Zipline’s first Austin-area drone hub sits outside Round Rock’s city limits, and the City of Round Rock says its zoning code has no rule for drone hubs at all. The hub at 3000 E. Palm Valley Blvd. is in the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction, the ring of land a Texas city influences but does not zone. Zipline opened deliveries from it on Friday, October 9.
The city laid this out on an information page for residents. Drone delivery hubs, where the aircraft are stored, launched and recharged, are “not specifically addressed under the City’s current zoning ordinances,” it says. The same page says the city is working with Zipline on a second hub inside city limits, behind the Renaissance Square shopping center on northbound Interstate 35, and will use that site to work out what the rules for future hubs should be.
Round Rock has not written the rule yet. The Federal Aviation Administration’s draft review of Zipline’s Austin operations closes to public comment today, Sunday, October 11.
Round Rock Can Decide Where a Hub Goes but Not Where the Drones Fly
The city’s page draws its authority at the property line. The FAA certifies the operator, under Part 135 for delivery, and controls airspace and flight paths, and state law backs that preemption. Round Rock keeps land use: where a hub can sit, and whether it sits next to homes.
The city says it can keep delivery hubs away from residential property, and it describes the noise from a delivery drone as similar to a small electric device or lawn equipment heard at a distance. Flights over neighborhoods are the FAA’s call, and the page says plainly that the city cannot regulate them.
Residents with a noise or nuisance complaint are sent to Zipline, at 855-947-5163 or [email protected]. Safety concerns go to the FAA. For privacy, the page points to Texas Government Code Chapter 423, which makes capturing images of people or private property for surveillance a Class C misdemeanor and carries civil penalties of up to $5,000 per incident for capture and $10,000 for distribution.
Other Texas cities took the other route. The Rowlett City Council voted 6 to 0 on May 20, 2025, to add unmanned aircraft hubs and kiosks to its zoning code as new uses in nonresidential districts, hubs by special use permit and kiosks by right, according to the council record. Round Rock is doing it in the other order: one hub first, under an agreement with the company, and the ordinance after it has watched the site run.
Twenty-Five Merchants Were on the App a Day After Launch
News 4 San Antonio reporter Brianna Perez counted 25 businesses on the Zipline app in Round Rock in a report published Saturday, October 10, one day into service. Instill Coffee is among them, and co-owner Michelle Bell said the shop joined to help test something new in the city.
Zipline’s own launch announcement had named no Round Rock merchants. Zach Hill, who leads community engagement for Zipline, told the station the company plans more Austin-area sites. “This is just the beginning, and this is our first site,” he said. The aircraft fly at up to 75 mph (121 km/h) and about 300 feet (91 meters), carry about 5 pounds (2.3 kilograms) per order, and Zipline told the station it has flown more than 135 million commercial miles without a serious injury. Its Austin launch announcement puts the total at more than 140 million miles (225 million kilometers). Both figures are the company’s own, and the FAA’s Austin review is the only independent document on the operation so far.
Zipline Picked a High School That Teaches Part 107
Zipline’s October 8 demonstration at Stony Point High School went to a campus the company picked for its drone program. Stony Point is one of four Round Rock ISD high schools teaching the district’s Drone Aviation program. Its students can work toward the FAA Part 107 certificate.
The program also runs at Cedar Ridge, McNeil and Round Rock High. The sequence is three courses over four credits: Principles of Aviation and Aerospace, Drone Aviation, and a two-credit Practicum in Drone Aviation. The district says the program covers flight navigation, industry regulations, mission planning and human factors.
Zipline told KXAN the partnership with the district will bring classroom visits, career fairs and facility tours, and Hill told Community Impact it is in its early stages and could extend to the district’s engineering and robotics programs. Neither the district nor Zipline has put a start date or a student count on any of it. Hoodline, which flagged the demonstration, reports the aircraft lowered a pod carrying an order from a nearby business while students and staff watched.
DroneXL’s Take
I’d rather a city write its drone hub rule with a hub running down the road than from a Zipline slide deck, and Round Rock’s page is the most useful page I have seen a Texas city publish on drone delivery. It tells residents in writing that the city cannot stop the flights, that the city can keep a hub away from their backyard, and who to call when the noise bothers them. Westborough, Massachusetts, left all of that to lawyers, and Amazon’s launch there now hangs on a zoning appeal that nobody can schedule. Lincoln County, North Carolina, got a 200-signature petition over a Walmart pad before anyone explained what the county could and could not decide.
The order of operations still bothers me. Zipline’s first Austin hub went into the one ring of land where Texas law gives a city no zoning vote, so the Palm Valley neighbors got a phone number instead of a hearing. That is state law rather than anything Zipline wrote, but the company chose the site. I suspect Round Rock’s ordinance ends up looking like Rowlett’s, hubs by special use permit in commercial districts, and the only question is how many Texas cities adopt it after the drones arrive rather than before.
Sources: City of Round Rock, Round Rock ISD, KXAN, Community Impact, News 4 San Antonio, Hoodline, Citizen Portal, Rowlett City Council, May 20, 2025
DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.
