Rep. Gary Gates’ committee will take invited and public testimony on whether the spread of municipal utility districts helps or hurts housing affordability, and will review the General Land Office, School Land Board and Board for Lease of University Lands.
When: 9:00 AM CT, Tuesday, July 21, 2026
Where: Room E2.026, Capitol Extension, Austin
Chair: Rep. Gary Gates, R–Richmond (HD-28)
Vice Chair: Rep. Suleman Lalani, D–Sugar Land (HD-76)
Format: Invited and public testimony; public testimony may be limited at the chair’s discretion; interim charges only — no vote on legislation
Live video: house.texas.gov/video-audio
Submit comments online: comments.house.texas.gov/home?c=c360 (open until the hearing adjourns)
Full agenda: Official hearing notice (capitol.texas.gov)
The Texas House Committee on Land & Resource Management will gavel in at 9 a.m. Tuesday for a second day to examine the proliferation of municipal utility districts — the developer-created taxing districts that finance streets, water and sewer lines in much of suburban Texas — and to conduct oversight of the three state land agencies in its portfolio. The panel will hear invited and public testimony on both interim charges.
Chaired by Rep. Gary Gates, R-Richmond, the nine-member committee carries a 5-4 Republican majority and holds jurisdiction over public lands, annexation, zoning and land use. Tuesday’s session is the second of back-to-back hearings: the committee meets Monday on implementation of the 2025 housing laws and housing affordability, then returns to the same room to look at the growth machinery underneath much of that new housing.
The Municipal Utility Districts charge asks members to weigh MUDs’ impact on housing attainability, the challenges of managing growth, how the districts are created, and whether oversight is sufficient. MUDs are political subdivisions authorized by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to provide water, sewer, drainage and related services, typically in master-planned communities beyond the reach of existing city infrastructure, according to the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University. Developers use them as a financing tool: a district issues bonds to build the pipes and plants up front, and property taxes levied on homeowners inside the district repay the bonds over time.
Creation and supervision both run through TCEQ under Chapter 54 of the Water Code — the agency reviews formation applications and appoints a temporary board of directors until residents can elect their own — though the Legislature also creates districts directly by special act, a route lawmakers use every session.
Recent reforms have focused on transparency for homebuyers: 2023 legislation rewrote the disclosure notice sellers must give purchasers about a district’s taxes and bonded debt, per the Texas Real Estate Research Center, and districts report financial and tax data to the Comptroller’s Special Purpose District Public Information Database. Expect testimony on whether MUD financing keeps new-home prices down by shifting infrastructure costs off the sticker price — or simply moves them into decades of district tax bills.
The Agency Oversight charge rests on the committee’s monitoring authority under Section 301.014 of the Government Code, including watch for fraud, waste and abuse. Three agencies fall in its jurisdiction: the General Land Office, led by Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, which manages state lands and mineral rights dedicated to the Permanent School Fund; the School Land Board, which approves land sales, leases and investments for that fund; and the Board for Lease of University Lands, which oversees oil and gas leasing on lands held for the Permanent University Fund in West Texas. The notice opens electronic comment on all three agencies as well as the MUD charge.
Because the committee is meeting in the interim, it will take no vote on legislation. Its findings will feed recommendations to the 90th Legislature, which convenes in January 2027, and Texans who cannot attend can submit written comments on any agenda item through the committee’s online portal until the hearing adjourns.
Committee members
- Rep. Gary Gates, R–Richmond (HD-28) — Chair
- Rep. Suleman Lalani, D–Sugar Land (HD-76) — Vice Chair
- Rep. Daniel Alders, R–Tyler (HD-6)
- Rep. Yvonne Davis, D–Dallas (HD-111)
- Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D–Austin (HD-49)
- Rep. Todd Hunter, R–Corpus Christi (HD-32)
- Rep. Ray Lopez, D–San Antonio (HD-125)
- Rep. Matt Morgan, R–Richmond (HD-26)
- Rep. Wes Virdell, R–Brady (HD-53)