3/26/26 – A $29,387,654 bid from Bryce Construction & Design, LLC has been approved by the county purchasing agent to construct the Woodridge and Taylor Gully flood mitigation projects in Kingwood. See Item 45 on the agenda. Here is their bid transmitted to Commissioners Court. It was the low bid.
To streamline approval of US Housing and Urban Development Department Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), several months ago Commissioners Court approved a proposal to let the County Purchasing Agent approve CDBG projects. They all have tight deadlines.
The contractor will mobilize within two weeks according to Emily Woodell, a Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) spokesperson. We should see dirt flying this Spring.
History of Project
Up to 600 families in Kingwood flooded twice in 2019 when Perry Homes’ contractors cleared approximately 268 acres for Woodridge Village just north of the Harris County line. Then they sloped the land toward Taylor Gully. Many of the families had just recovered from the first flood on May 7th when they flooded again in September before the stormwater detention basins had been built.
Subsequently, in 2020, Harris County and the City of Houston purchased the land so that it couldn’t be developed and flood Kingwood again. Before the purchase, Perry Homes built five stormwater detention basins on the Woodridge property. However, Montgomery County regulations at the time required much less detention capacity that Harris County – about 40% less.
That was because Harris County had already adopted Atlas 14 and because Montgomery County averaged rainfall estimates across the entire county, even though annual rainfall increases as you move south toward the county line.
Elements of Solution
So, Harris County Flood Control set out to study what it would take to properly reduce flood risk using Atlas 14 data near the county line. The studies recommended:
More upstream detention
Increasing conveyance of Taylor Gully
Replacing a culvert bridge at Rustic Elms with a clear-span bridge
Project overview from construction plans
The project limits of the proposed Taylor Gully Channel Improvements stretch from the Montgomery County boundary on the west to approximately 700 feet upstream of the confluence with White Oak Creek – a length of approximately 12,630 linear feet.
This portion of the project includes replacing the bridge at Rustling Elms.
At Rustling Elms, HCFCD will replace a culvert bridge with a clear-span bridge to remove a bottleneck.
HCFCD also plans to finish one more large stormwater detention basin upstream from Taylor Gully in Montgomery County.
HCFCD started work on the pond in January 2022 under an Excavation and Removal contract with Sprint Sand & Clay. The contract to remove up to 500,000 cubic yards of soil would have more than doubled the previous detention capacity on the site and more than made up for the 40% Atlas 14 shortfall.
However, HCFCD paused the Sprint contract when it applied for a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) grant. That’s because HUD rules stipulate that a project cannot change during the grant application period.
HCFCD later terminated the contract in November 2023 when it became clear the project would qualify for the grant. At that point, Sprint had already removed 160,000 cubic yards, an amount equivalent to approximately 100 acre feet. So if the figures in the construction drawing are accurate, the capacity of the basin will quadruple compared to what you see below.
Woodridge Village on May 31, 2025. The final basin will extend down past the trees near the end of the entry road.
Expected Impact
Contractually, work must finish within 552 days from the notice to proceed – approximately 18 months. That would make a great 2027 Christmas present for a lot of Kingwood families.
Under HUD’s Community Development Block Grant for Mitigation, all work must finish and billing must be completed by March 31, 2028. That should be doable.
The project will give Taylor Gully a 100-year level of service.
HCFCD
That means it should only come out of its banks in a hundred-year storm.
The improvements would reduce water-surface elevation (WSE) along Taylor Gully up to 6.9 feet in places and 4 to 5 feet on average for a 100-year storm event.
Also, this project will remove approximately 276 structures from a 100-year flood plain. Without the project, area residents would continue to flood in lesser storms.
Taylor Gully bridge at Rustling Elms during May 7, 2019, storm.
That means we should NOT see many more scenes like the one above until Noah’s comeback tour.
Thanks to Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey PE, for continuing to push this project when things seemed bleak.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/26/26
3131 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Overview.jpg?fit=2550%2C1650&ssl=116502550adminadmin2026-03-26 16:35:252026-03-27 08:08:45$29 Million Construction Contract for Woodridge, Taylor Gully Project Approved
3/25/26 – On 3/24/26, I photographed partially cleared property owned by HS Tejas LTD on West Lake Houston Parkway (WLHP) between the Kingwood YMCA and Kings Harbor.
