FENCE RULES – BURNET (COUNTY), TEXAS

OVERVIEW

This page covers residential fencing in unincorporated Burnet County, Texas, including rural residences with agricultural acreage. Incorporated municipalities administer their own applicable rules. Municipal extraterritorial jurisdiction can affect subdivision and related approvals, while county floodplain administration, road authority and Lower Colorado River Authority programs have their own geographic limits.

Burnet County does not administer ordinary county zoning, and its published requirements do not communicate a general fence-specific permit, residential yard-height limit or material list. A fence project can still involve public rights-of-way, recorded easements, drainage, floodplain development or underground facilities. In the mapped Colorado River watershed area regulated by the Lower Colorado River Authority, excavation and other land changes have separate notification, permit and buffer rules, with an express exclusion for qualifying agricultural activities. Wood, vinyl/PVC and chain-link are not separately approved or prohibited as ordinary county residential fence materials. Private covenants and Texas ownership and attachment rules also matter. Updated November 2026.

Quick question	Burnet County answer
Permit or approval	The county does not publish a fence-specific requirement or exemption for standard residential fences. Separate floodplain, road-access, LCRA or other project approvals can apply.
Typical fence height	The county does not publish an ordinary front-, side- or rear-yard fence maximum or a general fence-height measurement method.
Placement & property lines	No general numeric county fence-to-private-property-line setback is published. Legal boundaries, rights-of-way, easements, drainage and applicable LCRA buffers remain separate placement constraints.
Common fence materials	Wood: no ordinary county material-specific standard published. Vinyl/PVC: no ordinary county material-specific standard published. Chain-link: no ordinary county material-specific standard published.
Important local conditions	Fence rules may be further affected by floodplain or floodway work, public-road access and rights-of-way, easements and drainage, mapped LCRA jurisdiction and creek buffers, qualifying agricultural activity, pool use, underground facilities, fence ownership or attachment, and private restrictions subject to Texas law.
Official local resource	Burnet County Development Services

The table above is for quick reference; additional fence-rule details appear in the corresponding sections below. Before purchasing materials or beginning construction, read the sections that apply to the property, review the linked official sources, and confirm site-specific questions with Burnet County Development Services or the responsible office identified for that issue.

GOVERNANCE

Burnet County Commissioners Court adopts the county’s subdivision and floodplain regulations under the applicable Texas statutory grants. Burnet County Development Services administers the published development, floodplain, subdivision, on-site sewage facility and addressing programs. The county’s floodplain administrator administers the Flood Damage Prevention Order and its permit decisions. Burnet County does not administer zoning in the unincorporated territory covered here.

Municipal boundaries and extraterritorial jurisdiction: County subdivision regulations address land outside incorporated municipal limits and recognize allocation of subdivision and related-permit authority through qualifying written municipal-county agreements. The applicable agreement and current territory determine that allocation. Ordinary municipal fence-height and material rules are not countywide fence standards.

Roads: The county precinct commissioner or designee administers county-road entrance and culvert requirements. The Texas Department of Transportation administers access to its roads, including relevant farm-to-market roads, ranch roads and state highways. A privately maintained subdivision road, a public dedication and a county-maintained road can involve different rights and responsibilities.

LCRA territory: The Lower Colorado River Authority Highland Lakes Watershed Ordinance applies above regulated lake pool elevations in the mapped Colorado River watershed portions of Burnet County. This is a limited geographic program. LCRA also administers separate Highland Lakes dredge-and-fill and mapped on-site sewage programs; those program boundaries are distinct from county flood-hazard areas and municipal limits. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality administers the separate state construction-stormwater program.

PERMIT AND APPROVAL REQUIREMENTS

Ordinary residential fence: Burnet County publishes a general building/development permit process, but does not publish a fence-specific permit requirement or exemption for a standard residential fence. Its house-construction, septic and addressing processes have their own project conditions. The county does not publish a general fence-height-based permit exemption.

• Work in a county special flood-hazard area: The Flood Damage Prevention Order establishes a Floodplain Development Permit within its scope. The county’s current guidance requires a development permit for work in a designated flood-hazard boundary area. The order’s development definition includes excavation, drilling, filling, grading and other man-made real-estate changes. Fence-related work in that setting is subject to the actual proposed activity and floodplain requirements.

