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.
Randall County No county building code

Barndominium Builders in Randall County, TX

South Amarillo and Canyon both sit in Randall County, and the county itself runs no building department, no building inspector and no adopted residential code. What it does run is a development permit system: Road and Bridge in Canyon issues a Class B permit for property in the mapped 100-year floodplain and a Class A permit for everything outside it, so the gate reaches land FEMA has mapped as dry. Septic is stranger still. Randall County holds the TCEQ authorised agent designation but does not administer it. The Amarillo Area Public Health District does, from an office on South Buchanan Street in Amarillo, for Potter and Randall counties together, and the county's own order kills the ten-acre exemption in plain words. The ground is the real surprise. This is not caliche at the surface. Pullman clay loam covers 41 percent of the county, and in the playa basins the Randall series runs 60 percent clay.

Randall County at a glance

County
Randall County
Population
152,351
Where we build
Canyon, Amarillo, Potter County

ZIPs 79015, 79016, 79042, 79091, 79098, 79103, 79106, 79109 and more

Site visits
We meet you on the tract, Canyon or anywhere else in Randall County
Start your project

Building conditions in Randall 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 Randall County , Texas . BUILD CONDITIONS RANDALL COUNTY, TXRandall CountyNO COUNTY BUILDING…ADOPTED RESIDENTIAL CODENO COUNTY BUILDING…This jurisdiction publishes no design wind speed. It is settled in writing with the authority overyour parcel before the frame is ordered.ZONING · NO COUNTY ZONINGHalf an acre on a public water suppl…Local Government Code section 233.153(d)(2) does not authorise acommissioners court to adopt or enforce zoning, and Randall County…ACCESS CULVERT AND DRIVEWAY PERMIT$200.00Randall County Road and Bridge charges 200 dollars for a permit toconstruct access driveway facilities on county right of way, or 200…WHO ISSUES THE PERMITRandall County Road & Bridge, with t…Road and Bridge holds floodplain, platting and driveway permittingat 301 W Highway 60, Canyon, TX 79015, (806) 655-3861. The septic…
Build conditions for Randall 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.
A city health department issues the septic permit for the whole county
TCEQ's authorised agent search returns two records for Randall County: the Randall County Authorized Agent, whose area served reads entire County, administered by Amarillo Area Public Health District, and TCEQ Region 01 in Amarillo. The permit office is 808 S Buchanan Street, Suite 275, Amarillo. The district's own form is headed application to install or alter an On-Site Sewage Facility in Potter or Randall County, and its checklist names the cities of Amarillo and Canyon, the villages of Timbercreek Canyon, Lake Tanglewood and Palisades, the Town of Bishop Hills, and Potter and Randall County

TCEQ Online Authorized Agent Reporting System, county code 191, www6.tceq.texas.gov/oars, with the Amarillo Area Public Health District OSSF application and OSSF Application Checklist, October and December 2024

Ten acres exempts you from nothing here
Section 8(B)(1) of the county's own on-site sewage order is listed as a local rule more stringent than the state minimum: a permit is required for all on-site sewage facilities regardless of acreage, to protect public health and to ensure the citizens of Randall County have documentation for real estate transactions. The stringency list in that order runs to only two items; the other sets new potable water distribution lines at least ten feet in all directions from wastewater collection facilities, measured from the building foundation

Order Adopting Rules of Randall County, Texas for On-Site Sewage Facilities, sections 8(B)(1) and 8(B)(2), passed and approved 22 September 2020, approved by the TCEQ Executive Director 7 May 2021

A county development permit is required outside the floodplain too
Randall County's Floodplain Management office states that a Class A Development Permit is required for all development outside the mapped 100-year floodplain of Randall County, and a Class B Development Permit for property lying partly or wholly within it. Development is defined to include buildings, excavation, filling, grading and paving. No construction may begin until a permit has been issued, and the county publishes a penalty of up to 500 dollars per day with each day a separate offence

Randall County Road & Bridge, Floodplain Management page and Floodplain Management FAQ, randallcounty.gov, read 1 September 2026

No freeboard above the base flood elevation
Article 5 of the county's Flood Damage Prevention Order requires the lowest floor, including basement, of new residential construction to be elevated to or above the base flood elevation, with a certification to the Floodplain Administrator from a registered professional engineer, architect or land surveyor. It adds no extra height, where several Texas counties require two feet. In AO and AH shallow-flooding zones the standard is the base flood elevation or the highest adjacent grade at least as high as the depth number on the FIRM, and at least two feet if no depth number is specified