Approximate area of partially cleared landcircled in red.
According to Dustin Hodges, Chief of Staff for District E City Council Member Fred Flickinger, the City has received no permit applications for developing the property yet.
To be clear, an owner does not need a permit to survey his property. But the survey may be required as preparation for:
Subdividing land/plat approval
Developing in floodplains
Title companies or lenders
So, this is an early sign that something could soon happen with the property. However, it’s not yet clear what HS Tejas plans.
Who Is HS Tejas?
HS Tejas is a company owned in part by Kingwood developer Ron Holley. Holley sold floodplain/floodway property on South Woodland Hills to a company affiliated with Romerica back in 2012. Since then, Romerica has tried repeatedly to develop the property with little luck using various concepts including:
Currently, Holley is also trying to develop Royal Shores Estates in the floodway and floodplain of the San Jacinto East Fork south of Kings Point.
Shifting Floodplain Maps
New flood maps show the floodway has expanded and now encompasses virtually all of Holley’s property. From a flooding perspective, a floodway is more hazardous than a floodplain because of the speed of water. To see how large the floodway has grown, compare the two images below.
Once the new draft maps become effective, Holley will have a much harder time developing the property because of restrictions on building in floodways. So, the impending map change may have something to do with the surveying.
Pictures Showing Recent Activity
Below are several pictures taken on 3/24/26 that show the partial clearing.
Note Deerwood golf course and Bens Branch in upper left. Looking slightly east and south from over WLHP.Looking S toward Self Storage and Memory Care facility in upper right.Memory Care facility in lower right.Looking E toward Deerwood. Looking W toward WLHP from over Bens Branch in bottom of frame.
Putting Flood Risk Into Perspective
The areas shown above are about a half mile from the San Jacinto West Fork along Bens Branch.
As a result of Harvey flooding, 12 residents of Kingwood Village Estates died. KVE is an assisted living facility more than a half mile north (farther from the West Fork).
Moreover, ALL of the adjacent businesses, townhomes, apartments and homes flooded in:
A floodway is not only defined by the speed of floodwaters. In Houston, the floodway is regulated as the portion of the floodplain required to convey the 100-year flood with no increase in water surface elevation. However, FEMA-mapped floodways may have been delineated assuming up to a 1-foot rise.
Developers cannot bring fill into a floodway. So, doing anything on this property will likely mean stilts, structural analyses, and more. Chapter 19 of the City’s floodplain regulations lays out the requirements.
Current activity is not visible from WLHP. So, please contact me if you hear or see anything.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/25/26
3130 Days since Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/HS-Tejas-.jpg?fit=1100%2C707&ssl=17071100adminadmin2026-03-25 15:56:022026-03-26 06:22:30Surveyors Staking Out Property on WLHP in New Floodway
3/23/26 – The Texas Water Development Board recently issued a press release about the State’s Geographic Information Office (TxGIO) and Department of Information Resources (DIR) contracts. The concepts discussed in the article affect many growing areas in the San Jacinto watershed, which is plagued by political fragmentation.
Dozens of counties, cities, and utility districts share responsibility for development, drainage, and flood-control. But they update their flood maps infrequently and irregularly. So, engineers and hydrologists often have trouble planning. They have a fragmented, incomplete picture of what’s going on around them.
But these state systems help to change that. Two key takeaways:
They pre-qualify a pool of vendors. That shortens the qualification and bidding processes for services they may need, such as LIDAR.
Upon completion, studies become part of the public domain – available to everyone who can benefit from them.
The press release, reprinted below, talks about many synergies already discovered with these ingenious systems. They increase collaboration, speed, and cost sharing to improve planning and reduce flood risk.
From TWDB’s Texas Water Newsroom
Left to right: Lidar image of downtown Austin, Texas, aerial view of a neighborhood in Bexar County, and an elevation image of Canyon Lake
Imagine two neighboring communities facing the same challenge.
