DroneXL published 20 new resident guides on its Drone Delivery Tracker today, one for each town or metro where Amazon Prime Air, Wing or Zipline is flying, has filed paperwork, or has named the area. With the Belvedere, California guide published Saturday, the town guides section now covers 21 places in 16 states, plus the Kansas side of Kansas City.

Each guide is written for residents who have never thought about drones. Eight of the 21 have a dated step on the calendar before November 10: a council vote or reading, a planning or zoning hearing, a city town hall, a comment deadline, a permit-review deadline or a federal court deadline.

The Guides Separate the FAA’s Flight From the Town’s Ground

Every guide uses the same six parts: the town’s situation, the operators with a map of their delivery circles, who decides what, what residents can do, a survey, and the sources. The who-decides part separates the Federal Aviation Administration’s flight from the town’s ground and the state’s rules.

Where a town has written rules, the guide walks through them section by section. Where it hasn’t, the guide lists the record document by document, and says where DroneXL searched and when for anything it could not find.

The guides also say what no town can do. A federal court struck down Newton, Massachusetts’ overflight, altitude and registration rules in 2017 (Singer v. City of Newton), and the FAA has restated its position since.

Eight Towns Have a Dated Step Before November 10

Belvedere’s council takes its final vote on Marin County’s first drone delivery ordinance Monday, October 12, and Northglenn, Colorado, which Walmart approached about a Wing nest, is scheduled by its staff to hold the first reading of its own hub ordinance that night.

The Northglenn staff memo expects a public hearing and final vote October 26. Comments on the FAA’s request to Connecticut’s environmental department about Amazon’s proposed North Haven hub close October 15.

City reviewers’ comments on Walmart’s building permit application in Tacoma are due October 17, according to The News Tribune. North Myrtle Beach’s Planning Commission is set to take up Amazon’s drone pad application on October 20, per the city’s October 6 staff report. The City of Tracy, California hosts a town hall on Amazon drone delivery on October 22.

Westborough’s Zoning Board of Appeals hears residents’ appeal on November 2 of the ruling that put Amazon’s 64 Otis Street launch pad in site-plan review. Under Massachusetts case law, that review lets the Planning Board attach conditions but deny the plan only if no condition could fix its problems. An independent online survey of Westborough-area residents, which says it is not a scientific poll, counted 853 responses on September 28, 92 percent of them opposed.

In Papillion, Nebraska, the window to challenge the FAA’s Omaha environmental decision in a federal appeals court closes November 9 if the 60 days run from the September 9 signature, or November 23 if they run from the FAA’s September 22 notice.

State Law Decides How Much Room Each Town Has

Eight of the states in the guides, Texas, Illinois (Chicago excepted), Connecticut, Michigan, Louisiana, Florida, Oregon and Arizona, bar cities from regulating drone operations. In those states a town holds zoning, building permits and the conditions on them, and little else that touches the drones.

Florida and Arizona narrowed even that. A Florida county may not refuse a drone port over its location, and Arizona’s June 2026 delivery law bars a city from withholding a permit for a site outside residential zoning.

California, Massachusetts, Washington, Colorado, Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas have no statute taking drone rules away from towns. Their towns can write ground rules of the kind Belvedere and Northglenn have drafted, as long as the rules stay on the ground. Ohio’s 2025 drone law lists two things cities may regulate, their own drones and hobby flying over public property, and says nothing about delivery; whether that list shuts out other local rules has not been tested in court. South Carolina’s new drone law takes effect January 1, 2027.

The other guides cover Baton Rouge, Cincinnati, Hazel Park, Houston, Kansas City, Maricopa, Matteson, Mesquite, North Randall, Portland, Richardson, Ruskin and Waco.

Every Guide Carries a Local Survey and a Way to Fix Errors

Each guide has the same anonymous two-minute survey, and the guide page shows only its own town’s results. The tracker’s main page adds every town together. Answers are not tied to a name, email or street address, and the results count who answered.

Each guide also has a section on how to report a mistake: the correction form on the page, or an email to [email protected]. Confirmed errors are fixed on the page and logged with a date.

Residents who already have Amazon drones overhead can find the complaint routes in DroneXL’s general residents’ guide. Amazon takes drone questions at 1-888-280-4331 or through its customer service chat (“Something Else,” then “Amazon Drone Delivery”), and the tracker’s Amazon Prime Air page lists every Amazon hub DroneXL has found on the public record.

DroneXL’s Take

I built these guides because too many towns I covered this year had the argument late. In Papillion the drones had been flying for six weeks when the FAA signed its Omaha environmental decision on September 9, and DroneXL found no council vote on the pad in any record it could reach. In Richardson, by the time the complaints came, the zoning was settled and Texas law barred the city from any ordinance on how the drones fly. The FAA decides the flight. In most states, my read is that the town decides more than most councils use: the permit, the hours on the ground, the conditions, and, as Northglenn’s draft would, what the operator has to disclose before the first drone leaves the pad. DroneXL is for drone delivery where it earns the noise, a defibrillator or a prescription first and a toothpaste run last. The people under the route get a say in the second kind, and I want them to have the facts while the vote is still ahead of them.

Sources: the 21 DroneXL town guides and the documents listed in each, FAA drone environmental review index.

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.