GENERALLY

Houston Code of Ordinances ch. 40, art. II, div. 1

in effect

Houston Code of Ordinances § 40-41 Scope of article; definitions.

Sec. 40-41. - Scope of article; definitions. This article shall control and govern the doing within any street or alley in the city of any of the following work or construction: Any paving, or the construction of any curb or gutter (including driveway construction incident to curb or gutter construction). The following words, terms and phrases, when used in this article, shall have the meanings ascribed to them in this section, except where the context clearly indicates a different meaning: (1) Director shall mean the Director of Houston Public Works of the city or his duly designated employees. (2) Paving shall include not only the construction of a concrete roadway or an asphalt or asphaltic surfaced roadway, but also a shell or gravel roadway or a roadway constructed of any other type whatsoever of road building material. (3) Private street work. Any and all of the work or construction described in this section (except that which is described in section 40-42) will be meant when the term "private street work" is used in this article or in any application, permit or bond made, issued or given pursuant to the requirements hereof. (4) Street shall include any public street in the city, including areas shown as such on any subdivision map which has been approved by the planning commission whether or not such map has yet been filed for record with the county clerk of the county in which the subdivision is located; and shall include also any areas shown as such on any map which has been filed with and which is on file with the planning commission for its approval thereof. (Code 1968, § 41-42; Ord. No. 90-635, § 108, 5-23-90; Ord. No. 93-514, § 76, 5-5-93; Ord. No. 95-104, § 1, 1-25-95; Ord. No. 2018-11, § 49, 1-10-2018)

Houston Code of Ordinances § 40-42 Exemptions.

Sec. 40-42. - Exemptions. (a) Notwithstanding the provisions of section 40-41 of this Code, there shall be excluded from the operation of this article any of the following work, and none of the following work shall require any of the permits, applications or bonds required by this article: (1) Work done by city forces (that is, by employees of the city in the course of their employment) or by contractors employed therefor by the city. (2) Sidewalks. (3) Repair by gas, light or telephone companies of cuts made by them in streets incident to installation or repair of their lines, or ordinary repair made by railway companies within the area between the rails of their tracks or within two feet of the outside of such rails. (4) Work which the director or any other officer of the city may, within his authority, duties or powers, direct or order any person to perform. (b) The foregoing work which is excluded from the application of this article shall remain subject to any and all of the city's present or future ordinances related to any of such work. (Code 1968, § 41-43)

Houston Code of Ordinances § 40-43 Minimum standards, drawings and specifications.

Sec. 40-43. - Minimum standards, drawings and specifications. (a) There are hereby approved and adopted certain specifications, including certain drawings which have been prepared by the director covering private street work and setting forth in detail the types, sorts, grades and standards of the various materials to be used on the several types and sorts of such work referred to in section 40-41 of this Code, together with the manner, means and methods of the doing of such work. No private street work shall be done in the city except in accordance with such drawings and specifications, or in accordance with drawings, plans and specifications approved by the director which provide for a higher standard of material or work. (b) Such specifications hereby approved, securely bound together, in two identical duplicate counterparts, bear upon their faces the endorsement of the director identifying them as the specifications which have been prepared by him and submitted to the city council for approval in connection with this article. The city secretary is hereby ordered to likewise identify them under his signature and seal and to file one copy thereof as a permanent record and document in his office and to deliver the other thereof to the director to become a permanent record in his office. (c) Such minimum standards may hereafter from time to time be amended without other formality than the passage of an appropriate ordinance to such effect, appropriately identifying the new or substituted drawings or specifications, and requiring that the same (appropriately identified as above provided by the signature of the director and of the city secretary) be appended to and made a part of the specifications and drawings hereinabove approved as minimum standards. (d) The city council hereby approves an amendment to the drawing referred to above (to bear, however, the same drawing number it has in the past), by which there will be eliminated from such drawing the entire reference therein to "concrete post street name markers" and there will instead be placed upon such drawing an appropriate endorsement to the effect that a street name sign conforming with the requirements of Council Motion No. 5965, 1956, shall be erected at each street intersection and that specifications for the sign and erection method will be available in the office of the director. Upon a print of such revised drawing, appropriately identified as such, being delivered to him by the director, the city secretary will insert such revised drawing in such specifications as and to become a part thereof, leaving therein, however, the sheet of such drawing as originally contained therein, writing upon such original sheet an appropriate endorsement over his signature to the effect that it has been superseded by the revised drawing. (Code 1968, § 41-44; Ord. No. 90-635, § 109, 5-23-90)

Houston Code of Ordinances § 40-44 Stop work orders.

