Drones over North Randall: what's flying, who decides, what you can still do
A plain-language guide for the 954 people of North Randall and the east-side suburbs inside Amazon's 7.5-mile circle. Two kinds of delivery drone already fly here. No council vote on either is on any public record. The sky belongs to the FAA. The doorstep is yours.
The short version
North Randall, 954 people on the old Randall Park Mall site, is the launch pad for Amazon's first Ohio drone delivery service. Since September 24, 21 MK30 drones have flown from the CLE2 fulfillment center at 21500 Emery Road to homes within 7.5 miles, a circle that takes in Warrensville Heights, Shaker Heights, Beachwood, Maple Heights, Cleveland Heights and Solon. About 3 miles northeast, Cleveland Clinic has flown prescriptions with four Zipline aircraft since early August.
No council vote on either service is on any public record DroneXL could find. Residents in Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights complained about noise within a week, and Cleveland Heights' mayor is meeting Amazon to ask for routes over commercial land. This guide is for North Randall, the suburbs under the same drones, and anyone working out who can change what.
Every block is marked Every US town or North Randall.
If you remember three things
Two services, two aircraft. Amazon's 83-pound MK30 drops a box from about 13 feet. Zipline's 55-pound P2 lowers medicine on a tether from 300 feet and carries a parachute.
No city can touch the flight. The FAA controls routes, altitude and hours in the air. North Randall controls the ground under the hub; every other town controls its own doorsteps.
The public record is thin. No FAA document for either service, no village agenda or minutes online to show a vote, no comment window. What exists is two village news posts, two press releases and a mayor's meeting request.
Four questions, four parts
The tabs across the top are this guide's chapters. Each card below is one of them, labeled the same way. Start with the question that is yours.
Where DroneXL stands
DroneXL is not against drone delivery. Blood and organs between hospitals, a defibrillator to a heart attack before the ambulance, medication to someone who can't get out, tools and supplies to search-and-rescue teams in terrain a truck can't reach: those flights earn their noise, and some of them already fly. Everyday packages to homes may earn it too.
What we are for is doing it the right way: the least disruptive, safest, most accountable version, with the people living under the flight paths part of the conversation before the first flight rather than after. The country is in the middle of working out what that looks like. This guide, and the survey at the end of it, exist so that this town's answer is on the record.
Three things to hold onto
The sky is federal
Since 1958 the FAA has had sole authority over the navigable airspace. A city cannot ban overflight, set an altitude, or write a drone curfew. A federal judge struck down a city that tried in 2017.
The ground is local
Where a drone lands, where a package is dropped, whether a facility can be built, and under what conditions: that is zoning and land use, and it is the city's.
The window is before the first flight
Since July 28, 2026 the FAA approves most new hubs with no public comment period. A town that writes its rules early has leverage. A town that waits finds out from a press release.
Who delivers by drone in the United States
Three companies are rolling out home delivery at scale and saying so: Amazon, Wing and Zipline. Others, among them Flytrex, Manna and Wingcopter, fly trials and small services in the US without announced rollout plans; this guide adds them the day that changes.
Four words you'll see
- Nest
- Wing's name for its base: a fenced patch of a store's parking lot where its drones take off, land, recharge, and are loaded with the order by store staff. Nothing is launched from your street.
- Hub
- The same thing for Amazon, in the parking lot of one of its own warehouses. Zipline calls its version a dock.
- Service area
- The circle around a nest or hub that the drones can reach: about 6 miles for Wing, 7.5 for Amazon. Every home inside it can order. The base sits in one town; the circle usually covers several.
- Overflight
- A drone passing above your property on its way to someone else's. The FAA controls it; no town or homeowner can refuse it.
Wing (Alphabet)
Not namedNo Ohio entry on the FAA's drone environmental review index as of October 11, 2026, and no Ohio site in the DroneXL tracker. Wing has not named Cleveland or Ohio in any announcement DroneXL has covered.
- Aircraft
- Hummingbird, 14 lb (a 24 lb version in part of the fleet)
- Flies from
- A nest (its takeoff, landing and loading base) in a retailer's parking lot, usually a Walmart
- Reach
- About 6 miles from the nest
- Delivery
- Hovers at about 23 ft, lowers the package on a tether. Never lands at your house
- Hours (FAA)
- 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
- Volume
- Up to 400 flights a day per nest
Amazon Prime Air
Operating since September 24Flies 21 MK30 drones from the CLE2 fulfillment center at 21500 Emery Road, North Randall, to homes within 7.5 miles, in daylight, for items under 5 pounds. Amazon says every Prime Air flight is FAA-authorized; the FAA's public index lists no Ohio document, so the authorization is not a document residents can read.