Randall County Flood Damage Prevention Order, Article 5, adopted 2010 and effective 4 June 2010, citing Texas Water Code section 16.315 and 44 CFR 60.3(d)

Half the county is in no groundwater district at all
High Plains Underground Water Conservation District No. 1 covers eight whole counties and portions of eight more, Randall among them; the water-use dataset printed in the district's own 2024 management plan applies a 47.32 percent multiplier to Randall County. Panhandle Groundwater Conservation District's 2024 plan states that it consists of all of Carson, Donley, Gray, Roberts and Wheeler counties along with parts of Armstrong, Hutchinson and Potter, and does not include Randall at all. So a tract here is either inside High Plains or inside no district

High Plains Underground Water Conservation District No. 1 Management Plan 2024 and Panhandle Groundwater Conservation District Management Plan 2024, both as filed with the Texas Water Development Board

The dominant soil is shrink-swell clay, not caliche
Pullman clay loam covers 242,494 of the county's 590,765 mapped acres, 41 percent, and it is classified Torrertic Paleustolls, a subgroup that carries a shrink-swell modifier. Representative clay content is 32.2 percent in the plough layer and 38.9 percent in the Bt horizon from 13 to 84 centimetres, with a linear extensibility of 6.1 there, an AASHTO class of A-7-6 and a plasticity index of 23 rising to 28. The carbonate is real but it is deep: 35 percent calcium carbonate from 132 to 203 centimetres

USDA NRCS Soil Data Access, SSURGO survey area TX381 Randall County, mapunit, component, chorizon and chaashto tables

Also worth knowing before you build in Randall County

The playa soil is named after this county, and it is a Vertisol
Randall clay, 0 to 1 percent slopes, frequently ponded, covers 5,139 acres and is classified Very-fine, smectitic, thermic Ustic Epiaquerts, soil order Vertisols, poorly drained, hydrologic group D. Representative clay content is about 60 percent from the surface to two metres and linear extensibility runs 11.4 to 12.6, with a plasticity index of 46 and a liquid limit of 78. Counting Randall, McLean, Lockney, Lazbuddie and Lofton together, 40,676 acres of the county sit in map units the survey describes as occasionally or frequently ponded

USDA NRCS Soil Data Access, SSURGO survey area TX381, mapunit and component tables with taxonomic classes and chorizon values

Climate zone 4B, and nowhere else we build is colder
The Department of Energy's county climate zone attribute table gives Randall County, GEOID G48381, IECC zone 4 with moisture regime B on both the 2015 and the 2021 maps, and a Building America region of Mixed-Dry on both. It sits outside the 1A to 3B range that covers the rest of this site, and the moisture regime is dry rather than humid, which changes the insulation and vapour answer, not just the R-value

US Department of Energy and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, ClimateZones shapefile attribute table accompanying PNNL-33270, record G48381

Amarillo, not the county, approves plats in Amarillo's ETJ
Randall County's Road and Bridge office states that the City of Amarillo and the counties in which Amarillo's ETJ falls, Armstrong, Carson, Potter and Randall, have official agreements that the city will oversee platting in the ETJ, and that the city has the exclusive authority to approve or deny plats and required plans for streets, alleys and storm water drainage facilities there, in accordance with city standards. It also warns that city approval of infrastructure does not commit Randall County to accept it for maintenance

Randall County Road & Bridge, Platting in the Extraterritorial Jurisdiction, randallcounty.gov, citing Texas Attorney General Opinion GA-139 (2004)

The acreage exemption changes at the city line
The same county page records that Amarillo acknowledges the city exception of greater than 5 acres in its ETJ because it is less restrictive than the counties' 10 or more acres exemption. In the county proper, section 1.04(C) of the 2023 Subdivision Regulations applies the Local Government Code section 232.0015 exception to a division of land into parts greater than 10 acres where each part has access and no public improvement is dedicated

Randall County Road & Bridge, Platting in the Extraterritorial Jurisdiction, with the 2023 Randall County Subdivision Regulations section 1.04(C)

No approved plat, no street number
Section 1.04(B)(2) of the county's subdivision regulations provides that no address, that is, street number, shall be issued for the erection of any building in the County or ETJ on any piece of property without an approved plat, except where the exemptions apply. Section 1.04(B)(1) also lets the county withhold approval and acceptance of public improvements from any addition whose platting the Commissioners Court has not approved

