County permits still matter outside Liberty County city limits

Outside Liberty, Cleveland, Dayton, and the smaller city limits, you may not have a city building desk, but you still may have the county permit desk. The permit list covers buildings, culverts and driveways, meters, commercial work, mobile-home and RV parks, cell towers, pipelines, septic work, and work inside a floodplain.

Two counters cover the county. The Liberty office is at 311 Travis Street, 936-336-4560. The Cleveland office is at 1616 County Road 3549, 832-579-1135. The county is clear about timing: start work before the permit is squared away and the fee can double.

The simple move is to call before materials hit the site. A project may also involve a city, utility, floodplain rule, or road-access question, and those are cheaper to sort out before a pad is poured or a culvert is dropped in the ditch.