A small watershed authority in East Texas needs high-resolution elevation data. Recent storms have rewritten floodplain maps, and the old topography simply doesn’t match what residents now experience during heavy rains. Engineers need accurate models. Emergency managers need better evacuation planning. The watershed authority has the expertise to specify the data but lacks the budget to acquire it.
Forty miles away, a county engineering department faces the same problem. New development pressures require updated drainage studies. The county’s flood maps show their age. Engineers spend hours adjusting for known errors rather than designing solutions. They have budget allocated but procurement rules demand a competitive bidding process that will take a year or more to complete.
Both entities will acquire elevation data eventually, but they’ll pay different prices and receive deliverables that may not align at their shared boundaries. This fragmentation describes how Texas communities acquired geospatial data for decades—a siloed process that was slow and inefficient, with few opportunities for collaboration. The old way treated every project as a fresh start rather than a contribution to shared infrastructure.
StratMap Contracts
The Texas Geographic Information Office (TxGIO) and the Department of Information Resources (DIR) Geographic Information Systems (GIS) & Digital Land Surveying Products and Services contracts—known collectively as the StratMap contracts—were developed to be a far more streamlined procurement model.
The StratMap program was originally established in 1997 by Senate Bill 1 to develop consistent statewide digital data layers. Since then, its primary goal has been to acquire and improve digital geographic data for statewide mapping applications, and the program also maintains comprehensive data standard specifications to ensure consistent, high-quality data products across Texas. The TxGIO StratMap program administers and promotes the StratMap contracts, and TxGIO uses those contracts to get the data it needs to develop and maintain consistent statewide digital data layers.
For hydrologists modeling flood risks, engineers designing infrastructure, GIS professionals building applications, and citizens depending on sound governance, the StratMap contracts deliver what communities need most: quality geospatial services, software, and hardware at competitive prices.
How StratMap contracts work
The genius of the StratMap Contracts lies in their simplicity—generally, the state negotiates GIS contracts every five years so that individual communities and governmental entities don’t have to do it themselves. Before signing any potential StratMap vendor contracts, a team of GIS technical experts from TxGIO and DIR contract specialists evaluate every company seeking a StratMap contract based upon their project experience, technology innovation, professional staff, and available resources.
Companies that pass this review earn a place on the DIR Master Contracts list as qualified providers. These pre-approved providers serve Texas state, regional, and local government offices, including river and water authorities, and public education entities. Each approved vendor maintains a Pricing Index on their DIR contract page that lists available products, services, and software alongside pre-negotiated percentage discounts.
The three-step procurement process
Once a community identifies a need, the typical path forward contains three steps:
Review the Pricing Index on the vendor’s DIR contract page to confirm available offerings and discounts.
Obtain a quote directly from the vendor’s listed contact. The quote must reflect the contract’s pre-negotiated discount percentage. If the project is for a state agency and is over $50,000 or requires customization, the community provides a statement of work with the quote and must go through the DIR statement of work process for review and approval—which can take a couple of months.
Issue a purchase order listing the company’s DIR contract number.
That’s it. No months spent drafting and reviewing contracts. The master contracts already satisfy procurement requirements and enable entities to quickly obtain competitive bids from multiple pre-qualified vendors in one place. For state agencies, additional thresholds govern statement of work requirements and processes. But for most local governments, these three steps represent all the administrative requirements.
Complete geospatial coverage
StratMap Contracts cover the full spectrum of GIS:
Whether a community needs new data, help managing a project, or software to analyze existing information, the contracts provide access to quality vendors who can provide what they need. This streamlined procurement process alone is a huge benefit, but incredible strategic value emerges when communities start collaborating.
TxGIO is a collaboration facilitator
No single city or county sees the full map of geospatial activity across Texas, but TxGIO does. Through quarterly community meetings, TxGIO maintains visibility into which projects are being planned, where overlap may exist, and potential partnerships. When a community notifies TxGIO about a potential project, they don’t simply file the information. TxGIO scans for matches and considers who else might need the data to uncover opportunities that isolated communities may not find on their own. This approach allows communities to discover shared challenges and data requirements and combine their budgets to expand the scope of projects and meet their needs more effectively.
