Fayette Co. Updating its Subdivision Regulations

The Fayette County Commissioners Court held a twohour workshop last Thursday, May 4, to update the County’s Subdivision Regulations.

These rules stipulate how landowners may divide their property for sale or development, whether or not they require a plat, and how developers must build roads if they are to become county roads.

“The current regulations and the framework we operate from is from 2001,” said County Inspector Clint Sternadel, whose office handles subdivision regulations for the County. “In the years prior to this, we’ve added a lot of amendments as far as (road) frontage requirements, septic system laws have changed, easements, platting requirements – a lot of changes have taken place. They’re not organized really well for a County citizen who wants to sell some land or subdivide some land. It’s not very user friendly.”

Sternadel presented the Commissioners Court with a draft of his proposed regulations. The document was mostly a reorganization of the County’s existing regulations. It included no major changes to policy.

The County’s minimum lot size for new subdivisions with an on-site septic system will remain at two acres. State law requires a minimum of a half acre, but counties may impose greater acreage requirements with approval of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).

County Judge Dan Mueller asked Sternadel how Fayette County’s two-acre minimum compares to other counties in the state.

“A lot of other counties are less,” Sternadel said. “The state minimum is less.”

William Bersen of Plum, a local surveyor who ran for County Judge last year, questioned the County’s two-acre minimum.

“The higher the acreage, the more expensive the lots are,” Bernsen said. “With the rising cost of land, I just have to question, where do you expect young adults to live these days? There has been talk of increasing it to five acres. Who in this day and age, what young adult can afford a fiveacre tract?”

The County requires professionally prepared plats for large, complex subdivisions. Sterandel’s draft included all of the exemptions to the platting requirements at the beginning of the regulations. This way, he said, ordinary citizens won’t have to read through several pages of complex regulations to find out they’re exempt from the platting requirement. Listed below are the exemptions:

• Agricultural use and no streets;

• Four or fewer lots transferred to a relative;

• All lots are 10 acres or more and no streets;

• All lots will be sold to veterans through the Veterans Land Board Association;

• Lots owned by the State government;

• Lots owned by a political subdivision of the state (city government, school district, etc.)

• Further division into future plat (owner retains one new part, with the other part to be transferred to another person who will divide the property according to the County regulations);

• Transfer of undivided interest and no streets;

• Gift deed to Fayette County;

• Sale to adjacent owner;

• Collateral (land will be divided for use as collateral in lending).

All other divisions of property require a professional plat.

Sternadel said he has occasionally fielded some unusual requests from developers of high-end properties in the County.

“Some developers ask about putting in concrete curbs to increase the aesthetics of the development,” Sternadel said. “I don’t know of any commissioners interested in maintaining concrete curbs. Every city gets them destroyed by big trucks that get lost and turn around. As we’re getting intensity of high-end lots that are coming, they want to know whether they can do it. Our regulation right now does not say they cannot. That may be a line item worth including.”

Sternadel said developers have also asked about gated communities and private infrastructure in rights-of-way, such as landscaping or masonry signage.

“With the price of lots that are going up, people that come from the cities are used to seeing, when they drive through a new subdivision, big, ornate stone signs that has the name on it, it’s beautifully landscaped, and there’s a gate with a key code,” Sternadel said.

Sterandel said the County’s subdivision regulations already effectively prohibit gated communities.

“Our requirements for access say that each lot has to have public road frontage,” Sternadel said. “And you cannot gate a public road.”

Nonetheless, Sternadel said he often gets requests from developers seeking a workaround. He asked Commissioners to include language specifically prohibiting gated communities.

Commissioners took no action on the draft. Sterandel said he would gather feedback from each of the commissioners and return to them with another draft later this year.