New Driveways Onto County Roads Need a Culvert Permit

A new rural driveway is more than a load of gravel dumped at the ditch. Under Collin County's roadway standards, any residential or commercial driveway that connects to a county road needs a culvert or driveway permit, and the culvert itself has to meet the county's drainage design standards.

That permit lives under Public Works on the county's Civic Access portal, a separate track from the residential building permits that Development Services handles, which is where people sometimes look first and come up empty.

Pull the permit before the contractor starts cutting the ditch. The county may inspect the culvert size, spacing, drainage, and how the entrance ties into the road, and tearing out a bad approach after it's poured can cost more than building it right the first time.