Lubbock County, TX Sidewalk & Pedestrian Rules: Encroachment Permits (2026)

13 governs private use of the county's road right-of-way in unincorporated areas. It states that placing a mailbox, improvement or other obstruction in the right-of-way is prohibited unless the County Transportation Administration has granted prior approval, so a landowner along a county road cannot install a driveway culvert, retaining feature or similar structure in the right-of-way without first getting the Administration's sign-off. The same section sets a minimum clearance standard for anything that is approved: mailboxes and other improvements should sit outside an eight-foot usable shoulder or turnout, and the Administration can require a wider clearance on roads that carry more or faster traffic.

13 sits within Section 7, Design Standards and Required Improvements, the same chapter that sets the county's road widths, culvert diameters and paving specifications, so an encroachment request is reviewed against those same road standards rather than in isolation. Because Lubbock County has no general ordinance power and acts only under specific enabling statutes, this permit requirement applies to the unincorporated county and, jointly with the municipality, to plats inside the City of Lubbock's extraterritorial jurisdiction; it does not reach the incorporated cities of Lubbock, Wolfforth, Slaton, Shallowater, Idalou, Abernathy, Ransom Canyon, New Deal or Buffalo Springs, each of which sets its own right-of-way permitting rules.