September 13, 2026

Starbase calls a Tuesday special meeting. On the agenda: annexing a 444-acre SpaceX tract, the same acreage Brownsville just released

The City of Starbase has posted a Special Commission Meeting for Tuesday, September 16 at 7:00 PM (48491 State Highway 4). We pulled the agenda, and the headline business is land: a public hearing plus same-night votes on annexing approximately 444.46 acres: the "Garcia Lot," out of the Garcia–Doughtery Property in the San Martin Grant, petitioned by Space Exploration Technologies Corp. under the voluntary (owner-requested) annexation process, with a companion ordinance expanding the city's extraterritorial jurisdiction over the same tract (Ordinances 2026-24 and 2026-25). The agenda also has the city appointing a City Clerk and setting the clerk's bond.

Here's the part we'll label as our read, because neither city has said it in as many words: 444 acres is the same acreage Brownsville voted to disannex on August 29 as half of the Project Quantum deal (our September 12 item), and the petitioner in both cases is SpaceX. If the tracts match, the corridor near the Port of Brownsville wouldn't just be leaving Brownsville's zoning authority; it would be joining the City of Starbase. We'll confirm against the ordinance exhibits after Tuesday's meeting.

Keep the two annexations straight: this is not the big one. The separate, consent-based ~7,100-acre C-4 annexation still has its own public hearing Monday, September 21 at 7:00 PM (corrected Sept. 15: this item originally said Sunday; the 21st is a Monday); the legal notice remains posted on the city site. For Tuesday: public comment requires a speaker card filed five minutes before the meeting, two minutes per speaker (three during the public hearing). And note the calendar crunch: the special meeting lands two days before Flight 14's launch window opens.

Sources: City of Starbase — meeting listing · Special Meeting Agenda, Sept. 16 (PDF, read in full) · Texas Tribune — Brownsville disannexation (Aug. 31)

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