- Aircraft
- MK30, 83 lb at takeoff, no parachute
- Flies from
- Amazon's own warehouses
- Reach
- 7.5 miles from the hub
- Delivery
- Drops the package from about 13 ft
- Hours (FAA)
- 6 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.
- Volume
- Up to 1,000 flights a day per hub
Zipline
Operating since early AugustFour P2 aircraft fly prescriptions for Cleveland Clinic from its Beachwood Administrative Campus to patients within 5 miles, about 20 deliveries a week at the end of August, with charging hardware for 12. No Ohio document on the FAA's index; nothing DroneXL has read from Zipline or the Clinic says which authorization covers Beachwood.
- Aircraft
- P2 Zip, 55 lb, carries a parachute
- Delivery
- Hovers at about 300 ft; a tethered "droid" lowers the package
- Reach
- About 10 miles
How a drone would actually reach your street
North Randall is the rare town that hosts the hub. The village is about 0.8 square miles, and most of it is the former Randall Park Mall site where Amazon built the CLE2 fulfillment center. The drones take off from Amazon's own lot, climb, and spread out over the 7.5-mile circle: every street in the village is inside it, and so are the neighboring cities from Cleveland Heights to Solon to Chagrin Falls and the ones in between. Cleveland Clinic's Zipline aircraft work the same way from the Clinic's Beachwood Administrative Campus, about 3 miles northeast, out to 5 miles. If you live on the east side, you are probably under one circle, and in Beachwood and the towns next to it you may be under both.
Distances are straight-line from the center of North Randall. The dashed ring is Amazon's 7.5-mile radius, which starts at the CLE2 warehouse a few hundred feet from the village center, so the ring here is close to the real circle. The outer ring is the 10 miles a Zipline P2 can fly; Cleveland Clinic uses only 5 miles of it from Beachwood, so its real circle is smaller and sits to the northeast. Both base markers are the positions recorded in the DroneXL tracker, not surveyed pad locations. Town markers are city centers; the airport marker is estimated and labeled so. Neither Amazon nor Cleveland Clinic has published a map of its service area.
How approval works now
The part most towns get wrong. Since July 28, 2026 there is usually no public comment step at all.
The operator picks a site and files with that town, if the work triggers a permit
Often it doesn't. Amazon told a Massachusetts audience that about 80% of its hubs were approved administratively, with no hearing. Northglenn, CO heard from Walmart, and Tacoma, WA received a Walmart building permit application, weeks before Wing announced either metro.
The FAA checks the site against one national environmental document
Signed July 28, 2026. A hub under 1,150 deliveries a day, at least 600 ft from homes at full volume, aircraft under 110 lb, flights under 400 ft: cleared internally. No draft, no comment period, no local hearing. Before July, each metro got its own review with about 30 days for public letters.
The company issues a press release
By then the decisions are made. Papillion, Nebraska found out when a reporter counted about 50 Amazon drone movements in an hour over a suburb whose council had never voted on any of it.
The only early warning is your own planning counter
A permit application at city hall, or a planning commission agenda item, is the first and often the last public signal. Fifteen states have sued the FAA over the national finding; the window for anyone else to challenge it closed September 26, 2026.
Full detail: How drone delivery approval works on the DroneXL tracker.
Who owns what
FederalThe FAA
- All airspace, flight paths, altitude
- Which companies may fly, and where
- Aircraft design, parachutes, in-flight noise
- Daily flight caps and hours in the air
- Whether any environmental review happens
Authority since 1958; restated by the FAA in 2018 and 2023. For a licensed air carrier, a second law also bars states from regulating its routes and services.
CityNorth Randall
- Zoning: is a hub a permitted use, and where
- Site plan, building permit, conditional use permit and its conditions
- Ground hours, lighting, screening, traffic, noise at the property line
- Consent for delivery onto private property
- General nuisance, trespass, litter and privacy law, as long as it doesn't single out drones
StateOhio
- Whether cities may regulate drones at all. Ohio has no statute that says in terms that cities may not. Revised Code 4561.52, in force since April 9, 2025, authorizes local rules for two things only: a city's own drones, and hobby flying over its own parks and public property; the bill's sponsor described local authority as limited to those, and whether that list shuts out anything else is untested in court. Zoning of the ground a hub sits on is a separate power and is not in question.
- Dangerous flying: Revised Code 4561.15(A)(5) makes it a state offense, up to $500 and six months, to operate a drone in a way that knowingly endangers people or property. Ohio's aeronautics chapter has no section on dropping objects from an aircraft (R.C. 4561, checked October 11, 2026), which is how an MK30 delivers.
