Amazon’s North Haven, Connecticut, drone plan is on hold until residents, state legislators and regional mayors have been heard at meetings the company will run, First Selectman Michael Freda wrote on Facebook on Saturday, October 3, after a call from Amazon’s corporate office. On Sunday morning, Connecticut House Republican Leader Vincent Candelora, whose district includes part of North Haven, posted that the project has not been put on hold and that calling it one is “not the case.”
The two posts agree on one date. State legislators meet Amazon on Monday, October 5, Candelora wrote. Freda wrote that no decision comes before a series of such meetings.
The paper between them is the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s review of the hub, which the agency extended last week from October 1 to October 15. Candelora’s reading is that the extension is the whole change. Amazon has not said which man is right.
Freda Says Amazon Corporate Called; Candelora Says Only the Comment Window Moved
Freda’s Saturday post says he had a very good discussion with a representative of Amazon corporate, not Amazon North Haven, and that “the drone initiative is now on hold.” Amazon agreed to decide nothing until the public, legislators and regional mayors had been heard at meetings Amazon will run.
Candelora’s post, about 18 hours later, links DEEP’s notice page and says Amazon already holds the FAA’s July 28 programmatic environmental assessment, needs to apply for FAA operating approval, and must first clear the state’s coastal review. The state got an extension to October 15, legislators meet Amazon on October 5, and “the application has not been put on hold, but merely extended for two weeks.” He asked residents to keep filing written comments.
Both accounts fit the record DroneXL has. The FAA’s national finding of July 28 is the document Candelora names, and it is the one 15 states, Connecticut among them, sued over on September 28. What Amazon told Freda is a phone call with no filing behind it. What Candelora describes is the filing. A company can pause a launch while its paperwork runs, and the two posts read to me as describing different things with the same word. Amazon’s only statement on the record is spokesperson Jack Stelzner’s defense of the program to CT Insider last week, before either post. DroneXL found no Amazon statement on North Haven in the Amazon newsroom or any named outlet on the morning of October 4.
Five state legislators, four Republicans including Rep. Dave Yaccarino of North Haven and Democratic Sen. Christine Cohen of Madison, had already written DEEP Acting Commissioner Emma Cimino on September 25, CT Insider reported on October 4, citing harm to wildlife and nesting birds reacting to the drones’ noise. Yaccarino called the plan “a horrible idea” on September 30 and said the DEEP review was news to many legislators. Residents raised the same concerns at North Haven’s Board of Selectmen on Thursday, October 1, WTNH reported. The call to Freda came two days later.
DEEP Extended Its Comment Window to October 15 and Opened a New Inbox
DEEP’s public notice page for the review now says the agency has extended the comment period to October 15, 2026, and takes comments at [email protected]. The notice was first published September 16, and the original 15-day window closed October 1. The page gives no new date for DEEP’s decision.
Anyone who used the address in DroneXL’s September 28 North Haven filing guide should resend. The guide pointed readers to an analyst’s email found on a community flyer and to the division’s general permit inbox, because DEEP had not answered DroneXL’s question about where to file. DEEP’s own page now names the address, and a comment sent to the new inbox before October 15 is the one DEEP has committed to accept.
The decision date is the open piece. The FAA’s August 17 consistency request started a 60-day clock under the federal coastal rules, which ran to October 16. DEEP’s extended comment window closes the day before. Whether DEEP has asked the FAA for more time, or will rule on October 16 with one day of review after comments close, is not on the notice page, and DEEP has not said.
Neither post changes the paper. The Planning and Zoning Commission’s 5-0 approval of application P26-17 on May 4 stands. DEEP’s review is a federal consistency determination that runs on the FAA’s request regardless of what Amazon tells the town. The FAA’s drone environmental review index listed no Connecticut, North Haven or New Haven document when DroneXL checked it on the morning of October 4. The FAA’s request to DEEP described up to 1,000 flights a day inside a 7.5-mile (12-kilometer) radius, with the MK30 at 83.2 pounds (38 kilograms) at takeoff and 90.5 to 91.8 dBA SEL at 20 feet (6 meters) on takeoff and landing. Amazon’s own noise claim, made at its Westborough forum, is that the aircraft peaks below its delivery trucks. The two figures measure different things at different distances, and nobody in Connecticut has put them side by side on the record.
Westborough Was Delayed the Same Week, Not Paused
Amazon asked Westborough’s Planning Board to move its drone pad vote from October 6 to no later than November 10 in the same week, and residents appealed the town’s accessory-use ruling to the Zoning Board of Appeals. Neither step came with an Amazon statement calling Westborough paused.
DroneXL reported both in Amazon Asks Westborough to Delay Drone Pad Vote as Board Says No and Amazon’s Westborough Drone Launch Now Hinges on a Zoning Appeal. CT Insider’s account says the Westborough plan is on hold, citing MassLive. MassLive’s own October 3 report says delayed, with a vote by November 10 and a ZBA date still unset. Three Massachusetts lawmakers asked Amazon for a pause in a September 28 letter, and Amazon did not grant one on the record.
North Haven is the only hub in DroneXL’s record, including the Drone Delivery Tracker, where a town official has quoted Amazon itself calling a plan on hold since the company’s August announcement of nearly 500 communities. Westborough got its Amazon forum on September 23, which DroneXL covered in the report on residents being told the drones were coming anyway. North Haven never had one. Amazon’s Sam Bailey told the P&Z in May that the company would hold a public session, according to The Register Citizen, and the first scheduled meeting is Monday’s, with legislators rather than the public.
Residents in the North Haven circle who want to reach Amazon directly can call 1-888-280-4331 or use the customer-service chat on Amazon, choosing “Something Else” and then “Amazon Drone Delivery.” The rest of what residents can still do is in DroneXL’s guide.
DroneXL’s Take
A hold announced in a first selectman’s Facebook post and denied in a state legislator’s is not a status. It is two men describing one phone call they were not both on, and Amazon, which was, has said nothing. My read is that both are telling the truth as they understand it: Amazon told Freda it would not launch before the meetings, and Candelora is right that no filing was withdrawn and no clock stopped. What that means for a North Haven resident is simple. Nothing Amazon said on Saturday reaches DEEP’s inbox or the FAA’s docket, and the only lever with a date on it is still the one DroneXL pointed at last week: comments to DEEP close October 15, the address is finally official, and a comment about the Quinnipiac marsh, the harbor and the missing site-specific FAA document goes into the record whatever Amazon decides after Monday. I’m for drone delivery when the cargo earns the flight, and Zipline’s P2, at 55 pounds with a tethered drop and two parachutes, shows how. The MK30 carries 5 pounds at 83, descends to 13 feet over the lawn and has no parachute, and both Tolleson collisions ended in uncontrolled descents. That judgment is mine. Candelora’s advice and mine are the same: keep filing.
Sources: Michael Freda, Facebook, October 3, 2026, State Rep. Vincent Candelora, Facebook, October 4, 2026, CT Insider, October 4, 2026, WTNH, October 3, 2026, Connecticut DEEP public notice, MassLive, October 3, 2026, FAA NEPA and Drones, The Register Citizen via GovTech.
DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.
