Houston-Galveston Area Council


The Houston-Galveston Area Council is the region-wide voluntary association of local governments in the 13-county Gulf Coast Planning Region of Texas. The organization works with local government officials to solve problems across the area. H-GAC was founded in 1966.

The organization

Based in Houston, the Houston-Galveston Area Council is a member of the Texas Association of Regional Councils. Its service area is 12,500 square miles and contains more than 6 million people in Southeast Texas. H-GAC is the regional organization through which local governments consider issues and cooperate in solving area-wide problems. Through H-GAC, local governments also initiate efforts in anticipating and preventing problems.
H-GAC provides planning programs in most areas of shared governmental concern. All H-GAC programs are carried out under the policy direction of H-GAC’s local elected official Board of Directors. H-GAC is made up of the region's local governments and their elected officials. The organization works with public and private sector organizations and a host of volunteers.

Metropolitan Planning Organization

In 1974, the Governor of Texas designated a metropolitan planning organization that includes eight H-GAC counties: Brazoria, Chambers, Fort Bend, Galveston, Harris, Liberty, Montgomery, and Waller. The H-GAC Board of Directors serves as the fiscal agent for the H-GAC MPO. The MPO's Policy Board is the Transportation Policy Council, an independent policy making body. The TPC's responsibilities include: adopting the Regional Transportation Plan; selecting all federally funded and most state-funded transportation projects ; conducting a continuing, comprehensive, collaborative planning process; and demonstrating that selected projects will not hinder regional progress towards emissions reduction.

Counties served

Largest cities in the region