Cost sharing as standard practice
StratMap actively cultivates collaboration. Communities that use StratMap learn to start every project conversation with a simple question: “Who else might need this?”
Sometimes the answer reveals unexpected partners. A city planning some new parks might connect with a county assessing conservation easements. A groundwater district modeling aquifers might align with a utility mapping critical infrastructure. A school district planning new facilities might coordinate with emergency services designing evacuation routes. Each partnership multiplies the value of every dollar spent and builds relationships that endure beyond individual projects. Collaboration normalizes the idea that geospatial data serves regional needs.
The specification dividend
Partnerships under StratMap deliver another hidden benefit: better specifications.
When multiple entities collaborate on a statement of work, each brings distinct requirements to the table. The watershed authority prioritizes vertical accuracy for flood modeling. The county emphasizes land cover classification for drainage analysis. A participating city cares about planimetric features for infrastructure management.
Vendors receive requirements that reflect diverse, real-world needs rather than a single department’s perspective. The resulting data serves more purposes, satisfies more stakeholders, and delivers greater return on investment. TxGIO staff facilitate these conversations, helping partners balance competing priorities and arrive at specifications that work for everyone. Their experience across dozens of projects informs recommendations that communities couldn’t develop independently. This collaboration pays in immediate cost savings, in better data, and in regional relationships that strengthen Texas communities for years to come.
The compounding value of data in the public domain
For TxGIO StratMap projects, after vendors deliver final products and independent quality assurance confirms their accuracy, the data enters the public domain. TxGIO staff verify deliverables, integrate them into statewide collections, and make them available to everyone.
Traditional procurement treats data as a consumable. A community pays for it, uses it, and eventually replaces it, so its value degrades over time. The StratMap program inverts this model. TxGIO projects add to a growing public repository. Each new dataset increases the repository’s utility, and new users discover applications for that data that the original sponsors never imagined.
And because TxGIO maintains all StratMap deliverables, staff understand what works and what doesn’t. They have worked with more than 80 different agencies in Texas, from river authorities to municipalities, counties, and councils of government. So, TxGIO sees which specifications produce reliable results. They track which vendors consistently deliver quality and can identify emerging technologies that improve accuracy or reduce costs.
This experience informs future statements of work. When the next community plans a project, TxGIO staff recommend specifications refined through dozens of previous efforts. They warn against approaches that failed elsewhere and can suggest others that succeeded. Each project learns from every project that came before, which ensures that every Texas community, regardless of size or budget, can build on the best available information.
StratMap prepares Texas communities for the future
Texas faces challenges in the coming decades, from population growth to flood risks that will require sophisticated modeling and environmental needs that will demand informed management. Communities need accurate geospatial information to navigate these challenges effectively.
The StratMap contracts can help provide the foundational data upon which solutions to those challenges depend.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/23/26
3128 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/gis_imagecollage.jpg?fit=999%2C670&ssl=1670999adminadmin2026-03-23 13:40:492026-03-24 17:02:14TxGIO, DIR StratMap Contracts: Strategic Asset for Texas Communities
$29 Million Construction Contract for Woodridge, Taylor Gully Project Approved
3/26/26 – A $29,387,654 bid from Bryce Construction & Design, LLC has been approved by the county purchasing agent to construct the Woodridge and Taylor Gully flood mitigation projects in Kingwood. See Item 45 on the agenda. Here is their bid transmitted to Commissioners Court. It was the low bid.
To streamline approval of US Housing and Urban Development Department Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), several months ago Commissioners Court approved a proposal to let the County Purchasing Agent approve CDBG projects. They all have tight deadlines.
The contractor will mobilize within two weeks according to Emily Woodell, a Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) spokesperson. We should see dirt flying this Spring.
History of Project
Up to 600 families in Kingwood flooded twice in 2019 when Perry Homes’ contractors cleared approximately 268 acres for Woodridge Village just north of the Harris County line. Then they sloped the land toward Taylor Gully. Many of the families had just recovered from the first flood on May 7th when they flooded again in September before the stormwater detention basins had been built.
