Cutting a new driveway off a county road means a culvert permit

Where a county road runs past your land, the ditch alongside it is doing real work carrying water away. Drop a driveway across it without the right culvert and you've created a dam that floods the road, which is exactly why Van Zandt County makes you pull a permit to construct a driveway within county-road right-of-way before you cut that new entrance.

The permit puts the culvert cost and installation squarely on you, the developer or owner. The precinct commissioner inspects the materials and the work, can require changes to protect the road, and the whole thing goes null and void if the driveway isn't built within six months of the date it's issued. There's even a line in there about mounting your mailbox on a breakaway post set back off the pavement.

So before you order a length of culvert pipe or assume the old ranch gap is good enough for a house, call the commissioner for the precinct your land sits in (Van Zandt is split into four). Getting the size and placement right the first time is far cheaper than tearing out a driveway that backs water onto the road.