Much of Montgomery County Is Unincorporated

Montgomery County has 15 incorporated places (cities and towns). But a large part of its 1,047 square miles is unincorporated. That means it sits outside any city. In Texas, unincorporated land has no county zoning. Your neighbor can often build a business or put up a structure in ways a city would not allow.

Cities also have an extraterritorial jurisdiction, or ETJ. The ETJ is a strip of land just outside city limits. The city can control how that land is split into lots. But it cannot zone the ETJ the same way it zones land inside city limits. Before you buy land, find out which category it falls in. Is it inside city limits? In an ETJ? Or fully unincorporated? Each one has different rules for building, utilities, and code enforcement.