Custom Homes and Whole-Home Remodeling in Lakeway, Texas

Check the parcel itself. The City of Lakeway publishes a development map with a solid line for city limits and gray shading for its extraterritorial jurisdiction, searchable by address. Inside the line, the City's Building and Development Services Department reviews zoning and permits through its own Civic Self Service portal. Outside it, Travis County Development Services becomes the permitting authority, and an ETJ parcel also needs a County Basic Development Permit. We confirm which authority applies before anything else.

Yes, and the limit is set before you hire an architect. Lakeway's View Protection Conditional Overlay, applied through the City's ZAPCO review, can set the permitted height on covered lots ahead of construction, and it can require review again if a later addition affects a neighbor's protected view. On an R-1 lot the height limit runs near 32 feet, but Lakeway carries several residential districts and Planned Unit Developments, and a PUD ordinance can override that number for a specific lot. We confirm the governing ordinance before we sketch a roofline.

Almost certainly a utility, though which one depends on your subdivision. Lakeway MUD, Hurst Creek MUD, Water Control and Improvement District No. 17, and Travis County MUDs 11, 12, and 13 each cover different pockets of the area, and the county-MUD customers are transferring to Lakeway MUD service. Drilling a well is not prohibited, but the water table nearby has dropped more than 200 feet in places, so we take the question to the Southwestern Travis County Groundwater Conservation District rather than assume a well will serve as backup.

Inside city limits near the lake, it is usually the Lower Colorado River Authority, not the City or County. LCRA permits and inspects septic systems within its Lake Travis jurisdiction, and the City can still require its own construction permit alongside that approval. Outside LCRA's zone, Travis County takes over. Wastewater service from WCID No. 17 covers only part of its district, so we confirm access by address. A remodel that adds a bedroom can also require enlarging the existing system, and we check the system's permitted capacity before the plan is finalized.

Protected and heritage trees need a removal permit, and your building permit generally cannot move forward until that approval clears, unless a stated exemption applies. Removing a protected or heritage tree requires an application backed by a current survey documenting hardwoods over six inches in diameter, and construction fencing must protect the critical root zone of any tree you keep. Pruning oaks between February and June, the oak wilt season, is restricted as well. We plan the tree survey before the site plan is drawn.

In Rough Hollow, yes, for a new home. The developer assigns each custom homesite to one of three named builders. Flintrock Falls works differently: there is no fixed list, but its design guidelines require a separate builder application, reviewed for experience, finances, and references, before the neighborhood will accept a plan, on top of what the City requires. Remodels and additions on existing homes in either community are open to us.

New construction runs $325 to $800+ per square foot at comparable finish levels, with structural steel and architectural complexity at the top of the range. In Lakeway, the water and wastewater provider, the LCRA or county septic path, and the site engineering your slope requires all sit outside that range, and we price them after walking your lot.