As Drone Delivery Expands, Cities Turn to Zoning Rules to Address Local Concerns

Communities explore land use restrictions to manage drone delivery hubs while federal authorities retain control of the airspace.

As drone delivery services expand their operations, bringing their service to new areas across the country, local municipalities are scrambling to enact regulations to limit the potential negative impacts on their communities.

Because the FAA regulation of the national airspace gives it the sole authority to regulate operational factors such as altitude restrictions and flight paths, cities and towns are focusing on crafting ordinances to regulate the territory that they control – the ground.

One city considering adopting a land-use ordinance to regulate future drone delivery staging areas is Northglenn, Colorado. Although the Rocky Mountain town located about 20 miles north of Denver has not yet received any applications to site a drone delivery hub within the city limits, officials think it is only a matter of time before UAVs could be crisscrossing the skies above their city, Northglenn Director of Planning and Development Becky Smith said in an interview.

“We did not have any regulations for the land use of drone delivery hubs when we had an inquiry come to us,” Smith said. Northglenn was one of several Front Range communities approached by the partnership of Walmart and Wing to inquire about the potential expansion of drone delivery operations into the area.

Earlier this month, Wing and Walmart announced plans to begin offering their drone delivery service to communities in the Denver metropolitan area next year, part of an expansion plan that also includes the Seattle metro area.

“And so, we had a study session with our City Council and explained how we would look at a hub as a land use within our current ordinance.”

Smith said city officials had to first decide whether Northglenn could regulate drone delivery hubs under its existing land use regulation, or if they needed to enact a new ordinance with use-specific regulations for UAS operations. They decided on the latter course of action.

The proposed drone hub land-use ordinance had its first reading before the City Council on October 12. There will be a second reading on October 26. If the council approves the ordinance, interested parties will be required to apply for a one-year special-use permit in order to operate a drone delivery hub.

Among the restrictions in the special-use permit: drone delivery hub operators will only be permitted in areas zoned for industrial usage; drone staging areas will be limited to 10% of the total lot area or no more than 10,000 square feet, whichever is less; and commercial drone delivery hub operations will be limited to between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. and not permitted to take place outside of the operating hours of the drone hub’s principal retail establishment.

Smith said city officials have also heard of some drone delivery services wanting to put their drone staging areas on rooftops, so the ordinance includes regulations for those configurations.

In addition, delivery hubs will not be allowed within 200 feet of: a single- or multi-family residential zoned parcel or lot; a licensed childcare center, school, or residential childcare facility; or critical facilities including police, fire, or utility sites.

Noise from the operation must not exceed 65 decibels at any point on the property boundary line. The city also retains the authority to regulate noise “to the fullest extent permitted by applicable federal and state law, as the same may be amended from time to time.”

The operator will also be required to file an incident and emergency response plan with the city and comply with all applicable state and federal laws and licensing regulations.

Smith said the various cities in Colorado are preparing for the advent of drone delivery services coming to their towns in different ways.

“We reached out to several communities and we don’t think that – as far as we know – any other Colorado communities on the Front Range have an ordinance that’s specific to drone delivery,” she said. “I think there are some (cities) south of Denver that have put a moratorium on it, to study it and see how things roll out.”

Salem, Oregon, to study its options

Cities in other parts of the country are also dealing with similar issues regarding how to regulate drone delivery hubs. On October 12, the City Council of Salem, Oregon, voted to study what regulations it could impose on UAS delivery operations.

City Councilor Paul Tigan, who introduced the motion, said he wanted to get in front of the issue before it arises in Oregon’s capital city.

“But I think like others, I had seen some national reporting about drone delivery taking off – sorry for the pun – in other parts of the country,” he said. “I really wanted to begin a conversation with my colleagues on the City Council and the city staff about what kind of authorities we might have to control, influence and regulate on how drone delivery takes place in Salem if it comes here in the future.”

He noted that Amazon Prime Air is expected to start drone deliveries based out of a facility in Portland, about 50 miles north of Salem, in early 2027.

Tigan’s motion directs city officials to explore the option of using zoning rules to regulate the ground facilities that drone delivery services depend upon. It also calls on the city to lobby the state Legislature to pass a bill “that lets cities set time, place and manner rules for delivery drones, such as delivery hours, drop-off locations and noise.”

“Chiefly, my first concern is quality of life and the idea of 100-pound drones flying all over the city of Salem and delivering toothbrushes or whatever, doesn’t fit my idea of quality of life,” Tigan said. In fact, Amazon Prime Air’s flagship delivery drone, the MK30, has an empty aircraft weight of approximately 78 pounds and a maximum takeoff weight of 83.2 pounds.

“They’re very noisy. They’re very invasive. People have privacy concerns about them, which they should,” he said. “What the impact on the community is going to be – that’s really the kind of thing we’re trying to get ahead of.”

Tigan said the city is confronting similar issues concerning land use rules that haven’t kept pace with the changing face of technology, as it considers an application to site an artificial intelligence (AI) data center in its community.

“Our community has really asked us to think about what kind of changes are coming down the pike and this is one of those things,” he said. “And it does seem that in some ways that the technology’s moving faster than community acceptance, and I think that’s something that these companies are going to grow to understand.”