Overview
- The town voted 510-13 at a special meeting Monday to adopt a bylaw that would ban commercial drone launch pads and ground staging inside Westborough.
- The bylaw focuses on ground-level operations, sets a 150-foot buffer from employee areas, includes privacy and emergency exceptions, and must be approved by the Massachusetts attorney general and MassDOT Aeronautics before it takes effect.
- MassDOT has told Amazon it must complete a suitability and public safety review through its Aeronautics Division, and a Zoning Board of Appeals hearing on a pending appeal is scheduled for November 2 and could require Amazon to seek a special permit.
- A bipartisan group of state lawmakers has asked the governor and attorney general to form a task force and impose a moratorium on processing commercial drone applications while rules are reviewed.
- At the federal level the FAA has relied on a July nationwide environmental finding, but congressional letters and a multistate lawsuit seek site-specific environmental review; Amazon says it is evaluating plans and will continue to engage with local officials.