RV Park and Campground Feasibility Study, Bastrop County, Texas: A USDA B&I Worked Case

The subject is hypothetical: a new RV park and campground on about 10 acres in the Bastrop trade area, financed with a USDA Business and Industry guaranteed loan. The market evidence is real and dated. Inputs the research could not source are labelled as assumptions in the model.

Workforce stays. The Starlink and SpaceX complex on FM 1209 is the county's largest source of long-stay demand. In August 2026 SpaceX filed a $7 million office renovation at the site with the state, with work to finish in fall 2027 [40]. The same reporting described a $280 million semiconductor research project backed by a $17.3 million state grant and expected to bring more than 400 jobs [40]. In May 2026 the county backed SpaceX as an Enterprise Project for an $855 million Starlink kit expansion [41]. Construction crews for these projects, and for the data centers and warehouses that follow them, need housing by the week and month. RV parks are where many of them stay.

Leisure. Bastrop State Park is the anchor. Its reservation system books 78 units: 27 full-hookup, 17 electric and 20 water-only campsites, 12 cabins, a barracks and a group hall, priced in peak season at $25 for full hookup, $20 for electric, $15 for water only, $110 to $200 for cabins and $850 a night for the barracks [36]. Group lodging is the state's business here; the subject has no group building, and the model earns nothing from groups. That inventory is small and cheap and it fills, which pushes overflow to private parks nearby. The leisure season runs spring through fall, and winter burns reduce park access [35]. Nationally, more than 52 million households camped in 2025 and spent $66 billion locally, but RVs accounted for 47% of trips, the lowest share in KOA's series [69].

In-migration. The county had 118,908 residents on July 1, 2025, 22.3% more than in April 2020 [1]. People moving to a county faster than it builds housing use RV sites as a bridge. That demand is real but it is monthly, so it adds to the same pressure on the tenure mix.

The county's lodging tax shows how small the overnight leisure market outside the city is. Bastrop County collected $106,357.61 of hotel occupancy tax from properties outside city limits in fiscal 2025, against $421,700.95 inside them, for $528,058.56 in all [16]. RV stays under 30 days are taxable lodging; monthly stays are not [15]. A park outside the city, as the model assumes, would sit in the smaller of those two pools.

The hypothetical site is about 10 acres in the SH 71 and SH 21 trade area around Bastrop; no particular tract is assumed. Its jurisdiction is a condition to confirm, because it sets both the approval path and the tax bill. The study assumes a site outside city limits, in unincorporated Bastrop County. There the county has no general zoning power, so there is no zoning district, and the binding approval is the county's [3]. A site inside the city or its extraterritorial jurisdiction would face a different path and a different tax rate, and the lender should not rely on this section for one. Road access is a condition too: the county rules set the frontage a park needs by the class of road it fronts (below).

The approval path. Bastrop County treats an RV park as a subdivision under Chapter 232 of the Local Government Code [3]. The developer holds a required pre-application meeting, files an application and an Infrastructure Development Plan, and the county reviews the file for completeness within 10 business days. A 30-day review follows, then a Commissioners Court vote; a plan not rejected within the review period is approved [3]. Utilities may not serve the park until the county issues a Certificate of Compliance [3]. A development permit expires if construction is not finished within three years, and a septic permit expires one year after its authorization to construct [4].

Design standards that drive cost. The rules require at least 40 feet of deeded frontage on a county road (60 on a state road), a hardened pad of 12 by 40 feet for each RV space, 20 feet between units with slide-outs, setbacks of 25 feet from the right-of-way, 15 from property lines and 10 from internal roads, two-way roads at least 20 feet wide and underground electric [3]. A service building is required for every 50 spaces, plus one fixture set for each 30 more [3]. Where there are no hydrants, a park must store 2,500 gallons of fire water below 50 spaces and 5,000 gallons at 50 or more; where hydrants exist they must deliver 250 gallons a minute for two hours from a main of six inches or more [3]. These standards are why the model's site cost sits above the older survey ranges.