Sec. 40-44. - Stop work orders. (a) If the director is of the opinion that any work which is being done pursuant to or under color of any permit issued as provided for in this article is not in accordance with the terms of the permit or the plans or specifications therefor, he may direct the person to whom the permit was issued to cease all work on the project until the defaults, errors or omissions specified by him have been remedied. Any person to whom a permit has been issued for the doing of any private street work who, after the director shall have ordered the cessation of work thereupon, shall do any such work or cause or permit any such work to be done (except the remedying of the defects, defaults, or omissions complained of by the director) shall be guilty of an offense. Each day on which any such unauthorized work is performed in violation of an order to cease the work shall constitute a separate offense. (b) When satisfied that the defaults, errors or omissions specified by him have been remedied, the director shall in writing authorize the resumption of the work. It shall not, in any prosecution for a violation of this section, be necessary that the complaint negative the issuance of such a resumption order, but the same shall be matter to be shown in defense in any such prosecution. (Code 1968, § 41-45)

Houston Code of Ordinances § 40-45 Work beyond scope of permit prohibited.

Sec. 40-45. - Work beyond scope of permit prohibited. Any person to whom a permit shall have been issued for the doing of any private street work, as provided for in this article, who shall do or cause to be done any private street work beyond the scope of or not within the permission given by such permit shall be guilty of an offense. Each day on which any such unauthorized work is performed shall constitute a separate offense. (Code 1968, § 41-46)

Houston Code of Ordinances § 40-46 Removal of work done without permit.

Sec. 40-46. - Removal of work done without permit. (a) If any such work is done in any street or alley in the city of any of the sorts described in section 40-41 of this Code, without a permit therefor having been issued as required by this article, the director shall, upon the same being brought to his notice, direct the person who did the work or caused it to be done to forthwith remove all of such work and restore the street or alley in question to the state and condition in which it was before such unauthorized work was done. Such order may include a specific direction as to the things to be done to accomplish compliance with it, including the removal of any earth or any other material which, without authority therefor, may have been placed in any street or alley or any part thereof and the replacement of any earth or any other material which may have been removed therefrom or from any part thereof, and it may state the time within which the things therein ordered shall be done. Such order and direction may be in writing or verbal and may be delivered or given either by the director or by any person thereto instructed by him. (b) If any person to whom an order has been given under this section shall fail, within the time therein stated, to do or cause to be done all of the things therein commanded and ordered, he shall be guilty of an offense. Each calendar day after the expiration of the time provided in such order within which any of the work therein commanded to be done remains undone shall constitute a separate offense. (c) The offense defined in this section shall be a separate and distinct offense from the offense defined in section 40-55 of this Code of having done the work in the first instance without a permit therefor, and a conviction or an acquittal of a charge of the violation of either of such two offenses shall not constitute a bar to a prosecution for a violation of the other of them. (Code 1968, § 41-47)

Houston Code of Ordinances § 40-47 Appeal from orders or decisions of director.

Sec. 40-47. - Appeal from orders or decisions of director. In every case in which any person is aggrieved and dissatisfied at any order, decision or direction made or given by the director under any of the provisions of this article, he shall have the same right of appeal therefrom, and to the same effect and result, as is provided in section 40-65 of this Code for appeals from the refusal of the director to issue a permit as under this article. (Code 1968, § 41-48)

Houston Code of Ordinances § 40-48 Responsibility for violations.

Sec. 40-48. - Responsibility for violations. (a) If any private street work is done without a permit therefor or is otherwise done in violation of this article by a partnership or any other unincorporated association, every member of the partnership or of the association shall be guilty of the violation. If any such work is so done by a corporation, the president of such corporation, the general manager or the person in active charge of its operations or business, and every director of such corporation shall be guilty of the violation. (b) If any private street work is done in violation of this article by a contractor for another person, the contractor and the person for which the work is being done shall each be guilty of the offense. (c) Laborers, mechanics, and other craftsmen having no other connection with the doing of the work regulated by this article than to be employed thereupon at a wage or salary shall not be guilty of offenses for work done in violation of this article. It shall not be necessary, however, for a complaint for a violation of this article to negative the fact that the person complained of is such laborer, mechanic or craftsman, but the same shall be matter to be shown in defense in any prosecution thereunder. (Code 1968, § 41-49)

Source: City of Houston, Code of Ordinances and City Charter (Municode Library, library.municode.com)URL: https://library.municode.com/tx/houston/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=COOR_CH40STSI_ARTIIPRSTWOGE_DIV1GEFetched: 10/26/2026