Environmental advocates push back as Starbase votes to dramatically expand city limits near Boca Chica Beach

Environmental groups are pushing back after Starbase officials voted unanimously on Wednesday to annex 7,133 acres near Boca Chica Beach, a move that would expand the city’s footprint from roughly 927 acres to nearly 8,000.

Much of the land Starbase wants is owned by the state and federal governments as part of the Boca Chica Wildlife Refuge, but SpaceX already owns large swaths within the annexation footprint, along with other private property owners. 

Now the city must notify all property owners about the decision and hold a public hearing. 

The city is also creating its own police department, which would, in theory, be responsible for the roughly 8,000-acre city’s security system. 

City leaders say its proposed larger footprint, which would extend to the Boca Chica beach dunes and Rio Grande River banks, enables its new police and fire departments to become first responders for the entire community without a patchwork of state, federal and county jurisdictions overlapping each other. 

“The Starbase police department will be the primary law enforcement in and around the city of Starbase,” Starbase Mayor Robert “Bobby” Penden said in a rare public statement. “They’ll be working in close coordination with state and federal partners on safety, security and border operations. It gives us a more cohesive boundary.” 

In the case of an emergency, such as a wildfire, first responders won’t have to wait until they confirm land ownership before starting to fight fires, Penden said. 

“There’ll be natural and unavoidable conflicts throughout this process about who has what and where is the jurisdiction. And this offers an opportunity to clean up the kind of hodgepodge nature of many of the parcels that exist,” he said. “It’s a long process from here, many opportunities for input from the public.” 

That includes opposition, such as protests from local environmental activists. 

“This annexation really feels like a rapid, hostile takeover of our coastline and our community by SpaceX and Elon Musk,” said Rebekah Hinojosa, co-founder of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network. “We are extremely opposed to SpaceX’s company town Starbase rapidly taking over control of Boca Chica Beach. Families have been going to Boca Chica Beach for generations. Starbase is taking away that access.” 

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

This annexation would be separate from a previous request SpaceX made to President Donald Trump about a land swap of federal wildlife refuge property which spans several hundred acres. 

“SpaceX is constantly going to different regulators to try and swallow up more and more land,” Hinojosa said. “These companies claim they want to mitigate harm, but what we’ve seen is these rocket launches disrupt our lives. We demand that regulators do something about this.” 

Right now, several hundred people live inside Starbase city limits; it’s unlikely that population density will increase significantly with the proposed annexation. 

Nor is there expected to be more commercial or residential development because the land is mostly inside the floodplain. 

“It’s an area that has zero population, so we don’t anticipate the need for any gates,” said Kent Myers, city of Starbase administrator. “At this point we have not assessed what areas are developable or not.” 

The proposed annexation requires at least 51% of property owners to agree to the decision. 

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. 

“It will actually allow us to implement the whole plan for that area,” Myers said about the environmental mitigation plan. 

Starbase expects to collect $4.2 million in property taxes this year, its main source of revenue, since it does not levy sales taxes. It was not immediately clear how much more in taxes the city could collect from a larger tax base, though Myers mentioned that the value of the land was minimal. 

In July 2025, Cameron County estimated the market value of all real property within the city of Starbase at $371 million. When business personal property was included, the total appraised value was $790 million. About $10.4 million of which was exempt through tax abatement, records show.