introduced<\/a> changes to its drone delivery program in February after complaints by Richardson residents.<\/p>\nThe adjustments included increasing the minimum height of outbound flights to 225 feet and redirecting select outbound flights to route eastward over the commercial area before entering the Creek Hollow Estates neighborhood, both aimed at reducing drone noise in neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
Amazon also reduced drone overflight of the greenway east of Woodcreek Church.<\/p>\n
Sam Bailey, senior manager of economic development policy at Amazon, said there was \u201cmore work to do\u201d when he introduced the changes at the March 9 council meeting.<\/p>\n
Another thing<\/p>\n
Scott Bratcher, the Home Owner\u2019s Association president of the Woods of Spring Creek neighborhood, said the drones are still a \u201cnightmare,\u201d even after the flight adjustments. At the April 6 meeting, Bratcher said he and some of his neighbors are considering asking for a reduction in property tax value from the county.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really need to get this resolved because the noise is terrible,\u201d Bratcher said.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s next<\/p>\n
Magner said the council\u2019s decision has been communicated to the residents who made complaints with the city. He encouraged residents to direct their attention to the FAA, who can regulate flight patterns, frequency and altitude, as well as federal elected officials.<\/p>\n
Magner said he hopes the clarity around Amazon\u2019s zoning rights will encourage the company to continue working with the city to introduce adjustments to the drone program.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe council did their due diligence in evaluating their options and are doing what they believe is best for the city of Richardson and making sure that they\u2019re taking steps to not expose us to unnecessary liability,\u201d Magner said. \u201cI still believe that we can continue to refine the strategies that [Amazon] puts in place to hopefully improve as much as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richardson City Council will not pursue a rezoning of Amazon\u2019s drone delivery facility, citing legal risks, City Manager…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[94874,5559,4519,53898,4018,2399,94873,66978,160,162,161,959,13311],"class_list":{"0":"post-249941","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-plano","8":"tag-altitude","9":"tag-amazon","10":"tag-city-council","11":"tag-drone-delivery","12":"tag-drones","13":"tag-faa","14":"tag-flight-path","15":"tag-noise","16":"tag-plano","17":"tag-plano-headlines","18":"tag-plano-news","19":"tag-richardson","20":"tag-zoning"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249941","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=249941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}