2023 Randall County Subdivision Regulations, section 1.04(B), adopted after a public hearing noticed on the Commissioners Court agenda of 7 November 2023

A signed groundwater certification goes on every final plat
Section 3.01(2) of the subdivision regulations requires a signed and sealed groundwater availability certification with the final plat, complying with 30 Texas Administrative Code sections 230.1 to 230.11. Section 3.01(1) additionally requires every plat to be signed off by the 9-1-1 Director and the Bi-City County Health Department before it reaches Commissioners Court

2023 Randall County Subdivision Regulations, section 3.01(1) and (2)

There is a plat type that exists only to get you a septic permit
Section 3.07 creates an OSSF Plat whose stated purpose is to provide basic documentation required by the Amarillo Area Public Health District for the On-Site Sewage Facility application, and which the owner of an unplatted lot may request. The Road Superintendent reviews it and must act within thirty calendar days of the official submittal date, failing which the plat as submitted is deemed approved

2023 Randall County Subdivision Regulations, section 3.07

The county cannot adopt a fire code even though it runs a fire department
Randall County Fire Department operates three stations, on East Loop 335 South, FM 2186 and at Umbarger. But Local Government Code section 233.061(a) opens county fire-code power only to a county over 250,000 or one adjacent to such a county, and population there means the decennial figure. The 2020 census counted 140,753 in Randall and 118,525 in Potter, with every other neighbour under 20,000, so the bracket is shut. Section 233.062(a) would in any case cap such a code at commercial establishments, public buildings and multifamily of four units or more, which cannot reach a house

Texas Local Government Code sections 233.061(a) and 233.062(a), Government Code section 311.005(3), and the US Census Bureau 2020 Census centers of population file CenPop2020_Mean_CO48

Steep ground is a real category here
The soil survey maps 21,278 acres of Potter-Mobeetie association at 8 to 45 percent slopes and 10,418 acres of Knoco-Quinlan-Burson association at 5 to 50 percent slopes. Adding every map unit whose dominant component reaches 20 percent or steeper gives about 52,066 acres, roughly 9 percent of the county. That is the canyon country: Texas Parks and Wildlife calls Palo Duro Canyon the second largest canyon in the country, and it cuts through this county

USDA NRCS Soil Data Access, SSURGO survey area TX381, component slope values by map unit acreage, with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Palo Duro Canyon State Park

An exempt well escapes the spacing table as well as the permit
In High Plains district territory, Rule 4.1(b)(1) exempts from permitting a well completed or equipped to produce less than 25,000 gallons a day, or 17.5 gallons a minute. Rule 4.9(a) applies the minimum spacing tables to wells permitted after the rule's enactment, and the lowest row of both tables begins at 17.5 gallons a minute, so a household well below that threshold has no spacing row to meet. Rule 4.2 provides that such a well may be registered, which is permissive rather than mandatory

High Plains Underground Water Conservation District No. 1, Rules as amended by House Bill 2443, 15 November 2023, Rules 4.1, 4.2 and 4.9

Where the spacing does bite, it bites in yards
For a permitted well in the Ogallala or Edwards-Trinity High Plains aquifer, the district's Table 1 requires 100 yards from the nearest valid well or proposed well site and 25 yards from the nearest property line at 17.5 to 70 gallons a minute, rising to 540 yards and 278 yards above 800 gallons a minute. The Dockum table is stricter at the top: 1,760 yards from the nearest well above 500 gallons a minute

High Plains Underground Water Conservation District No. 1 Rules, Rule 4.9(a), Tables 1 and 2

The septic form measures the whole building, not the living area
The Amarillo Area Public Health District's application asks for square feet of House slash Building and converts it by bracket: 1500 to 2500 equals 3 bedrooms, 2501 to 3500 equals 4, 3501 to 4500 equals 5 and 4501 to 5500 equals 6. The state table in 30 TAC section 285.91 keys off number of bedrooms or living area of home instead. The county's own order does not redefine either term, so a barndominium owner should ask the district in writing how a shop bay is counted before sizing a system

Amarillo Area Public Health District, Application to install or alter an On-Site Sewage Facility in Potter or Randall County, October 2024, read against 30 Texas Administrative Code section 285.91