• Floodplain application and inspections: Where fence or related site work requires floodplain approval, provide project-appropriate plans showing the proposed work, its location and relevant dimensions or elevations, including any alteration of a watercourse or natural drainage. Required documentation and inspections depend on the actual fence or site work and the applicable floodplain provisions.

• County-road entrance or culvert work: A fence project that also creates or changes a county-road entrance must satisfy the applicable road-access process. The precinct commissioner or designee specifies culvert location, length and diameter. The applicant supplies materials, labor and equipment, installs to county specifications, and maintains the culvert. County approval is required for new county-road access before a new address is assigned. TxDOT access approval applies to entrances on its roads.

• LCRA agricultural activities: Within the watershed ordinance’s territory, Section 4.1(a)(iii) exempts qualifying Agricultural Activities. The definition covers activities associated with livestock production, use of land for planting, growing, cultivating and harvesting crops, or participation in a wildlife-management plan. The development definition also excludes those activities, as well as ordinary lawn, garden and tree care. Qualification depends on the actual activity; residence on a large rural tract alone does not establish it.

• LCRA written notification: For covered development or redevelopment, the Section 4.1(b) route allows work without a Development Permit only when it satisfies both the applicable buffer standards and erosion/sedimentation standards, together with a listed project category. One category is development creating less than 10,000 square feet of impervious cover and disturbing less than one acre. Other listed categories include a qualifying single-family residence creating more than 10,000 square feet of impervious cover while disturbing less than one acre and meeting downstream buffer guidance; existing development; and redevelopment with a cumulative impervious-cover increase below 10,000 square feet and disturbance below one acre. The notification must demonstrate how the project satisfies the applicable conditions.

• LCRA Development Permit: Section 4.1(c) addresses development creating more than 10,000 square feet of impervious cover, disturbing more than one acre, or failing to satisfy Section 4.1(a) or (b). The ordinance separately addresses combined activity under a common plan or subdivision. A small area of disturbance alone does not establish an exemption; the notification conditions and applicable project category remain part of the approval framework.

• Fence projects involving substantial soil disturbance: Under TCEQ’s construction-stormwater program, stormwater discharges associated with construction disturbing one acre or more need applicable permit coverage. For work within a larger common plan of development, the total disturbed area counts even when work proceeds in phases. Construction disturbing less than one acre outside such a plan does not need coverage under this general permit. Application depends on the actual construction activity and discharge, separately from county floodplain and LCRA requirements.

• Private-home pool use: The county does not publish a countywide numeric private-home pool-barrier standard. A fence used as a pool barrier requires attention to the actual pool use and applicable safety requirements. Texas rules for defined multiunit-rental, association and public pools have separate scopes from an ordinary private single-family pool.

• Work affecting a pipeline easement: Construction on, across, over or under a pipeline easement or right-of-way, or physically affecting pipeline risk, has separate Texas operator-notice and protective-work conditions. These are described below and are separate from a utility locate.

FENCE PLACEMENT RULES

Property lines: The county does not publish a general numeric setback between an ordinary residential fence and a private property line. The legal boundary, recorded easements, public rights-of-way and drainage features remain distinct constraints. A tax-map line, existing fence, mowing line, ditch or pavement edge is not a definitive boundary determination. Deeds, plats, surveys and other title documents address different parts of that question.

• County-road rights-of-way: Public roads must remain clear of obstructions. The county road-access application prohibits the applicant from erecting permanent structures within the right-of-way and signs on or over it, while separately addressing mail-receptacle locations. No universal fence setback measured from pavement or a roadside ditch is published. County culverts must remain maintained, and the county may require changes or repairs needed for drainage and protection of life or adjoining property.

• Recorded easements and subdivision conditions: A public drainage, utility or access easement can restrict a proposed fence even on privately owned land. Actual recorded plat conditions and easement instruments determine their reach. Approval or recording of a subdivision plat does not necessarily mean the county has accepted its roads or other dedications for maintenance.

• Natural drainage: Texas Water Code Section 11.086 prohibits diverting or impounding the natural flow of surface water in a manner that damages another’s property by overflow, subject to the statute’s qualifications. Fence walls, footings, fill and grading must be considered in relation to existing drainage and applicable easement rights.

