SpaceX’s futuristic city of Starbase finalizes massive 7,100-acre annexation. Here’s what we know.

The South Texas city of Starbase, a self-described futuristic community focused on helping trillionaire Elon Musk build reusable rockets to explore outer space through Space Exploration Technologies Corp., was roughly 1,000 acres across with about 250 registered voters about a year ago. 

As of Sept. 21, Starbase officially expanded its boundaries about seven times that to about 8,100 acres after annexing 7,133 acres. Only 280 different property owners span that swathe of largely undeveloped land, and the annexation was not requested or voluntary, but at least 12 landowners offered signatures to help make the deal happen. 

Elon Musk’s mission to take humans to the Moon and back, then eventually Mars, has been financed in part by U.S. government contracts, a growing Starlink satellite network, and various other affiliated businesses. 

Land control has been a cornerstone of Musk’s plans, and it has expanded across the Cameron County peninsula of Boca Chica from the beach toward the city of Brownsville and onto South Padre Island. That land is not only changing hands quickly every day, but construction and roads are popping up where a sandy expanse stood for generations. 

It’s hard to keep track of exactly what all the projects are, as the startup’s plans change as quickly as its founder’s public temperament, but a public records trail is available through land use. Not all property owners are on board with SpaceX and the city of Starbase’s plans either. 

Starbase’s big annexation deal 

The largest annexation at play includes land owned by U.S. Fish and Wildlife, a federal government park and recreation agency, which is the largest property owner by acreage near Boca Chica Beach, spanning 3,900 acres. 

That 3,900 acres is now under the jurisdiction of the city of Starbase but is still owned by the federal government. 

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and its affiliated companies, such as Dogleg Park, owned about 1,300 acres, while Texas Parks and Wildlife owns about 1,000 acres inside what is now under city zoning control. Maps show that most of Starbase’s zoning appears to allow mixed-use development and a growing industrial campus. 

“Most of that land is submerged underwater, and a lot of the land is owned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife or Texas Parks,” Cayetana Polanco, city administrator of the city of Starbase, told the Rio Grande Valley Business Journal. “We do take seriously the environmental footprint that the city can have, and by having all this area [under zoning control], how can we actually preserve it?” 

The most recent version of the full property owner list proposed for 7,133-acre annexation was shared on Monday with about 15 minutes to spare before the city commission meeting began. 

The Journal reviewed previous versions of the landowner list dating back to early 2026, but this version appeared to have more details, including forwarding addresses, and sometimes left no way to contact the landowner. 

That’s in part because the community was created back in the 1960s and sold to Polish Americans in Chicago over the generations, but Hurricane Beulah destroyed the area, and roughly two dozen homes were built at the failed settlement. 

About 21 of the parcels are still owned by the developer’s estate, John Caputa, which did not have a forwarding address for heirs, according to Starbase’s records. 

It was a long process to attempt to contact all the landowners. 

“If you look at the parcel list, the amount of returned envelopes that we got, then we’d try to send them again, it was real. We tried our best to send them to as many people as we could,” Polanco said. 

Starbase initially wanted the annexation for safety measures, since the properties are remote compared to Brownsville and Cameron County at large and share an international boundary with Mexico across the Rio Grande River. 

“The biggest inspiration was really if you look at the area and the map, before it was between Cameron County and then Starbase and on and on. It was patchy. So pretty much if there was an event where there was an emergency, who would go to dispatch?” Polanco said. “We put this [annexation] petition together so that as this land becomes part of our [extra territorial jurisdiction] and our services increase because that will happen as our city continues to grow. Right now we have police, we’re working on fire so that if there’s an emergency out there we can address it.” 

The city previously certified that at least 50% of landowners favored the annexation, which was not voluntary or requested at large. 

Some landowners unhappy with Starbase’s plans

But some property owners say Starbase has not been transparent about their calculations – whether they are referring to the number of parcels, acres, or number of individual property owners. 

There were about 600 acres of independent property owners, from technology startups like Space Ocean Corp., which seeks to become a subcontractor of SpaceX, to hundreds of residential parcel owners – many of whom are heirs and live outside of the Rio Grande Valley. 

The majority of the land Starbase annexed remains undeveloped, whether by choice or law, by individuals, families or government agencies. 

Like Barb Buckner, who inherited property from her mother, the Polish community that was in the works decades ago. 

“When this whole thing first started, I reached out to the city and I was like, okay, what are you doing as far as bringing infrastructure to our land if you’re going to annex us in? I was told the only reason they were doing it was to extend police service, which I don’t need because it’s undeveloped land,” Buckner told the Journal. “They won’t answer questions. The majority of the private landowners live in Chicago so we have no [virtual] access to the meetings. They won’t allow any zoom calls. They’re trying to keep landowners in the dark skating the law to try and shove this through. And tell me why it takes 3 weeks for a certified mail to get from Brownsville to Chicago. God, my HOA has video conferencing for all of us to participate. [Starbase] don’t want us involved.”