Subsequently, in 2020, Harris County and the City of Houston purchased the land so that it couldn’t be developed and flood Kingwood again. Before the purchase, Perry Homes built five stormwater detention basins on the Woodridge property. However, Montgomery County regulations at the time required much less detention capacity that Harris County – about 40% less.
That was because Harris County had already adopted Atlas 14 and because Montgomery County averaged rainfall estimates across the entire county, even though annual rainfall increases as you move south toward the county line.
Elements of Solution
So, Harris County Flood Control set out to study what it would take to properly reduce flood risk using Atlas 14 data near the county line. The studies recommended:
The project limits of the proposed Taylor Gully Channel Improvements stretch from the Montgomery County boundary on the west to approximately 700 feet upstream of the confluence with White Oak Creek – a length of approximately 12,630 linear feet.
This portion of the project includes replacing the bridge at Rustling Elms.
HCFCD also plans to finish one more large stormwater detention basin upstream from Taylor Gully in Montgomery County.
HCFCD started work on the pond in January 2022 under an Excavation and Removal contract with Sprint Sand & Clay. The contract to remove up to 500,000 cubic yards of soil would have more than doubled the previous detention capacity on the site and more than made up for the 40% Atlas 14 shortfall.
However, HCFCD paused the Sprint contract when it applied for a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) grant. That’s because HUD rules stipulate that a project cannot change during the grant application period.
HCFCD later terminated the contract in November 2023 when it became clear the project would qualify for the grant. At that point, Sprint had already removed 160,000 cubic yards, an amount equivalent to approximately 100 acre feet. So if the figures in the construction drawing are accurate, the capacity of the basin will quadruple compared to what you see below.
Expected Impact
Contractually, work must finish within 552 days from the notice to proceed – approximately 18 months. That would make a great 2027 Christmas present for a lot of Kingwood families.
Under HUD’s Community Development Block Grant for Mitigation, all work must finish and billing must be completed by March 31, 2028. That should be doable.
That means it should only come out of its banks in a hundred-year storm.
The improvements would reduce water-surface elevation (WSE) along Taylor Gully up to 6.9 feet in places and 4 to 5 feet on average for a 100-year storm event.
Also, this project will remove approximately 276 structures from a 100-year flood plain. Without the project, area residents would continue to flood in lesser storms.
That means we should NOT see many more scenes like the one above until Noah’s comeback tour.
Thanks to Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey PE, for continuing to push this project when things seemed bleak.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/26/26
3131 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Surveyors Staking Out Property on WLHP in New Floodway
3/25/26 – On 3/24/26, I photographed partially cleared property owned by HS Tejas LTD on West Lake Houston Parkway (WLHP) between the Kingwood YMCA and Kings Harbor.
According to Dustin Hodges, Chief of Staff for District E City Council Member Fred Flickinger, the City has received no permit applications for developing the property yet.
To be clear, an owner does not need a permit to survey his property. But the survey may be required as preparation for:
So, this is an early sign that something could soon happen with the property. However, it’s not yet clear what HS Tejas plans.
Who Is HS Tejas?
HS Tejas is a company owned in part by Kingwood developer Ron Holley. Holley sold floodplain/floodway property on South Woodland Hills to a company affiliated with Romerica back in 2012. Since then, Romerica has tried repeatedly to develop the property with little luck using various concepts including:
Currently, Holley is also trying to develop Royal Shores Estates in the floodway and floodplain of the San Jacinto East Fork south of Kings Point.
Shifting Floodplain Maps
New flood maps show the floodway has expanded and now encompasses virtually all of Holley’s property. From a flooding perspective, a floodway is more hazardous than a floodplain because of the speed of water. To see how large the floodway has grown, compare the two images below.
Current:
FEMA’s current, effective flood map (dated 2007) shows most of Holley’s property is in a floodplain, not the floodway.
Updated Draft Map Based on Atlas 14
See below how much the floodway has expanded.
Once the new draft maps become effective, Holley will have a much harder time developing the property because of restrictions on building in floodways. So, the impending map change may have something to do with the surveying.
Pictures Showing Recent Activity
Below are several pictures taken on 3/24/26 that show the partial clearing.
Putting Flood Risk Into Perspective
The areas shown above are about a half mile from the San Jacinto West Fork along Bens Branch.