Five feet from the shop, a hundred from the well
The setback grid on the district's own application requires a septic tank 5 feet and a drainfield 5 feet from foundations, buildings and surface improvements; 50 and 100 feet from your own and neighbours' wells; 50 and 150 feet from public wells; 50 and 75 feet from lakes, streams, ponds and creeks including dry ones; and 5 and 25 feet from sharp slopes where seeps may occur. Any box answered no requires a signed variance request and a design by a registered sanitarian or professional engineer

Amarillo Area Public Health District, On-Site Sewage Facility application, setback table and variance instructions, October 2024

Inside Canyon the answer changes completely
The City of Canyon has adopted the 2021 International Residential Code, the 2021 International Building, Mechanical, Plumbing, Fuel Gas, Existing Building and Fire Codes, the 2015 International Energy Conservation Code and the 2023 National Electrical Code, and points builders at the Panhandle Residential Foundation Manual. That manual's foundation tables run to an effective plasticity index of 25 and hand any residence over 5,000 square feet to a design professional licensed in Texas as an architect or engineer

City of Canyon, Planning & Development, Building Codes page, canyontx.gov, with the Panhandle Residential Foundation Manual, April 2017 edition, Tables R401.2(a) and R401.2(b)

The county is urban and its balance is not
Of 152,351 residents estimated for 2025, 106,621 live inside the City of Amarillo's Randall County portion and 16,518 in Canyon, leaving 27,650 in the balance of the county. Take the whole footprint of every incorporated place that touches the county, at most 116.3 square miles, off the county's 912.7 square miles of land and at least 796 square miles are unincorporated, so the balance runs at no more than about 35 people per square mile

US Census Bureau Vintage 2025 sub-county population estimates, sub-est2025.csv, and the 2024 Census Gazetteer county and place files

Randall is growing while Potter is shrinking
Randall County went from a 2020 base of 140,670 to an estimated 152,351 in 2025, up 8.3 percent, while Potter County across the line fell from 118,622 to 114,453, down 3.5 percent. The Amarillo metro's growth is almost entirely on the Randall side, which is also where the buildable acreage south of the city lies

US Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 county population estimates, co-est2025-alldata.csv, rows 48381 and 48375

A licensed plumber is required even with no building code
The rural plumbing exemption expressly excludes plumbing performed in connection with new construction, so a licensed plumber is required on a rural Randall County build even where nobody will inspect the framing. The same pattern holds for well drillers and for any engineer whose seal a plan carries

Texas Occupations Code section 1301.052

Which Water Code section the county's own order names
The Flood Damage Prevention Order recites that under Section 16.315 of the Texas Water Code all political subdivisions are authorised to take all necessary and reasonable actions to comply with the requirements and criteria of the National Flood Insurance Program, and that the Legislature has in the Flood Control Insurance Act delegated the responsibility of local governmental units to adopt regulations designed to minimize flood losses. It names that section alone, where McLennan County's order names three

Randall County Flood Damage Prevention Order, preamble and Article I section A

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 Randall 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 Randall 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 Randall 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 Randall 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 Randall County. Tell us what you want to build and we will draw it to them.

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Where we build around Randall County

Randall 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 Randall County service area, covering Randall 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 Randall 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
Potter County