• County floodway work: The Flood Damage Prevention Order conditionally prohibits encroachments in an adopted regulatory floodway unless the required hydrologic and hydraulic demonstration establishes no increase in flood levels during the base flood. The order retains a separate conditional federal approval route. Proposed work must satisfy the actual floodplain provisions and permit determination. The operative order incorporates the November 1, 2019 Flood Insurance Study and maps, including revisions; its stated effective date is October 8, 2019.

• LCRA creek buffers in Burnet County: Within the watershed ordinance’s mapped territory above regulated pool level, Section 5.1(c)(i) specifies a buffer 25 feet from the top of the channel bank on both sides of creeks or swales draining more than five acres, excluding roadside swales. The channel between the banks is part of the buffer.

• Work within an applicable LCRA buffer: Buffers are to remain free of construction, development and alteration except for the ordinance’s limited utility and roadway crossings, low-impact park development, and stormwater detention structures meeting their applicable conditions. No ordinary fence exception is specified. Alterations to a property’s buffer easement require LCRA approval. Applicable buffer limits are separate from a setback measured from a private lot line.

• Highland Lakes shoreline work: Dredging, filling and construction-related changes below regulated lake pool elevations are governed by LCRA’s separate dredge-and-fill framework. A fence or wall project involving that work needs the approval applicable to the actual shoreline activity.

• Jointly owned or attached fences: Texas Agriculture Code Sections 143.121–143.123 restrict removal of a separating or dividing fence in which the person is a joint owner, or a fence attached to one another person owns or controls, except by mutual consent or the statutory process. Under Section 143.122, a person owning an interest in an attached fence may physically withdraw that fence from the other fence after six months’ written notice of the intended separation. Notice goes to the owner of the attached fence or that person’s agent, attorney or lessee. Under Section 143.123, an owner whose fence is wholly on that owner’s land may require an attached fence’s disconnection and withdrawal after six months’ written notice to the attached-fence owner or the specified representative. These ownership and attachment conditions govern the notice duties.

• Construction affecting a pipeline easement or right-of-way: Health and Safety Code Sections 756.121–756.123 address construction, repair, replacement or maintenance on, across, over or under a pipeline corridor, or work physically affecting pipeline risk. Subject to the statute’s contrary-written-agreement and other applicability exceptions, the operator must receive notice. Work may proceed under an operator determination that it will not increase risk, or after payment of the reasonable, necessary and documented protective-work costs when the operator determines risk will increase. The statute also provides an alternative for work under an existing written agreement. No universal pipeline fence setback is established by those sections.

• Separate pipeline excavation rules: Railroad Commission Chapter 18 can also cover manual earth movement near specified underground pipelines when digging exceeds 16 inches. Its default locate-ticket life is 14 working days, subject to the rule’s written, signed and dated longer agreement. Refresh expiring unfinished work for the remaining excavation area, keep the valid ticket available, follow site and response checks, and retain required notice and response records for at least four years. Pipeline tolerance-zone excavation requires the applicable careful methods.

• Covered excavation and notice timing: Utilities Code Chapter 251 covers specified powered or mechanized excavation, including augers, disturbing soil to 16 inches or more. Its ordinary notice window is not earlier than the 14th day before excavation and not later than the 48th hour before excavation, excluding Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays. Notice made on Saturday before 11:59 a.m. allows a Tuesday 11:59 a.m. start, shifted to Wednesday 11:59 a.m. when the intervening Monday is a holiday.

• Agricultural and other notice exceptions: Section 251.156 excepts private-property activities in connection with agricultural operations from this ordinary notice duty. It separately excepts a person who owns, leases or holds a mineral leasehold interest in the property and operates all underground facilities at the excavation site. Emergency excavation has its own conditions, including reasonable care and notification as promptly as practicably possible. Separate pipeline duties remain applicable on their own terms.

• Excavation damage: Immediately notify the damaged facility’s operator, or a notification center when the operator’s identity is uncertain. Delay backfilling the immediate damage area until reporting and a mutually agreed repair schedule; only the operator or its authorized person may repair it. Keep ignition sources away when flammable material endangers life, health or property.

