Who permits a commercial building in Boerne, Kerrville, Fredericksburg and New Braunfels?

If your lot is inside the city limits, this is simple. Boerne's Permitting and Code Compliance, Kerrville's Building Inspection Division, the Fredericksburg Building Department and the New Braunfels Building Division each issue the commercial permit, review the plans and inspect the work.

The extraterritorial jurisdiction is where you can get this wrong. Local Government Code Sec. 212.003(a) says a city may not regulate, in its ETJ, what a building or property is used for, how many buildings go on a particular tract of land, how bulky or tall they are, or the size of a building that can be built there. Sec. 212.049, in the separate development plat subchapter, adds that that subchapter does not authorize a city to require building permits or enforce its building code there. Platting is what does reach out there, and without a plat compliance certificate a utility may not connect water, sewer, electricity or gas. So start from a map, not your mailing address.

Permitting and Code Compliance issues the commercial permit and inspects all construction in the city limits, on My Government Online since July 14, 2025. New commercial construction costs $0.53 for each of the first 5,000 square feet, then $0.15 a foot beyond that, with in-house plan checking at 53 percent of the permit fee. Those are October 1, 2025 figures; Council adopted a replacement on September 10, 2026, effective October 1, 2026. City code also wants a survey of the foundation forms by a licensed surveyor before the pre-pour inspection.

The ETJ runs one mile. The Unified Development Code extends five chapters into it, and building codes and permits are not among them. Two of those reach a commercial ETJ lot hardest: you need a grading permit once you disturb 0.10 acre, and impervious cover on a commercial development is capped at 70 percent, checked at plat review.

Unincorporated Kendall County has no zoning and has not adopted building codes for single-family homes. The County Engineer works in order: the 911 address and access permit first, then the development permit, which has to be approved before a septic or well permit issues. A commercial development permit is $1,000 on its September 1, 2023 fee schedule. Over that sits the county Fire Code, the 2021 International Fire Code adopted September 13, 2021: no commercial construction starts without a Fire Code permit, the Fire Marshal has 30 days to rule on it, and a Certificate of Compliance comes before occupancy.

The Building Inspection Division of Development Services runs the permits, and any building over 200 square feet needs one. Everything goes through MyGovernmentOnline. Nothing enters review until the plan review fee is paid, and from there the city has 10 business days to issue the permit or return comments, with each resubmittal starting another 10. Permit fees are $50 up to $1,000 of value, then $5 per $1,000, and plan review adds another 50 percent of the permit fee. The Fire Marshal reviews the site plan first, then civil plans, then building plans, and wants hydrants and fire lane access roads in before vertical construction starts.

Platting reaches the one-mile ETJ, but the city's building permit, contractors, code and IBC adoption pages never mention it, so the city has not answered that in writing. Kerr County states it requires no building permits or certificates of occupancy, and has no zoning. The County Engineer permits floodplain development, $400 for a commercial application, plus driveways and right-of-way work, and since August 7, 2026 the county has required a septic permit for every new system regardless of tract size. No county page read names a fire marshal or a fire code.

The Building Department sits inside Development Services, and city code requires a permit for any building built, altered or moved in the city. The published commercial sequence is a zoning check, a Development Review Committee meeting held Thursdays by appointment, a meeting with the Building Department, then drawings. The certificate of occupancy comes after every department has inspected.

A new commercial permit runs $0.55 for each of the first 5,000 square feet and $0.30 for each foot after that. That is the schedule effective March 25, 2026. A December 2024 city newsletter still prints the older $0.50. Plan review is 50 percent of the permit fee in house. City code also wants a form survey by a licensed surveyor before any slab is poured.

One mile out, the city enforces its Subdivision Ordinance and its Sign Regulations, and by its own FAQ not its building codes. Unincorporated Gillespie County has no building permit and no building code on the Engineering Department page or the county brochure revised September 2025. Engineering wants a Development Permit Determination Form before any development. It carries no fee, and since August 1, 2025 it has to be signed off before a septic application is complete. A right-of-way permit for a non-residential improvement is $500.

