MoCo P4 Commissioner Matt Gray on Growth, Flooding, Responsible Development

5/6/27 – Montgomery County Precinct 4 Commissioner Matt Gray addressed a packed East Montgomery County Chamber luncheon today about the often conflicting issues of property rights, growth, flooding and public safety. Both during the meeting and in an hour-long, one-on-one interview after it, he stressed the need for responsible development that mitigated downstream flooding impacts.

Managing Growth

Montgomery County has consistently ranked as one of the fastest growing counties in America. And Gray’s Precinct 4 alone expects to add another 14,000 to 16,000 rooftops in the next five years.

Gray is finishing his first term and running for another. “If you’ve followed me for any amount of time, you’ve heard me talk about steering and managing the growth. That’s been my mission and my office’s mission,” Gray told the crowd.

In that regard, he talked about helping to update Montgomery County’s:

• Development regulations that had not been updated since 1984
• Drainage criteria manuals that had not been updated since 1989
• Floodplain manual that had not been updated since 2014

Catching Up with Past Growth

He also discussed catching up with past growth. “We’re just now addressing issues and roads that have been a burr under the saddle for 20, 25 years,” said Gray. “You get all these new developments off a lonely country road. Well, it’s no longer a lonely country road. Next thing you know…you can’t move. And I get 50 calls a day.”

Funding Challenges and Triumphs

Gray also talked about his efforts in Washington, D.C. and with the Texas General Land Office to fund badly needed flood-mitigation and drainage projects. In the “win column,” Gray points to:

• De-snagging (eliminating logjams) on Caney Creek, Peach Creek, East Fork of SanJac, and White Oak Creek. That grant from the Texas General Land Office (GLO) has been awarded. Work is kicking off in 2026. Full contract value is $60.4 million with $36.4 million being spent in East Montgomery County. Contractors will clean debris out of almost 100 miles of the tributaries – just within Precinct 4.
• Completing $10 million in outfall drainage improvements using federal dollars (ARPA) to clean out an estimated 138,000 linear feet of outfalls throughout the precinct
• Taylor Gully clean up and maintenance
• A $7.7 million grant for a historically “never-been-drained” neighborhood – Porter Heights
• Partnership with HCFCD to install and maintain 4 flood gages on major bridges/watersheds – all visible on Harris County Flood Warning System. They include:
  • Caney Creek @ US 59
  • Caney Creek @ Firetower Rd.
  • Peach Creek @ FM 1485 East
  • Peach Creek @ Roman Forest Blvd.
• HCFCD Woodridge Basin – Entered into an interlocal agreement with HCFCD so that their new detention basin can tie into existing MoCo basins – a win for both Harris and Montgomery counties.

Focus Now Shifting to Execution

“It was a nightmare to get the grants,” said Gray. “But I’ve got an awesome team that does an exceptional job.” Under his leadership, they applied for $130 million in grants and so far have received almost $70 million.

His focus now has shifted to executing those projects.

Gray, a construction expert and project management professional, has employed a number of strategies to improve his staff’s efficiency. He has:

• Developed focused and comprehensive maintenance schedules by neighborhood. In 2025 alone, his team dug out more than 232,000 linear feet of drainage ditches (approximately 44 miles)
• Worked with the Houston-Galveston Area Council to help bring more funding to the region and MoCo
• Shifted to in-house culvert inspections and enforcement
• Developed Interlocal agreements with MUDs
• Continually applied for federal grants for drainage projects
• Used constables to address floodplain violations such as unpermitted work and illegal dumping
• Worked directly with the County’s Floodplain Administrator’s office to ensure flagged properties are brought into compliance.

Gray emphasizes action. As the Chamber’s moderator said, “Everyone in this room knows that – you and your office – when you see something that needs to be done, you just do it. You find a way to make it happen!”

“We Want Responsible Development”

Gray continued, “Our message is ‘we want responsible development.’ So what does that mean? It means a lot of things to me. It means we don’t want a junk product. And we don’t want to flood people downstream.”

“We spent a lot of man hours sitting together, working through the drainage criteria manuals,” he added. “And we addressed the Beat-the-Peak issue. We struck that out and built in a lot more detention requirements than ever existed previously in this county.”

Beat-the-Peak refers to a loophole in previous regulations that let developers avoid building detention basins if they could prove they could get their stormwater to a river before the peak of a flood arrived.

The theory was that that would not be adding to the peak. But in practice, it encouraged everyone to get their water to the river as quickly as possible – exactly the opposite of what you want to do in a flood.

Gray who has fond memories of growing up near the East Fork San Jacinto and FM1485 is haunted now by the sight of flooded neighborhoods there.

If anyone can make a difference, I’m sure he can. He’s a man on a mission.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 5/6/26

3172 Days since Hurricane Harvey