• Texas811 and post digging: Request a Texas811 utility locate before digging. Wait the applicable lawful period and follow ticket/start instructions. Check responses and site markings, resolve missing or conflicting information through the current ticket process, protect markings and excavate carefully. Private or on-site facilities and some other facilities have separate coverage limits; a locate does not guarantee every private service is marked. Utility notice does not replace required permits, property permission, easement rights, separate pipeline-construction notice or private review.

FENCE HEIGHT AND VISIBILITY RULES

Burnet County does not publish an ordinary residential front-, side- or rear-yard fence maximum, a general fence-height measurement method, or a homeowner fence sight-triangle dimension. No separate ordinary county rule is published for fence posts, columns, caps or a fence combined with a retaining wall.

Street edges, entrances and easements: Public-road obstruction, actual right-of-way, access and drainage restrictions remain relevant to a fence’s location and height at a particular site. The county’s subdivision road-design sight distances are infrastructure standards rather than ordinary residential fence-height limits.

Special-purpose dimensions: A pool-enclosure protection in Texas HOA law, a cultivated-land gate requirement or a creek-buffer distance has its own stated purpose. The private-restriction and agricultural conditions below identify the applicable contexts.

MATERIAL AND CONSTRUCTION LIMITS

Wood, vinyl/PVC and chain-link: The county does not publish a material-specific ordinary residential fence standard separately approving, prohibiting or restricting these three materials. It also does not publish a general residential list for composite products, metal or wire systems, masonry, barbed wire, razor wire or electric fencing, or an ordinary opacity, finished-side orientation, post or cap standard. Site-specific public requirements and valid private restrictions can affect the actual design.

• Fences at rural residences with agricultural acreage: Agricultural fence rules depend on actual land use, animal class, qualifying activity and applicable law. The LCRA Agricultural Activities exclusion described above is available on its stated terms. Agricultural acreage or a residence on rural land alone does not establish every agricultural exemption.

• Sufficient fencing around cultivated land: Agriculture Code Section 143.001 generally requires each gardener or farmer to provide a sufficient fence around cleared land in cultivation that is at least five feet high and prevents hog passage, except as Chapter 143 provides for areas with an adopted local-option stock law. This cultivated-land standard has its own agricultural scope; it is separate from ordinary county residential yard-fence limits.

• Long fences around cultivated land: Agriculture Code Section 143.002 prohibits building, joining or maintaining more than three lineal miles of fence running in the same general direction around cleared land in cultivation without an unlocked gate at least 10 feet wide. This is a cultivated-land condition, separate from ordinary residential yard-fence limits.

• Rural residences keeping livestock: Agriculture Code Sections 143.101–143.102 prohibit an owner or person responsible for a horse, mule, donkey, cow, bull, steer, hog, sheep or goat from knowingly permitting the animal to traverse or roam unattended on the right-of-way of a U.S. or state highway. This highway definition excludes numbered farm-to-market roads. Section 143.003 separately provides that cattle on a county road are not considered running at large when the road separates two tracts under common ownership or lease and contains an authorized cattle guard serving as part of their fencing. These provisions have their stated road and animal scopes.

• Qualifying agricultural operations and improvements: Agriculture Code Chapter 251 distinguishes governmental requirements by the operation’s established date, the requirement’s effective date and the government imposing it. The established date is when agricultural operations commenced. For governments other than a city, a requirement applies to an operation established after that requirement, does not apply to an operation established before it, and remains applicable where it was already in effect and applicable before the chapter’s effective date. The requirement’s effective date concerns compliance in the operation’s geographic area. A city’s governmental requirement does not apply to an agricultural operation outside its corporate boundaries. Section 251.006 protects an owner, lessee or occupant of agricultural land from the specified liability, nuisance suits and injunctions for construction or maintenance of an agricultural improvement when construction is not expressly prohibited by statute or a governmental requirement adopted in accordance with Section 251.005 and in effect when the improvement is constructed. Agricultural land includes qualifying agricultural-appraisal land and other land on which agricultural operations exist or may take place. Improvements include pens and fences designed for sheltering, restricting or feeding animal or aquatic life. State and federal statutory enforcement remains applicable.

• Fences serving a pool or another special use: Applicable safety requirements depend on the actual use. An ordinary yard-fence material statement is separate from the requirements for a pool enclosure. Maintain the design and construction needed for any safety function the fence actually serves.

