Should I buy inside Boerne city limits or in unincorporated Kendall County?

Inside the city limits you get City of Boerne utilities and ordinances and pay the city's 0.4716 rate. Unincorporated means well and septic, no city rate, and fewer local rules — except in Boerne's ETJ, where the city still regulates platting and some ordinances, such as short-term rentals, still reach you.

There are three zones, not two

Almost everyone frames this as city versus country. There are actually three:

Inside the City of Boerne city limits. City utilities, city ordinances, city zoning, city tax rate.
Boerne's extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ). Unincorporated — no city tax rate — but the city keeps regulatory authority over subdivision platting under Texas Local Government Code Chapter 42, and some city ordinances explicitly reach out here.
Unincorporated Kendall County outside the ETJ. County government, deed restrictions, and the groundwater district. No city layer at all.

The middle one is where buyers get surprised, because a property can carry city rules without a city tax bill or city water. Step one for any address: ask the City of Boerne Planning Department which of the three it sits in. That answer drives everything below.

Utilities

Inside the city limits: City of Boerne water and sewer. The city's supply comes from three sources — Canyon Lake surface water through the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority, Boerne City Lake, and local Trinity Group aquifer wells (City of Boerne). Drought restrictions come from the utility; supply risk is the city's to manage.

Unincorporated: typically a private well and an on-site septic system. That moves a set of risks onto you that a city customer never thinks about:

Well yield, tested — gallons per minute, not the seller's recollection.
Depth, casing and pump age.
Septic system type, capacity, permit history and last service. Capacity is sized to bedroom count; adding bedrooms can require a system change.
Permitting and pumping limits under the Cow Creek Groundwater Conservation District, which regulates groundwater countywide and sets drought stages using roughly 42 monitor wells, stream gauges on Cibolo Creek and the Guadalupe River, and 100-plus rain gauge sites (ccgcd.org).
Shared wells and shared access roads, both of which live or die on the recorded agreement.

A standard home inspection does not evaluate a well or certify a septic system. Budget separate specialists inside the option period.

Which taxing entities bill you

The City of Boerne 2025 rate was 0.4716 per $100 of taxable value (Kendall County). Outside the city limits, that line does not appear. That is the single clearest financial difference, and it is a trade — you are also not buying city water, sewer, trash service or city police response.

Everything else carries across:

Kendall County 2025: 0.377 — M&O 0.317976 plus debt 0.059024 (Kendall County).
School district. Boerne ISD 2025: 1.0109 (M&O 0.6969 + debt 0.3140) (Kendall County). The western part of the county is Comfort ISD, 2025 adopted 0.9328 (Kendall County). Unincorporated does not mean no school district — it means confirm which one.
Special districts. Kendall AD lists Kendall County MUD, Miralomas MUD, the Cow Creek Groundwater Conservation District and Kendall County WCID #1 among entities that can appear on a bill (Kendall Appraisal District). A MUD rate in a newer subdivision can erase the savings from dropping the city rate.

Pull the entity list for the exact parcel from Kendall Appraisal District. That is also where the homestead exemption and any protest get filed for Kendall County property — not Bexar CAD.

Two TREC forms exist because this catches people: the Notice to Purchaser of Special Taxing or Assessment District (form 59-0, effective 02/12/2024) and the Addendum Containing Notice of Obligation to Pay Improvement District Assessment (form 53-0, effective 09/01/2021) (TREC contracts).

What the city still controls in the ETJ

Boerne's short-term rental ordinance, No. 2023-09, applies in the city limits and the ETJ (City of Boerne; Ordinance 2023-09). An ETJ property still needs the $200 two-year permit, still owes hotel occupancy tax, and still faces the ordinance's requirements — though the safety inspection is not required for ETJ properties.

That is the model to hold in your head: unincorporated does not mean unregulated, and the boundary of a city's authority is not the same as the boundary of its tax rate. Subdivision platting in the ETJ runs through the city under Chapter 42, which matters enormously if you intend to split a tract.

A property in unincorporated Kendall County outside both the city limits and the ETJ is not covered by the Boerne ordinance. Texas counties have narrower ordinance-making authority than cities, but that is not the same as none. Confirm any specific requirement with Kendall County rather than assuming an acreage parcel is rule-free.

Where deed restrictions take over

Outside the city, private restrictions do the work zoning does inside it. A recorded declaration and a property owners' association can be more restrictive than any city code — on building materials, setbacks, outbuildings, livestock, RVs, rentals and resale.

Texas Property Code Chapter 207 requires an association to provide subdivision information, including a resale certificate, on proper written request, covering assessments, unpaid amounts, certain known violations, insurance, certain pending lawsuits, reserves, budgets and transfer restrictions (Tex. Prop. Code §207.003). Delivery is within 10 business days of the written request, and the certificate must be prepared no earlier than 60 days before delivery. The relevant TREC forms are the Addendum for Property Subject to Mandatory Membership in a POA (36-11) and Subdivision Information, Including Resale Certificate (37-5) (TREC).

Order it early and read it during the option period. A Texas real estate attorney is the right person to tell you what a specific set of restrictions permits — that is a legal reading, not an agent's call.

If the land carries an ag valuation

Much unincorporated acreage sits under 1-d-1 open-space appraisal, valued on productivity value rather than market value. Qualification requires current principal agricultural use to the degree of intensity generally accepted in the area, with agricultural or timber production in 5 of the preceding 7 years; a wildlife management valuation requires previously qualified land used in at least 3 of 7 specified ways. Changing the use triggers a 3-year rollback tax — the difference between taxes paid on ag value and what would have been paid on market value (Texas Comptroller).

The buy-a-ranchette-and-build failure mode is exactly this: a low carrying cost converts into a rollback bill. Ask Kendall Appraisal District whether the valuation survives your intended use, and a CPA what the consequence costs.

How to decide

Buy inside the city limits if you want city water and sewer, a shorter commute to everything, predictable utility service, and zoning that governs what your neighbor can build. Pay the 0.4716 for it.

Buy unincorporated if you want land, distance and fewer municipal rules, and you are prepared to own the well, the septic, the road agreement and the groundwater question personally.

Either way, before the option period ends: confirm the zone with the City of Boerne Planning Department, the taxing entities with Kendall Appraisal District, the current drought stage at ccgcd.org, and the recorded restrictions with a Texas real estate attorney.

Questions about a specific property?

Call or text 830-446-3847 · Email heath.shepard@kw.com

Jurisdiction, platting and ETJ status are determined per parcel by the City of Boerne Planning Department; taxing entities by Kendall Appraisal District. This page is not legal or tax advice — deed restrictions and shared-well or access agreements are questions for a Texas real estate attorney, and rollback tax consequences are questions for a CPA.