Western Slope
Driveway access and a 911 address come early on rural land
A Porch Note from Colorado Porch — plain-English local details for all 64 Colorado counties.
The spot where your driveway meets the road, and the address that gets stamped on the parcel, sound like paperwork you can handle later. On rural land they come first.
All residential and commercial development needs a county-assigned 911 address. A driveway permit for access is required too, with one exception: access from a red-signed, non-county-owned and maintained road. If the entrance comes straight off a highway, the right office is CDOT rather than the county. The OWTS packet repeats the same logic from the septic side. The address has to be verified, and while it still reads “TBD,” the owner applies for a driveway permit and gets an address assigned before the septic design can really move forward.
That sequence is not red tape for its own sake. Where the driveway lands shapes emergency response, drainage, road impact fees, and the whole site plan, and it quietly decides where the house and the leach field can sensibly go. Lock in the access point first and the rest of the layout has something to build from.
The Montezuma County building page and the current OWTS packet both spell out the addressing and driveway steps, so it is worth pulling them up before you stake a homesite on the ground.
Sources
Official or primary sources used for this note. Local details can change, so confirm before acting.