As a result of Harvey flooding, 12 residents of Kingwood Village Estates died. KVE is an assisted living facility more than a half mile north (farther from the West Fork).
Moreover, ALL of the adjacent businesses, townhomes, apartments and homes flooded in:
A floodway is not only defined by the speed of floodwaters. In Houston, the floodway is regulated as the portion of the floodplain required to convey the 100-year flood with no increase in water surface elevation. However, FEMA-mapped floodways may have been delineated assuming up to a 1-foot rise.
Developers cannot bring fill into a floodway. So, doing anything on this property will likely mean stilts, structural analyses, and more. Chapter 19 of the City’s floodplain regulations lays out the requirements.
Current activity is not visible from WLHP. So, please contact me if you hear or see anything.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/25/26
3130 Days since Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.
TxGIO, DIR StratMap Contracts: Strategic Asset for Texas Communities
3/23/26 – The Texas Water Development Board recently issued a press release about the State’s Geographic Information Office (TxGIO) and Department of Information Resources (DIR) contracts. The concepts discussed in the article affect many growing areas in the San Jacinto watershed, which is plagued by political fragmentation.
Dozens of counties, cities, and utility districts share responsibility for development, drainage, and flood-control. But they update their flood maps infrequently and irregularly. So, engineers and hydrologists often have trouble planning. They have a fragmented, incomplete picture of what’s going on around them.
But these state systems help to change that. Two key takeaways:
The press release, reprinted below, talks about many synergies already discovered with these ingenious systems. They increase collaboration, speed, and cost sharing to improve planning and reduce flood risk.
From TWDB’s Texas Water Newsroom
Imagine two neighboring communities facing the same challenge.
A small watershed authority in East Texas needs high-resolution elevation data. Recent storms have rewritten floodplain maps, and the old topography simply doesn’t match what residents now experience during heavy rains. Engineers need accurate models. Emergency managers need better evacuation planning. The watershed authority has the expertise to specify the data but lacks the budget to acquire it.
Forty miles away, a county engineering department faces the same problem. New development pressures require updated drainage studies. The county’s flood maps show their age. Engineers spend hours adjusting for known errors rather than designing solutions. They have budget allocated but procurement rules demand a competitive bidding process that will take a year or more to complete.
Both entities will acquire elevation data eventually, but they’ll pay different prices and receive deliverables that may not align at their shared boundaries. This fragmentation describes how Texas communities acquired geospatial data for decades—a siloed process that was slow and inefficient, with few opportunities for collaboration. The old way treated every project as a fresh start rather than a contribution to shared infrastructure.
StratMap Contracts
The Texas Geographic Information Office (TxGIO) and the Department of Information Resources (DIR) Geographic Information Systems (GIS) & Digital Land Surveying Products and Services contracts—known collectively as the StratMap contracts—were developed to be a far more streamlined procurement model.
The StratMap program was originally established in 1997 by Senate Bill 1 to develop consistent statewide digital data layers. Since then, its primary goal has been to acquire and improve digital geographic data for statewide mapping applications, and the program also maintains comprehensive data standard specifications to ensure consistent, high-quality data products across Texas. The TxGIO StratMap program administers and promotes the StratMap contracts, and TxGIO uses those contracts to get the data it needs to develop and maintain consistent statewide digital data layers.
For hydrologists modeling flood risks, engineers designing infrastructure, GIS professionals building applications, and citizens depending on sound governance, the StratMap contracts deliver what communities need most: quality geospatial services, software, and hardware at competitive prices.
How StratMap contracts work
The genius of the StratMap Contracts lies in their simplicity—generally, the state negotiates GIS contracts every five years so that individual communities and governmental entities don’t have to do it themselves. Before signing any potential StratMap vendor contracts, a team of GIS technical experts from TxGIO and DIR contract specialists evaluate every company seeking a StratMap contract based upon their project experience, technology innovation, professional staff, and available resources.
Companies that pass this review earn a place on the DIR Master Contracts list as qualified providers. These pre-approved providers serve Texas state, regional, and local government offices, including river and water authorities, and public education entities. Each approved vendor maintains a Pricing Index on their DIR contract page that lists available products, services, and software alongside pre-negotiated percentage discounts.