Sewer and water. A park producing 5,000 gallons a day or less needs a county septic permit; above that, it needs state approval under the Water Code [3]. A park of this size with a bathhouse and laundry may approach that line, so the engineering decides whether the subject needs a county or a state permit. Water, sewer and electric providers for the hypothetical tract are not known and become a lender condition; gas service was not found anywhere in the research.

Endangered species. Parts of the county fall under the Lost Pines Habitat Conservation Plan for the Houston toad. Participation costs a $120 application fee and a $54 recording fee, with mitigation of $1,500 for half an acre or $3,000 for an acre of disturbance; direct impact over an acre needs a federal incidental take permit [5]. Whether the tract lies in toad habitat is a condition.

Traffic. County roads are not on TxDOT's count system, and the site's access road is not known. The nearest counts are on SH 71 and SH 21 in TxDOT's public layer, updated January 6, 2025 [18]; no station count was extracted. For an RV park the relevant traffic is the turn from the state highway onto the site's access road, which a site visit should check for rig clearance.

Taxes. The county adopted $0.4554 per $100 for fiscal 2026-27 [71], up from $0.42870 for 2025-26 and $0.40275 for 2024-25 [10], so the county levy has risen two years running and the model's 2.0% yearly growth in taxable value is not the only way the bill climbs. Bastrop ISD's 2025-26 rate is $1.0679 [11]. Emergency services districts No. 2 and No. 3 each adopted $0.10 for 2025 [12][13]; which district covers the tract is a condition. The model assumes a site outside city limits, where there is no city levy; a site inside the city would add one. Property is assessed at 100% of market value [14]. Guests staying under 30 days pay the state's 6% and the county's 7% hotel tax outside the city; inside the city or its extraterritorial jurisdiction the city's 7% applies instead of the county's, plus a 0.75% county share [15][17]. All county lodging properties have filed online through Localgov since October 2, 2023 [15].

Fire. The 2011 fire burned 34,068 acres of the Lost Pines [42]. Wildfire drives insurance cost and availability for a park among pines, and the model's insurance line is an allowance until a quote is bound.

Operating costs are $575,260 in Year 3, leaving net operating income of $308,247, a 34.9% margin. The research found no published expense ratio for independent parks. ARVC's 2023 medians, which are separate medians and not a ratio, were revenue of $3.52 million and general operating expenses of $1.85 million for a park with a median of 92 sites [58]. A 70-unit park has less scale than that median park, and the model's margin is lower to match.

Payroll is fixed at $200,000 in Year 1 and grows 3.0% a year. It pays a manager and about three full-time equivalents in season, set from ARVC's 2023 medians of $52,200 for a general manager and $15.01 an hour for staff [58]. Utilities paid by the park cover water, septic service, common-area electric and electric on nightly sites. Repairs and maintenance, marketing and booking fees, administration and a management fee run as shares of revenue.

Property tax applies the county, ISD and ESD rates to land and improvements at cost, growing 2.0% a year. Insurance is an allowance pending a wildfire-inclusive quote. The USDA annual retention fee of 0.55% of the guaranteed balance is shown as a cost, on the assumption that the lender passes it to the borrower [47]. The replacement reserve uses Newmark's figure of about $75 a pad a year [61], which is thin for a park with cabins; the cabins' upkeep sits in the repairs line.

The B&I guarantee for fiscal 2026 is 85% for loans under $5,000,000 and 80% from $5,000,000 to the $25,000,000 maximum, with an initial fee of 3.0% of the guaranteed amount, a further 0.50% when the loan note guarantee issues before construction is complete, as it does for this park, and an annual retention fee of 0.55% [47]. USDA raised the small-loan guarantee from 80% to 85% and announced it on March 27, 2026 [44]. A reduced-fee category carries a 1.0% fee and 0.50% retention but only an 80% guarantee [47]; the park does not need it.

The rate is negotiated between the lender and the borrower and may be fixed, variable or a mix [48]. The model carries 7.75%, which is Prime of 7.00% on October 9, 2026 [66] plus 0.75 points; broker-reported conventional RV park closings in 2026 ran 6.74% to 7.16% [67]. The term may run to the useful life of the project or collateral, up to 40 years [48]. RV pads, roads and pedestals do not last 40 years, so the model amortizes over 25.

