Sec. 233.035. BOARD OF BUILDING LINE ADJUSTMENT. (a) The commissioners court may appoint a board of building line adjustment consisting of five freeholders of the county. Members must be appointed for staggered terms of two years, with two members' terms expiring in one year and three members' terms expiring the next year. However, in making the initial appointments, the commissioners court shall designate two members for one-year terms and three members for two-year terms. The court may remove a member for cause on a written charge after a public hearing. The court shall fill a vacancy on the board for the unexpired term of the member whose term becomes vacant.

(b) The board shall elect its own chairman and shall adopt rules of procedure. The meetings of the board are open to the public. The board shall keep minutes of its proceedings that shall be filed in the board's office. The minutes of board meetings constitute a public record.

(c) Subject to appropriate conditions and safeguards, the board may modify or vary the regulations affecting building or set-back lines in a case in which unnecessary hardship may result from a literal enforcement of those regulations, in order to do substantial justice and to observe the purpose of the regulations in protecting the public welfare and safety.

(d) The board shall hear and decide an appeal in a case in which, because of exceptional narrowness, shallowness, shape, topography, existing building development, or another exceptional and extraordinary situation or condition of a specific piece of property, the strict application of a building line established under this subchapter would result in peculiar and exceptional difficulties or hardships to the owner of the property. On appeal, the board may authorize a variance from the strict application of the regulation, under conditions imposed by the board, to relieve the hardship or difficulty if that relief can be granted without substantially impairing the intent and purpose of the building line or set-back line.

(e) With appropriate safeguards, the board shall authorize the construction of an improvement or a structure that may encroach on a building or set-back line. However, if the county proceeds with projected improvements of the affected road within the time provided by Section 233.034(c), the owner of the improvement or structure must remove it at no expense to the county.

Acts 1987, 70th Leg., ch. 149, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1987. Renumbered from Sec. 233.005 and amended by Acts 2001, 77th Leg., ch; 1420, Sec. 12.002(3), eff. Sept. 1, 2001.