Weeks after the city of Buda announced its controversial contract with Electro Purification expired, the city of Kyle is making moves to supply water to another of the company’s prospective customers.

Anthem, a master-planned community northwest of Kyle and in Mountain City’s extraterritorial jurisdiction, had agreed to buy water EP planned to pump from the Middle Trinity Aquifer in central Hays County.

But the city of Kyle could provide water to the 1,700-home development instead after Kyle City Council approved an agreement to bring private land in Dripping Springs’ territory into Kyle's ETJ, unincorporated land the city reserves the right to annex.

Kyle City Council voted 6-0 to approve an agreement to bring the tract of unincorporated Dripping Springs land into Kyle’s ETJ on Nov. 17. Dripping Springs will now consider whether to approve the request in the form of letters from both the city of Kyle and the Dahlstrom family, landowners whose ranch spans 2,254 acres in the Onion Creek watershed west of Buda. The Dahlstrom Ranch is partially in Buda, Austin and Dripping Springs territory.

The Anthem property is not entirely contiguous with Kyle’s territory, a requirement before Kyle can extend its municipal water system to Anthem. The portion of the Dahlstrom Ranch in question connects to Kyle's northern boundary and to the Anthem property from the northeast.

“[The Dahlstrom Family] wanted to be a partner in helping EP not be a thing, but they weren’t interested in splitting their property into multiple jurisdictions,” Kyle Assistant City Manager James Earp said. “So they needed time to consider whether they would be willing to release all of their property or not. This is the first step in that process.”

If the Dripping Springs City Council approves the letter request from the Dahlstroms and the city of Kyle and accepts the release of its ETJ to Kyle, Mountain City would then decide whether to release the Anthem property to Kyle. Kyle city officials said it is not a certainty that will happen.

Earp said if the plan to annex Anthem falls through, Clark Wilson Builders, the master-planned community’s developer, would have to find another way to provide water utilities to its residents.

“The property is going to develop one way or another,” he said. “It’s either going to be a [municipal utility district], or it’s going to be on city utilities. There are a lot of reasons why it’s more beneficial for it to be on city utilities.”

Having to build its own wastewater treatment plant on the Anthem development is among the reasons creating a municipality utility district, or MUD, could be cumbersome to the development, Earp said.

“If Anthem becomes a MUD, there will be a wastewater treatment plant on that property,” he said. “Onion Creek would probably be the area it drains into. And that is not something that many people on Onion Creek want to see.”