Williamson County ends spaceport development talks with Burnet County

Editor's note: This article has been updated to include a comment from the city of Cedar Park.

Williamson County is no longer partnering with Burnet County to create a Central Texas Spaceport Development Corporation and is instead exploring a partnership with the city of Cedar Park, a Williamson County official told Community Impact on July 22.

Cedar Park is home to Firefly Aerospace, the first commercial company to successfully land on the moon. The company’s testing facility is located in Briggs, which is within Burnet County.

“We are very excited to partner with the county and build on the successes of Firefly Aerospace's and other innovative businesses in Cedar Park to keep reaching for the stars," Cedar Park Mayor Jim Penniman-Morin said in a statement to Community Impact.

Explained

An SDC is a type of partnership that develops, manages and operates a spaceport—a specialized launch and landing facility for spacecraft, rockets and satellites, Community Impact previously reported.

According to local government code, entities eligible to authorize the creation of a spaceport development corporation include:

• A county
• A municipality with a population of 2 million or more
• A combination of one more more municipalities and one or more counties

Officials originally presented the Central Texas SDC as a partnership between Williamson and Burnet counties.

Williamson County commissioners approved the bylaws for the Central Texas SDC on March 11, and appointed four board members March 25—the same day Burnet County commissioners took no action on approving the Central Texas SDC's bylaws.

When the bylaws were placed back on the Burnet County Commissioners Court’s April 8 agenda, officials took no action a second time.

"I know there's some concern throughout the community about what the impact is and how it fits into Firefly," Burnet County Judge Bryan Wilson said April 8. "The reality is, I don't know how to move forward on this."

Burnet County Precinct 2 Commissioner Damon Beierle, who represents the Briggs area, said feedback from constituents about the SDC is 99% negative, with eminent domain and the balance of power between Williamson and Burnet counties cited as major concerns.

"The folks I'm representing are loudly screaming 'no' right now," Beierle said April 8. "There are some good aspects of this for infrastructure and things like that, but the negatives outweigh those at this time."

In a July 23 email to Community Impact, Wilson said commissioners have passed on the agenda item and it has not been brought back up.

Put in perspective

If created, the Central Texas SDC would be the sixth SDC in Texas.