{"id":8863,"date":"2025-05-04T20:26:39","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T00:26:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2025\/05\/04\/voters-approve-incorporation-of-spacex-hub-as-starbase-texas\/"},"modified":"2025-05-04T20:26:39","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T00:26:39","slug":"voters-approve-incorporation-of-spacex-hub-as-starbase-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2025\/05\/04\/voters-approve-incorporation-of-spacex-hub-as-starbase-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"Voters Approve Incorporation of SpaceX Hub as Starbase, Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Members of a South Texas community that has served as the hub of Elon Musk\u2019s rocket launch company, SpaceX, voted on Saturday to formally establish a new city called Starbase, fulfilling one of Mr. Musk\u2019s long-held dreams.<\/p>\n

All but six of the 218 people who voted supported incorporating the city of Starbase, according to Cameron County, which administered the vote.<\/p>\n

There were 283 eligible voters, said Remi Garza, the elections administrator for the county.<\/p>\n

The community, known to locals as Boca Chica, covers about 1.5 square miles on a spit of land that brushes up against the Mexican border.<\/p>\n

SpaceX broke ground in the area in 2014, and it has since become the company\u2019s central hub and launch site, as well as home to hundreds of its employees.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n

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On his social media platform, X, Mr. Musk has referred to the area as Starbase more than a dozen times in the past four years.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy primary home is literally a ~$50k house in Boca Chica \/ Starbase that I rent from SpaceX,\u201d Mr. Musk wrote in June 2021. \u201cIt\u2019s kinda awesome though.\u201d<\/p>\n

In December, people living around the company offices and launch site filed a petition to officially establish the city of Starbase, Texas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n

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The petition described a community of about 500 inhabitants, including at least 219 primary residents and more than 100 children. Nearly everyone is a renter and works at SpaceX, according to the petition.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n

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The municipality would be eligible to create its own police and fire departments, as well as to adopt its own ordinances, though it does not have to.<\/p>\n

\u201cCities are required by law to do very little,\u201d said Alan Bojorquez, a lawyer in Austin who specializes in helping Texans through the process of incorporating new municipalities.<\/p>\n

Road maintenance is one of the most significant practical issues and would no longer be handled by the county. But, as a municipality, Starbase would be eligible for state and federal grants, would have certain immunity from lawsuits and could also condemn property, Mr. Bojorquez said.<\/p>\n

\u201cStarbase started with one shovel,\u201d Mr. Musk said on X shortly after the vote was finalized.<\/p>\n

J. David Goodman contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Members of a South Texas community that has served as the hub of Elon Musk\u2019s rocket launch company, SpaceX, voted on Saturday to formally establish a new city called Starbase, fulfilling one of Mr. Musk\u2019s long-held dreams. All but six of the 218 people who voted supported incorporating the city of Starbase, according to Cameron […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-market","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}