — Smith County adopts Chapter 285 whole and it survives there, while several other counties kill it expressly in their own orders. Potter County's subdivision regulations say only that on-site sewage facilities here are permitted, inspected and approved by the Amarillo health district under TCEQ rules with minimum standards at Chapter 285. That wording neither preserves nor removes the exemption on its face, and the agent's own published rules are the instrument that would settle it. Ring (806) 378-9473 and ask whether the exemption is honoured and on what conditions. Do not assume it applies because your tract is big: the exemption has four conditions attached, including that the system serves a single dwelling that is the only one on the tract.
Will I need an engineer for the foundation?
It depends on what is under the slab, and in Potter County that varies sharply within a few miles. Much of the county is caliche — Potter, Veal and Mobeetie, high in carbonate, plasticity index in single figures, very low shrink-swell, good bearing. But Pullman covers roughly 53,600 acres of the flat tableland at plasticity index 23 to 29, and the playa floors are mapped as the Randall series at plasticity index 46 with 60 percent clay. The IBC's expansive-soil test at section 1808.6 keys off a plasticity index of 15 or more, so both of those clear it comfortably. On unincorporated land with no adopted residential code there is no permit office to enforce that test, which is exactly why it is worth commissioning the soil investigation yourself and putting a Texas-licensed professional engineer on the foundation. Inside a city that has adopted the IRC, the same soil produces a hard requirement rather than a recommendation.
Is my water well exempt from the groundwater district's rules?
Partly, and the part that is not exempt is the part that constrains where the house goes. Most of Potter County is inside the Panhandle Groundwater Conservation District. A well used solely for domestic supply or livestock that cannot produce more than 17.5 gallons per minute, or that is completed with production pipe under two inches, is exempt from the district's drilling and operating permits and needs only to be registered. But under Rule 5.1(b) all registered wells must still meet the district's spacing requirements, and the owner has to have the district confirm the spacing before drilling. For a one-inch pump that is at least 50 yards from the nearest well of the same size and at least 25 yards from the nearest property line. On a narrow tract that is a real siting constraint. The district is on (806) 883-2501.
Does the county check the drainage on my site?
Only through the plat, and only when land is being subdivided. The revised subdivision regulations require a drainage study and plan prepared by a licensed and qualified engineer, and the calculations have to be consistent with the City of Amarillo's Storm Water Management Criteria Manual, which the Commissioners Court has expressly adopted for this purpose. The plan must identify any part of the subdivision inside a 100-year flood plain, identify lots that still carry elevated flood risk, and recommend minimum foundation elevations for structures in those areas. Culvert sizes for every lot come off that study and are shown on the plat. If you are building on an existing platted lot, none of that runs again — but the culvert specifications and the driveway conversation with Road & Bridge still apply.
What climate zone is Potter County, and what does that change?
Zone 4B, mixed-dry, on both the pre-2021 and the 2021 and 2024 energy code maps. That makes it the coldest and driest ground on this site — everything further south and east that we build in sits in 2A, 2B, 3A or 3B. It matters because the zone drives the insulation and fenestration values in the energy code, and 4B asks for meaningfully more envelope than the Hill Country or the Gulf Coast does. Eight Texas counties changed zone between the two maps and Potter is not one of them, so unlike a builder in Dallas or Brownsville you do not have to establish which edition applies before you know the zone. Design to 4B and specify the insulation accordingly.
What is the freeboard requirement if my tract is in a flood zone?
Unincorporated Potter County participates in the National Flood Insurance Program as community 481241 and has been in the Regular Program since 4 June 2010, which is also the date of its current effective Flood Insurance Rate Map. The county adopted flood plain regulations in 2003, on the record of its own storm water programme. The text of those regulations is not published on the county's website — the Flood Information link on the Road & Bridge page serves a general FEMA preparedness flyer instead. Freeboard is not a constant in Texas; on this site alone it ranges from zero to two feet county by county, so borrowing a neighbouring county's figure would be a mistake. Ask Road & Bridge on (806) 383-2273 for the current order and the freeboard it sets.
Does renting the barndominium out change anything here?
It can, and it is worth establishing before you build rather than after. Two separate mechanisms have shown up elsewhere in Texas. In one, a county routes anything rented out through a commercial track where a fire code applies and the permit costs more. In the other, letting the building costs you an exemption you would otherwise have had, because Local Government Code section 233.157(c) conditions the owner-builder defence on the owner intending the building as their own primary residence. Potter County has no commercial building permit track and cannot adopt a fire code at all, so the first mechanism has nothing to attach to here. The second is a matter of statute and applies wherever you are. Neither point is settled by anything Potter County publishes, so treat a rental plan as a question for the Commissioners Court and your own lawyer.
Who owns the minerals under Panhandle land, and can a driller put a well next to my house?
In Texas the mineral estate is dominant. Where the minerals were severed from the surface at some point in the chain of title, the mineral owner and their lessee may use as much of the surface as is reasonably necessary to produce them. The accommodation doctrine is the surface owner's answer, and it is narrow: in Merriman v. XTO Energy, decided by the Supreme Court of Texas in 2013, Merriman had a house on his 40 acres and still lost. Because the doctrine protects an existing use, a barndominium that has not been built yet is not protected at all. Whether a particular tract's minerals are severed is not a county question — it is a title question, answered from the title commitment and the County Clerk's records before you sign.
Is Potter County or Randall County the better side of Amarillo to buy land in?
They are different problems rather than a better and a worse. Potter County holds the northern half of the city and 900 square miles of thinly settled High Plains and Canadian River breaks behind it, and it is shrinking — 118,622 people in 2020 down to 114,453 in 2025. Randall County is where the metropolitan growth is going: 140,670 up to 152,351 over the same period, and since 2021 it has held more of Amarillo's population than Potter has. Potter offers more land, further out, with less annexation pressure. Randall offers shorter drives and more competition for the same acre. The regulatory answer is not automatically the same in the two counties either — each has its own subdivision regulations, its own flood plain order and its own position on the residential code statute, so establish them for the county your tract is actually in.

Building in Potter County?

Start with the plan. Tell us what you want to build and we will draw it, then confirm what Potter County will actually let you put on the parcel and what wind load it has to meet. That conversation costs nothing.

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