{"id":163883,"date":"2026-02-13T23:29:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T23:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/163883\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T23:29:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T23:29:12","slug":"richardson-residents-voice-concern-about-amazon-delivery-drone-noise-frequency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/163883\/","title":{"rendered":"Richardson residents voice concern about Amazon delivery drone noise, frequency"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRichardson residents voiced concerns about the noise and frequency of Amazon delivery drones in their neighborhood at recent City Council meetings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey not only fly down our street, but even when I\u2019m walking around our neighborhood, you hear them all the time,\u201d said Scott Burns, a resident on Birchwood Lane in the Woods of Spring Creek neighborhood. \u201cYou can hear them in your home. It feels like an air raid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some context<\/p>\n

In June, Council approved<\/a> a zoning change with a 4-3 vote to allow Amazon to offer drone deliveries within a 7.5-mile radius of its Richardson facility on Research Drive.<\/p>\n

The drones launched in December, and since then, City Manager Don Magner said the city has received dozens of complaints from residents about the noise, frequency and height of the drones. In addition to Amazon, Magner said Walmart is also operating delivery drones in Richardson.<\/p>\n

However, the city cannot regulate most of the issues brought up in these complaints, Magner said, as the drones are largely regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration<\/a>. Council did limit the delivery hours to 7 a.m.-8 p.m. when they passed the zoning change.<\/p>\n

Magner said the city has been directing residents to file complaints with the FAA and Amazon. On Feb. 2, Magner said city staff have met several times with representatives from Amazon, including the engineers who are responsible for designing and operating the drone program.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to reassure you that we\u2019re working very hard, and I\u2019m optimistic about some of the changes that are currently being designed by engineers,\u201d Magner said at the meeting.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s happening?<\/p>\n

A number of residents, primarily from the Woods of Spring Creek neighborhood located near Amazon\u2019s facility, have brought their drone complaints to council. At the Feb. 2 meeting, Stephanie Puri said she has been keeping track of the drones flying over her Birchwood Lane house.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have data to support that on a single day, 122 drones were logged flying directly over my home in a 10-hour period, which feels like an excessive amount,\u201d Puri said. \u201cThat\u2019s about every five minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also said she observed a drone flying over her house at 6:31 a.m., outside of Amazon\u2019s operating hours. She said she has been actively reaching out to Amazon with no response.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is very disruptive. I\u2019ve been in the same house for 26 years,\u201d said Scott Bratcher, the Home Owner\u2019s Association president of the Woods of Spring Creek neighborhood. \u201cWe\u2019re not able to sit in the backyard anymore because they are flying over about every four or five minutes all day long.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the drones are not supposed to fly lower than 115 feet<\/a>, Angie Rogers, who also lives on Birchwood Lane, said she has videos of drones flying lower than that near her house.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can hear these drones inside of my house. They are not the whirr of a refrigerator as I think was proposed to you guys,\u201d Rogers said at the Jan. 5 council meeting. \u201cThey are very loud. I can hear them inside my house with the TV on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going forward<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand that we can\u2019t control what the FAA does and that\u2019s airspace regulated by them, but I would like us to conduct a noise impact study because this has become uncontrollable,\u201d Puri said.<\/p>\n

Several residents said they would prefer if the drones travelled over nearby Renner Road instead of their neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have Renner and Telecom and Shiloh [that] would be great places for these drones to fly before they drop their packages off,\u201d Rogers said. \u201cI don\u2019t see a reason why they need to go right over my backyard.\u201d\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richardson residents voiced concerns about the noise and frequency of Amazon delivery drones in their neighborhood at recent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[5559,4519,29480,4018,66978,160,162,161,959],"class_list":{"0":"post-163883","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-plano","8":"tag-amazon","9":"tag-city-council","10":"tag-delivery","11":"tag-drones","12":"tag-noise","13":"tag-plano","14":"tag-plano-headlines","15":"tag-plano-news","16":"tag-richardson"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}