Potter County

Building in Randall County: common questions

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

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Does Randall County have a building code or a building inspector?
No. The county publishes no residential code edition, no building permit and no building department, and there is no county code of ordinances at all. Its departments run from Road and Bridge to the Fire Department without anything resembling permits or development services. The Commissioners Court has never adopted an order or resolution under Subchapter F of Local Government Code chapter 233, and the county's own hazard mitigation plan says so three times over: its Randall County narrative records that the county “lacks the ability to adopt/enforce building codes”, and its table of action items deletes one for the stated reason that “The County has no building code enforcement authority.” Even where a county has opted in, Subchapter F gives it no permit, no fee and no county inspector; the builder contracts the three required inspections privately. The County Judge's office is on (806) 468-5500.
So there is nothing to apply for out there?
There is, and this catches people. Randall County's Floodplain Management office says a Class A Development Permit is required for all development outside the mapped 100-year floodplain and a Class B permit for property lying partly or wholly inside it, and that no construction can begin until a permit has been issued. Development is defined broadly enough to include buildings, excavation, filling, grading and paving. On top of that, all driveways need a permit from Road and Bridge at 200 dollars, and the septic authorisation from the Amarillo health district is required before any soil is disturbed. None of those is a building code. Nobody examines your framing plans or inspects your walls. But the county publishes a penalty of up to 500 dollars a day, each day a separate offence, for building without the permits it does issue, and says you would not be able to occupy or use the building until you have them.
Who issues the septic permit, and where do I go?
Not the county office in Canyon. Randall County holds the TCEQ authorised agent designation, but section 9 of its own order declares the Amarillo Area Public Health District's Department of Environmental Health, City of Amarillo, the Designated Representative for administration and enforcement within the county's jurisdictional area. The office is at 808 S Buchanan Street, Suite 275, Amarillo, mailing PO Box 1971, Amarillo 79105-1971, on (806) 378-9472, email ehealthOSSF@amarillo.gov, Monday to Friday 8am to 5pm. The same office runs Potter County and the cities and villages in both. Section 10 of the county's order sends all permit and inspection fees to the City of Amarillo, plus the 10 dollar state fee to the TCEQ Water Resources Management Account. Appeals from a decision of the Designated Representative go to the Randall County Commissioners Court.
I have more than ten acres. Am I exempt from the septic rules?
No, and the county says so in its own words. Section 8(B)(1) of the Randall County on-site sewage order is listed as a local rule more stringent than the state minimum, and it requires a permit for all on-site sewage facilities regardless of acreage, giving two reasons: to protect public health, and to ensure the citizens of Randall County have documentation for real estate transactions. That second reason is unusual and worth understanding, because it means the permit record is expected to follow the property through a sale. TCEQ made a parallel point when it amended the state rule, explaining that the old wording had been widely misread as exempting single-family dwellings on ten acres or more from the whole of Chapter 285. Acreage buys you nothing here.
Does my shop bay count towards the size of the septic system?
Ask before you design, because the paperwork here does not settle it the way it does in some Texas counties. The state table in 30 TAC section 285.91 keys the wastewater usage rate off the number of bedrooms or the living area of the home. The Amarillo Area Public Health District's application instead asks for square feet of House slash Building and converts it by bracket: 1500 to 2500 square feet equals three bedrooms, 2501 to 3500 equals four, 3501 to 4500 equals five, 4501 to 5500 equals six. Its checklist asks for a floor plan of the building structures showing all outside dimensions. The county's order does not redefine living area, so the treatment of a shop bay attached to living space rests on the district's own practice. Put the question to the district in writing on (806) 378-9472 before you fix the drainfield size, because on a barndominium the difference between three bedrooms and six is the difference between two very different absorption areas.
What is the ground actually like? Is it caliche?
Caliche is here, but it is deeper than the reputation suggests and it is not the first thing a foundation meets. Pullman clay loam covers 242,494 of the county's 590,765 mapped acres, 41 percent, and is classified Torrertic Paleustolls, a shrink-swell subgroup. Representative clay content is 32.2 percent in the plough layer and 38.9 percent from 13 to 84 centimetres, with linear extensibility of 6.1 there, an AASHTO class of A-7-6 and a plasticity index of 23 to 28. The calcium carbonate reaches 35 percent, but not until 132 to 203 centimetres. In the playa basins it is worse: Randall clay, the series named for this county, is a Vertisol running about 60 percent clay to two metres, with linear extensibility of 11.4 to 12.6 and a plasticity index of 46. Caliche does turn up in the county's own paperwork, but as a driveway surfacing material Road and Bridge accepts, not as an obstacle. Get a site-specific soil report before anyone draws a slab.
Do I need an engineer for the foundation?
