The meeting, which will include a staff presentation and a public hearing on the matter, will begin at 7 p.m.at the Plano Municipal Center. The council can then decide to table the issue, make slight revisions or approve the zoning as presented. The city’s Planning and Zoning Commission has already recommended approval with a vote of 6-2.
Drone delivery currently has a 1- to 6-mile service radius, and aircraft is generally under 55 pounds but can be larger. The first commercial service from air taxis in the United States is expected in 2025.
“This is an emerging technology, so we wanted to make sure we were looking at what existed today but also showing a measure of caution in how we implement this and how it impacts neighboring properties and looking at consistency with other uses and standards across the ordinance,” said Christina Day, director of planning, during an Oct. 23 council meeting.
The proposed amendments to the zoning would add three new definitions and modify two existing ones to allow for unmanned aircraft drone delivery from commercial drone delivery hubs and advanced air mobility, also called air taxis.
Use-specific regulations outlined in the proposed amendments include standards addressing the size, location and screening of the drone staging areas, buffer requirements between staging areas and sensitive land uses and parking and loading requirements.
“We’ve allowed drone delivery as an accessory to different functions within the zoning ordinance things like food stores, restaurants, retail stores, anything that could have package type deliveries — also warehousing and distribution centers that could have larger distribution opportunities,” Day said during the meeting.
However, the city is limited primarily to regulating land use — including location of the hubs and other ground-based facilities. Cities cannot regulate flight paths, flight altitude, number of flights or packaging contents as those are under the Federal Aviation Administration jurisdiction.
“It’s complicated because the drone delivery in the sky is basically regulated by the FAA, and our ability to regulate is about operation at the ground so that’s what we’re looking at,” said Christina Sebastian, land records planning manager with the city.
A little over a year ago, the Planning and Zoning Commission began discussions after DroneUp expressed a desire to operate in the city. The commission has since held a public hearing and recommended approval of the ordinance to the council, which has also held a public hearing.
DroneUp is already operating out of a Walmart Neighborhood Market on Custer Road in Plano, even though it is not a permitted use. DroneUp received a notice of violation, but the city has held off on any further enforcement due to the discussions underway at the council, according to Sebastian.
The city has also looked into the operations of Amazon Prime Air and Causey Aviation Unmanned and received letters of interest from companies and agencies, including the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) and the Small UAV Coalition.
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