Sec. 14-5 of the city code says nobody builds on, alters, excavates, fills or otherwise changes a building, a structure or land inside the city without a permit from the building official. Commercial plans go through ProjectDox, with a first response in roughly 20 business days and a new review timeframe on any resubmittal. Examiners for Engineering, Planning, Fire, Building, Health and Waste Management review in parallel.

Three checklist items are easy to miss: an engineered foundation letter, on the city's own form, for new construction over 500 square feet; the TDLR Project Registration Confirmation Page over $50,000; and, over the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone, a TCEQ approval letter. The application fee is $100 and plan review is 25 percent of the permit cost, capped at $15,000. New construction at $100,000 or more must involve a licensed design professional, and Sec. 118-41 bars a building permit or a utility connection unless the lot is recorded by final plat. Engineering and site work are priced in the cost calculator.

New Braunfels reaches 3-1/2 miles out, where Sec. 118-3(d) leaves a building's use and its size on a tract unregulated by the city. A November 2022 notice ceded subdivision platting authority over the Guadalupe County portion of that ETJ to Guadalupe County, effective November 15, 2022, and which county the lot sits in changes the rest. In unincorporated Comal County a new commercial or public building takes a building permit from the County Fire Marshal, who may hold the application until TDLR has the project registered. The business may not open without the Certificate of Compliance. Guadalupe County adopted the 2024 International Fire Code on January 27, 2026, effective February 1, 2026, and that order names its Fire Marshal as the building official.

Septic. Every county here permits on-site sewage. Kendall County must approve or deny within 30 days. Gillespie County requires approved wastewater disposal in all areas regardless of acreage, and Guadalupe County charges $600 for a commercial system. More in the septic and OSSF guide.

Floodplain. Comal County requires all new construction to apply for a floodplain development permit, at $40, to decide whether the structure sits in a special flood hazard area. Kendall County's Engineer is the Floodplain Administrator, including inside Boerne's ETJ, and Gillespie County requires a permit for any work in a flood-hazard boundary area.

Driveways and the right of way. Kendall County wants an access permit ahead of the development, septic and well permits, and Comal County a PIPROW permit with a $25 application fee. Kerr County's own pages disagree on whether its driveway permit carries a fee. Access onto a state highway goes to TxDOT instead, with no fee but a required permit.

The county fire code. Local Government Code Chapter 233 lets a county over 250,000 in population, or one next to such a county, adopt a fire code, limits it to commercial establishments, public buildings and multi-family dwellings of four or more units in the unincorporated area, and makes a county building permit mandatory for them. Kendall, Comal and Guadalupe counties have adopted one. Kerr and Gillespie, on the pages read, have not.

TDLR accessibility registration. Plans for a covered building go to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation when the estimated construction cost is at least $50,000. Government Code Sec. 469.102 bars the owner from filing a permit application before the plans go in, and bars the permit official from accepting one without verifying the registration. Detail in the TDLR registration guide.

The Edwards Aquifer plan. TCEQ's rule is built around eight named counties. Comal is one of them; Kendall is not in the rule at all. Where it applies, the plan has to be filed and approved before construction of a regulated activity starts. TCEQ regulates only part of the Edwards Aquifer, and the official boundaries are whatever its maps show, so if your parcel sits near the Comal line, check it in TCEQ's map viewer. More in the Edwards Aquifer guide.

Construction stormwater. TCEQ's construction general permit, TXR150000, renewed effective March 5, 2023, reaches a site that discharges stormwater to surface water and disturbs an acre or more of soil; under an acre it does not, unless the site is part of a larger common plan. Where it applies, the site needs a stormwater pollution prevention plan (SWPPP), written and in use before work starts.

One independent builder prices and builds these across all four cities, from shops and garages to metal building homes. The commercial page covers the building itself, and the slab and foundation page covers what goes under it.