The three-step procurement process
Once a community identifies a need, the typical path forward contains three steps:
That’s it. No months spent drafting and reviewing contracts. The master contracts already satisfy procurement requirements and enable entities to quickly obtain competitive bids from multiple pre-qualified vendors in one place. For state agencies, additional thresholds govern statement of work requirements and processes. But for most local governments, these three steps represent all the administrative requirements.
Complete geospatial coverage
StratMap Contracts cover the full spectrum of GIS:
Whether a community needs new data, help managing a project, or software to analyze existing information, the contracts provide access to quality vendors who can provide what they need. This streamlined procurement process alone is a huge benefit, but incredible strategic value emerges when communities start collaborating.
TxGIO is a collaboration facilitator
No single city or county sees the full map of geospatial activity across Texas, but TxGIO does. Through quarterly community meetings, TxGIO maintains visibility into which projects are being planned, where overlap may exist, and potential partnerships. When a community notifies TxGIO about a potential project, they don’t simply file the information. TxGIO scans for matches and considers who else might need the data to uncover opportunities that isolated communities may not find on their own. This approach allows communities to discover shared challenges and data requirements and combine their budgets to expand the scope of projects and meet their needs more effectively.
Cost sharing as standard practice
StratMap actively cultivates collaboration. Communities that use StratMap learn to start every project conversation with a simple question: “Who else might need this?”
Sometimes the answer reveals unexpected partners. A city planning some new parks might connect with a county assessing conservation easements. A groundwater district modeling aquifers might align with a utility mapping critical infrastructure. A school district planning new facilities might coordinate with emergency services designing evacuation routes. Each partnership multiplies the value of every dollar spent and builds relationships that endure beyond individual projects. Collaboration normalizes the idea that geospatial data serves regional needs.
The specification dividend
Partnerships under StratMap deliver another hidden benefit: better specifications.
When multiple entities collaborate on a statement of work, each brings distinct requirements to the table. The watershed authority prioritizes vertical accuracy for flood modeling. The county emphasizes land cover classification for drainage analysis. A participating city cares about planimetric features for infrastructure management.
Vendors receive requirements that reflect diverse, real-world needs rather than a single department’s perspective. The resulting data serves more purposes, satisfies more stakeholders, and delivers greater return on investment. TxGIO staff facilitate these conversations, helping partners balance competing priorities and arrive at specifications that work for everyone. Their experience across dozens of projects informs recommendations that communities couldn’t develop independently. This collaboration pays in immediate cost savings, in better data, and in regional relationships that strengthen Texas communities for years to come.
The compounding value of data in the public domain
For TxGIO StratMap projects, after vendors deliver final products and independent quality assurance confirms their accuracy, the data enters the public domain. TxGIO staff verify deliverables, integrate them into statewide collections, and make them available to everyone.
Traditional procurement treats data as a consumable. A community pays for it, uses it, and eventually replaces it, so its value degrades over time. The StratMap program inverts this model. TxGIO projects add to a growing public repository. Each new dataset increases the repository’s utility, and new users discover applications for that data that the original sponsors never imagined.
And because TxGIO maintains all StratMap deliverables, staff understand what works and what doesn’t. They have worked with more than 80 different agencies in Texas, from river authorities to municipalities, counties, and councils of government. So, TxGIO sees which specifications produce reliable results. They track which vendors consistently deliver quality and can identify emerging technologies that improve accuracy or reduce costs.
This experience informs future statements of work. When the next community plans a project, TxGIO staff recommend specifications refined through dozens of previous efforts. They warn against approaches that failed elsewhere and can suggest others that succeeded. Each project learns from every project that came before, which ensures that every Texas community, regardless of size or budget, can build on the best available information.
StratMap prepares Texas communities for the future
Texas faces challenges in the coming decades, from population growth to flood risks that will require sophisticated modeling and environmental needs that will demand informed management. Communities need accurate geospatial information to navigate these challenges effectively.
The StratMap contracts can help provide the foundational data upon which solutions to those challenges depend.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/23/26
3128 Days since Hurricane Harvey