Two parameters are assumptions, not rules. The equity test uses 25.0% of project cost. The research reads 7 CFR 5001.105 as requiring a new business to hold at least 20% to 25% tangible balance sheet equity or 25% of project cost [51]; the lender's credit memo must confirm the figure. The coverage floor is 1.25x in Year 3, because USDA sets no single ratio for B&I and the lender's credit policy governs. The regulation asks for projections through at least two years at full capacity or stable operations [49], which is why the test year is the first stabilized year.

The feasibility study. USDA requires a feasibility study by an independent qualified consultant acceptable to the Agency for a B&I guaranteed loan of more than $1,000,000 to a new business (7 CFR 5001.306(a)(3)(i)) [49]. The restructured loan of $2,719,820 to a newly formed park company meets both tests. The study must cover economic, market, technical, financial and management feasibility [50], and the lender's credit analysis must include its own written evaluation of the study [52]. Our note on the five USDA components sets out what each part must prove, and the USDA Rural Development practice page covers the other programs.

Eligibility. The project must sit outside any city or town of more than 50,000 people and its adjacent urbanized area, and the project site governs [43][46]. Bastrop is far below that size and the model assumes a site outside city limits, but the site's location is a condition and the OneRD lookup must be run on the parcel [45]. An unincorporated site or a city under 25,000 earns 5 priority points [49].

Program risk. B&I obligated $2,111,702,000 in fiscal 2025, and Texas took $289.2 million of it, 13.7% of the national total [54]. The fiscal 2026 loan authority is $1,750.0 million in the enacted act [55], while USDA's own table shows $1,428,899,083 [54]; the two have not been reconciled. The fiscal 2027 budget request proposes no B&I program level at all [54], and the enacted outcome was not found in a primary source. On May 12, 2026 USDA revoked the approved-lender status of ten lenders whose portfolios held about $620 million of delinquent loans, about 47% of Rural Development's delinquencies [53]. B&I loan counts fell from 309 in fiscal 2015 to 176 in fiscal 2024 [56]. The sponsor's lender should be one of the remaining approved lenders, active in Texas, and the application should be timed against the appropriation; our USDA deadline calendar tracks what is open.

For contrast, an SBA lender would test the park against SBA's lodging rule, which asks for more than 50% of the prior year's revenue from transients who stay 30 days or less at a time; a start-up shows it in projections [68]. This plan passes that test on paper. A Bastrop park whose monthly section grows with workforce demand could fail it later, which is one reason USDA is the better fit for a park with a real monthly component.

As proposed, the sponsor put in 20.0% ($764,946) and asked for a $3,059,783 guaranteed loan. The structure fails the equity test the model applies for a new business, and it fails coverage at 1.11x in Year 3, against a 1.25x floor.

As restructured, equity rises to 28.7% ($1,094,794) and the loan falls to $2,719,820, with annual debt service of $246,523. Coverage reaches 1.25x in Year 3 and 1.38x in Year 5. The loan stays under $5,000,000, so the 85% guarantee applies [47], and it stays over $1,000,000, so the independent feasibility study is required [49].

The sponsor could close part of the gap by holding more sites monthly, since those fill first and carry little marketing cost. The program's residential exclusion limits how far that can go, and the projection should not be rebuilt around it. A lower land basis, set by appraisal, is the cleaner lever.

The Texas meat processing case runs a different asset through the same B&I rules and shows how the coverage floor and the equity test interact for a plant rather than a park. The Hankamer travel center case applies them to a highway business on an interstate. The Bastrop hotel case uses the same county's records for an SBA 504 hotel whose guests come for business travel, not campsites.

The matrix moves transient occupancy against monthly rent, the two drivers the Cedar Creek park could move. Coverage in Year 3 runs from 0.86x to 1.63x. A 15% cut in monthly rent costs less coverage than a 20% fall in transient occupancy, because monthly rent is the smaller share of revenue. That asymmetry is the cost of the program's tenure line: the plan leans on the more volatile stream.

The cells to watch are the lower-left ones. If the large competitor opens with discounted monthly rents and pulls nightly guests with its own cabins, both drivers fall at once, and coverage drops below the floor within one step on each axis.