There is no county rule that says so, because there is no county building code to carry one. What the region does have is the Panhandle Residential Foundation Manual, an Amarillo publication that Canyon also points builders at. Its own text limits the approved systems to structures inside the city limits of Amarillo, so it does not reach unincorporated land by force of law, but its thresholds are informative: its foundation tables cover an effective plasticity index of 15 to 20 and of 21 to 25, it says that where the Web Soil Survey states no AASHTO value the effective index is assumed to be 21 to 25, and it hands any residence over 5,000 square feet to a design professional licensed in Texas as an architect or engineer. A barndominium with a house and a shop under one roof clears 5,000 square feet easily. Given the measured plasticity of Pullman and Randall clay, the sensible course on unincorporated ground is to engage a Texas-licensed professional engineer and have the slab designed for the soil actually under it.
Is there a floodplain permit, and how high do I have to build?
Yes, and the elevation answer is lower than in much of Texas. The county's Flood Damage Prevention Order, adopted in 2010 and effective 4 June 2010, requires the lowest floor including basement of new residential construction to be elevated to or above the base flood elevation, certified to the Floodplain Administrator by a registered professional engineer, architect or land surveyor. It adds no freeboard, where Montgomery, Parker and Liberty counties all require two feet. In AO and AH shallow-flooding zones the rule is the base flood elevation, or the highest adjacent grade at least as high as the depth number shown on the FIRM, and at least two feet where no depth number is given. Residential development is prohibited inside an identified floodway. Note the split: the order itself applies only to areas of special flood hazard, while the county's development permit reaches outside them.
What about the playa lakes?
They are the Panhandle drainage feature with no equivalent anywhere else in Texas, and the soil survey maps them plainly. Counting the Randall, McLean, Lockney, Lazbuddie and Lofton map units together, 40,676 acres of the county sit in soils the survey describes as occasionally or frequently ponded, all of them hydrologic group C or D, and four of the five are Vertisols. Randall clay itself is mapped as frequently ponded and poorly drained. The county's subdivision regulations do not name playas, but section 5.04 incorporates Texas Water Code section 11.086 in full, which forbids diverting or impounding the natural flow of surface water in a way that damages a neighbour by overflow, and it makes clear that Randall County will not assume responsibility for drainage ways or facilities outside the roadway right of way. A basin that fills once a decade is still the wrong place for a slab or a drainfield, and the soil map will show you where they are.
Do I need a permit for a water well?
It depends which half of the county you are on, which is unusual. High Plains Underground Water Conservation District No. 1 covers a portion of Randall County, and the water-use dataset in the district's own 2024 management plan applies a 47.32 percent multiplier to the county. Panhandle Groundwater Conservation District's 2024 plan lists all of Carson, Donley, Gray, Roberts and Wheeler plus parts of Armstrong, Hutchinson and Potter, and does not include Randall. So a tract here is either inside High Plains or inside no district at all. Inside High Plains, Rule 4.1(b)(1) exempts a well equipped to produce less than 25,000 gallons a day, or 17.5 gallons a minute, from permitting, and because the spacing tables in Rule 4.9 apply only to permitted wells and start at 17.5 gallons a minute, an ordinary household well has no spacing row to meet either. Rule 4.2 provides that such a well may be registered, which is permissive. Confirm which side of the district boundary your tract falls on with the district on (806) 762-0181 before you drill.
Amarillo is right there. Does the city reach my land?
For platting, very possibly. Randall County's own Road and Bridge page says the City of Amarillo and the counties its extraterritorial jurisdiction falls into, Armstrong, Carson, Potter and Randall, have official agreements that the city will oversee platting in the ETJ, and that the city has the exclusive authority to approve or deny plats and required plans for streets, alleys and storm water drainage there, to city standards. That is a platting power, not a building code: a Texas municipality cannot enforce its building code outside its limits. Note the acreage trap. The county page records that Amarillo honours a greater-than-5-acres exception in its ETJ because it is less restrictive than the counties' 10-or-more-acres exemption, so a 7-acre tract can be exempt from platting in the ETJ and not exempt under the county's own regulations. The county also warns that streets and drainage the city approves may not be accepted for county maintenance.
What still applies on rural land with no building code?
More than people expect. The septic authorisation is required before any soil is disturbed, regardless of acreage, with a passing inspection before backfilling and a permit good for one year. A driveway needs a 200 dollar permit and an all-weather surface. A development permit is required whether or not you are in the floodplain. If land is being divided, the subdivision regulations require a signed and sealed groundwater availability certification under 30 TAC sections 230.1 to 230.11 with the final plat, sign-off by the 9-1-1 Director and the Bi-City County Health Department, and no street number will be issued for a building on unplatted property outside the exemptions. Occupations Code section 1301.052 requires a licensed plumber on new construction. Health and Safety Code section 388.004 requires a builder outside any municipality to certify energy compliance and keep the certification for three years, and Randall County is climate zone 4B, colder and drier than anywhere else this site covers. And recorded deed restrictions bind regardless: the county's flood order says that where it and a deed restriction conflict, whichever imposes the more stringent restriction prevails.

Building in Randall County?

Start with the plan. Tell us what you want to build and we will draw it, then confirm what Randall 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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