PRIVATE RESTRICTIONS

Recorded deed restrictions, HOA or architectural-review requirements, private easements, conservation restrictions, and fence ownership, maintenance or cost agreements can independently affect a fence. Public approval does not determine ownership or allocate a neighbor’s costs. Those private requirements remain subject to applicable Texas statutory limits.

HOA perimeter and security fences: Property Code Section 202.023 protects security measures, including perimeter fencing, subject to its express retained controls. The section excludes condominiums governed by Chapters 81 or 82 and master mixed-use associations subject to Chapter 215.

• Retained association controls: An association may regulate fence type and prohibit fencing that obstructs a license area defined by a written agreement or plat, a sidewalk in the public right-of-way or installed for public or community use, or a drainage easement or drainage area. It may require a driveway gate to be set back at least 10 feet from the right-of-way where the driveway intersects a statutorily defined laned roadway. This is an association’s authorized requirement, rather than a universal public gate setback.

• Front-building-line covenants: If provided by a restrictive covenant, an association may prohibit fencing in front of the dwelling’s front-most building line. The statute separately protects maintenance of perimeter fencing or front-building-line fencing installed or constructed before September 1, 2025, notwithstanding the retained controls. That maintenance protection is specific to the fencing described by the statute.

• Specified enhanced-security cases: The front-building-line prohibition is subject to the exception for a property owner whose residential address is exempt from public disclosure under state or federal law, or who supplies the association with law-enforcement documentation of a need for enhanced security measures.

• Protected water-feature enclosures: Property Code Section 202.022 addresses a defined nonclimbable enclosure surrounding a pool, spa or other water feature, consisting of transparent mesh or clear panels in metal frames and measuring no more than six feet high. An association may not prohibit or restrict installation of a qualifying enclosure that conforms to applicable state or local safety requirements. It may regulate appearance and colors within the statute’s limits, including protection of the qualifying black transparent-mesh enclosure in metal frames. The six-foot dimension defines this statutory protection.

REVIEW AND ENFORCEMENT CONTEXT

Fence issues are typically reviewed during permit or approval review when required, and through complaint-based code enforcement. Examples include:

• Floodplain and drainage: Whether the actual work requires floodplain approval, preserves natural drainage and satisfies applicable floodway conditions.

• Roads and easements: Whether fencing or related entrance work obstructs a public road, occupies a right-of-way, interferes with a culvert or conflicts with an applicable easement.

• LCRA-regulated property: Whether the activity qualifies for its stated agricultural exclusion or meets applicable notification, permit, erosion and creek-buffer requirements.

• Utilities and pipelines: Whether covered excavation follows notice, ticket, response, marking and careful-excavation requirements, and whether separate pipeline-corridor construction conditions apply.

• Rural and attached fences: Whether applicable cultivated-land conditions or the statutory ownership, consent, attachment and notice requirements govern the work.

• Private review: HOA or architectural review and private ownership or maintenance disputes remain separate from public approvals and subject to the Texas limitations described above.

USING THIS INFORMATION

This page provides general orientation on how residential fence rules are structured and applied within unincorporated Burnet County, Texas. Updated November 2026.

In addition to local fence rules, certain Texas laws apply statewide. See Statewide Fence Laws in Texas.

It is not legal advice and does not replace official statutes, ordinances, orders, permits, certificates, development approvals, applicable building-code requirements, surveys, recorded documents or professional guidance. Rules and interpretations may change, and application may vary with municipal or unincorporated location, applicable extraterritorial authority, zoning or special-area status, code adoption and amendments, site conditions, subdivision or plat conditions, easements, rights-of-way, drainage and floodplain requirements, historic or design districts, pool use, agricultural operations and stock laws, fence ownership or attachment, coastal or public-access conditions, utility and pipeline excavation requirements, and private restrictions subject to Texas law. Before purchasing materials or beginning construction, confirm current requirements and site-specific limitations with Burnet County Development Services and the responsible office for each applicable issue, and review applicable private agreements. If this page conflicts with controlling law, adopted regulations or official requirements, the controlling authorities govern. For legal advice or legal interpretation, consult a licensed attorney.