Brushy Creek MUD, Harris County MUD 23 and McKinney MUD 1 may not have as much notoriety as their adjacent cities, Austin, Houston and Dallas respectively, but they do serve an important purpose.

MUDs, or municipal utility districts, provide special utility services to residents who live within their boundaries. The state of Texas is known for its high volume of MUDs that help cope with large population growth in unincorporated areas.

In the first meeting of the House Committee on Special Purpose Districts, special district experts testified that MUDs are increasingly becoming a larger population base for the state. For instance, more residents live in MUDs surrounding Houston than in the city itself.

"In the MUDs around Houston, that estimated population is around 2.7 million," said Trey Lary, an expert witness and MUD proponent. "Houston's population ... is about 2.3 million."

There is no doubt that MUDs come in handy when developers are looking to bring residential building to a previously undeveloped area, but the way in which MUDs form provides a curious problem.

To start a MUD, a developer of raw land must undergo one of three processes. Developers can either petition for a new MUD through the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the county commissioner's court or the Texas legislature.

After completing one of those processes, the developer must hold an election.

To do so though, developers must find voters.

The biggest conundrum with MUD elections is that the developer needs to seek approval from voters on a piece of land that is undeveloped and therefore, uninhabited.

So, developers bring in voters to live on the land temporarily, establish residence, vote and then vacate the area once the land begins its development.

Members of the committee, all of which are new to the group, seemed surprised at the process.

"So voters are appointed by whom, the landowner, the people who are going to develop the MUD?" Vice Chairwoman Rep. Mary Ann Perez, D-Pasadena, asked.

Lary said while the permanent residents may not have a vote in the initial election, they vote afterward by choosing to live in the MUD's jurisdiction.

"We say MUD residents vote with their feet," he said. "When they choose to live in that area, they have chosen to live there and pay the associated cost."

MUDs are required to present their taxing rate prior to anyone purchasing a home in the area.

Lawmakers on the committee, who expressed dismay at the election process, were mollified knowing that no financial liability was transferred onto residents by the developers. If a developer defaults on their bond to build the MUD, they are the only ones held responsible.

The MUD must be built successfully and be operational before the MUD reimburses the developers through taxes.

According to Lary, no MUDs have defaulted on their bonds since the late 1980s.

Rep. Will Metcalf, R-Conroe, authored a bill to remove the ability for a developer to pick and choose voters close to him or her by prohibiting developers, relatives of or employees of from voting in the MUD election.

Today, after hearing about the election process of MUDs, Special Purpose Districts committee members Perez, Rep. Cecil Bell, R-Magnolia, and Chairman Rep. Jim Murphy, R-Houston, signed on as co-authors.

Here is our coverage on what a MUD does and how it works.