Buckner, who is going through cancer treatment and living in Dallas, has not been approached by SpaceX to acquire her property, which was supposed to be a homestead and sits just outside the gated community of Starbase. 

“I think if they really had been transparent and told us everything we needed to know they would not have had the votes to do this, that’s why they went around this process to do it,” Buckner said. “I think they are going to rezone the land and force us to sell it at a loss so SpaceX can purchase it, I think that’s what their ultimate goal is.” 

In response, Starbase administrator Polanco said she was confident that the city followed the state annexation procedure and law but declined to share methodology. 

“We’ve had multiple sets of attorneys revise and check it,” she said. 

In exchange for annexation, Starbase is offering property owners not just a new tax bill but a police department, volunteer fire department, and coordination with Cameron County law enforcement, Texas Department of Public Safety troopers, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents who operate a mobile building and previously had a checkpoint on the highway. 

Every other developed section of the city has been gated, even shielding public roadways from traffic flows. But city leaders previously said there are no plans for more security gates or fencing around the proposed annexation. 

Several hundred people live inside Starbase city limits; population density is unlikely to increase significantly with the proposed annexation. Nor is more commercial or residential development expected because the land is mostly inside the floodplain. 

The annexation also affects land tied to previously proposed environmental mitigation commitments.

A 1200-acre environmental mitigation bank — intended to offset the destruction caused by the development of the sprawling rocket-launching manufacturing facility, launchpad, commercial buildings, and residential properties built in the past year — is still part of the plan. Some sections of the land proposed for annexation fall within the previously proposed mitigation zone. 

“You’re going to see next year, we’re going to double down on our environmental causes. A lot of the people who live in the city experience it every day so we want to make sure that it’s a beautiful place to live,” Polanco said. “I think people should be excited. Change is always scary but this is an up and coming city that has already brought so much work and talent we have here. I’ve been in so many meetings with Brownsville officials where they used to talk about brain drain and now they’re talking about brain gain.”

Growing towards Brownsville now 

The sweeping 7,133-acre annexation was separate from the 444 acres the city of Brownsville disannexed in recent weeks. 

That 444-acre lot has now been used to expand Starbase’s extraterritorial jurisdiction and has also been voluntarily annexed at the request of SpaceX as the landowner – the result of a private sale involving 28 different individuals. 

There’s significant construction at the 444-acre tract now, with what appears to be a private gravel road between Texas Highway 4 or Boca Chica Boulevard and the Port of Brownsville. 

A Mission-based cement contractor, 57 Concrete, is also hiring CDL drivers to keep up with what appears to be day-and-night demand for building materials. 

Technically, SpaceX purchased 1,000 acres but kept the remaining 556 acres inside Brownsville city limits. 

Separately, there’s also a 715-acre land swap that is moving forward after a judge denied a preliminary injunction by environmental activists, as opposition that enables the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to move forward with the exchange of land near Boca Chica Beach for 683 acres of land owned by SpaceX adjacent to the Laguna Atacosa National Wildlife Refuge. 

SpaceX plans to expand its Massey Test Site, where rockets manufactured at Gigabay and other facilities are tested before and after launches, on the formerly protected wildlife refuge land, according to the company. 

Plans for a private truck road take shape 

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also received plans for environmental review of a new 2.7-mile-long private roadway that would be parallel to State Highway 4, which is routinely closed before launches. The application appears to indicate that the new private road would be for trucks. It was not immediately clear if construction on that road is already underway, but there is a flurry of contractors doing road construction work in the immediate vicinity of that private road plan. 

Workers are on site overnight, as the entire area is lit with temporary lamps; even the road to the Port of Brownsville, a secondary entrance from Boca Chica Boulevard, can now be seen at night. 

The proposed “heavy haul route [would be used] to transport Starship and Super Heavy rocket components and associated launch infrastructure between the Massey Test Facility and SpaceX Production Facility,” according to the SpaceX application. 

Environmental activists are still pushing back against the annexation, the land swaps, and all the land acquisition and destruction of what was previously undeveloped wildlife refuge and privately owned land near Boca Chica Beach – which is still a public beach. 

Rebekah Hinojosa, co-founder of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, delivered a petition with thousands of signatures against SpaceX and Starbase’s plans and read public comment from three landowners, including Buckner, into the public record at the podium of the city of Starbase meeting on Monday. 

“My apartment 20 miles away also shakes and vibrates [during SpaceX] launches,” Hinojosa said. “We are deeply concerned about you not being transparent about your plans. Local residents do not want to see the city of Starbase grow because it would mean damage to Boca Chica Beach.”