- Police drones: House Bill 251, in force since October 6, 2026, sets warrant rules for law enforcement drones (Revised Code 4561.60 to 4561.64) and a 2030 purchase ban on foreign-adversary aircraft. It does not touch delivery.
- Could write: hub siting standards, resident notification before a launch, a state complaint channel, data-retention limits for delivery cameras, liability for damage from a dropped package.
- Has not. The two drone laws Ohio passed in 2025 and 2026 cover hobby flying over public land, endangerment and police use, and neither mentions delivery.
What a city can and cannot do
The test case is Singer v. City of Newton (2017): a federal judge struck Newton's altitude limit, overflight ban and local registration, and left land use alone.
Overflight is airspace. Richardson, Texas dropped a rezoning threat on legal advice and now points residents to their senators. Source
Altitude, overflight and local registration are the rules the court in Newton struck down.
Aircraft design and in-flight noise are FAA rules. Worth asking the operator about; not something a council can order.
Land use is the city's. Most towns have not yet written a drone facility into their zoning code at all.
A rule about what happens on the ground. Every operator already requires the customer to opt in.
The same rule the delivery truck lives under. A general rule applied to drones survives; a drone-only rule invites the challenge.
Northglenn, CO's draft ordinance (first reading Oct. 12, final vote set for Oct. 26) would require any applicant to disclose hours, altitude, noise, aircraft count and flight frequency, plus an incident plan with 24-hour written notice after any crash. Source
Castle Rock and Parker, CO froze hub applications in July 2026. Legal, but it only moves the pad one town over. Source
The record so far, document by document
North Randall has no drone or delivery ordinance. Neither does any city under the circle, as far as DroneXL could find. What exists is a short paper trail: two village news posts, two press releases, a launch, and two neighboring cities reacting. Newest last.
The village invites residents to meet the droneVillage news post, June 30, 2026
North Randall posted Amazon's invitation to a "community meet-and-greet" at Village Hall, 4610 Northfield Road, on Thursday, July 9, 2026, 3 to 7 p.m., with the first hour invitation-only and an MK30 on static display. That post is the earliest public notice of the service on the village's website. No council agenda item, resolution or vote on the drone pad appears anywhere DroneXL could reach; the village site lists council meetings on the second and fourth Mondays at 7 p.m. and publishes no agendas or minutes online, checked October 11, 2026.
The village reports backVillage news post, July 14, 2026
Five days after the event, the village wrote that it had hosted "community leaders and local partners" for a look at the service, that guests saw the MK30 up close, and that Amazon expected to begin deliveries later in the year to customers within about 7.5 miles of the North Randall fulfillment center. No officials are named. No conditions, hours, flight counts or complaint route are mentioned.
The FAA's national findingJuly 28, 2026
The FAA signed one national environmental finding for drone package delivery. A hub that fits it is approved in an internal review with no draft, no public comment period and no local hearing. Cleveland appears on no FAA index entry, which is what a site handled under the national finding looks like; the FAA has not said so. The metros before it, from Texas to Omaha, each got their own document and a comment window of about 30 days. Cleveland never did. The 60-day window to challenge the national finding in court ran to September 28 (the 60th day fell on a Saturday); 15 states and Harris County, Texas petitioned the Second Circuit that day. Ohio is not among them. No stay was requested, so approvals continue while the case is briefed.
Cleveland Clinic's service goes liveCleveland Clinic newsroom, August 3, 2026
The Clinic announced what it calls the first long-term prescription drone program by a US health system: Zipline aircraft flying from its Beachwood Administrative Campus to patients within five miles, holding at up to 300 feet while a tethered pod lowers the package, with no extra charge, optional, controlled substances excluded, and the delivery tracked in MyChart. The announcement does not mention the FAA; it says the two partners worked to meet "all regulations and technical requirements." By the end of August four aircraft were flying about 20 deliveries a week.
Amazon names ClevelandAmazon announcement, August 19, 2026
Amazon listed "Chicago, Illinois; Syracuse, New York; Cleveland, Ohio; Atlanta, Georgia; and Boise, Idaho" as the next metros, with "more communities to come later this year," on the way to nearly 500 cities and towns by the end of 2026. Pricing: free for Prime members on orders of $50 or more, $2.99 below that, $4.99 for everyone else.
The first flightsSeptember 24, 2026
Amazon started deliveries from CLE2 with 21 MK30 drones, in daylight, for items under 5 pounds that fit a large shoebox and are stocked in the building, to addresses within 7.5 miles. Amazon expects 55 jobs at the site. The first Ohio delivery was an electric bike charger. Amazon says all Prime Air operations are FAA-authorized. The FAA's public index listed no Ohio document on September 25 and still listed none on October 11.
Shaker Heights speaks firstCity statement reported September 29, 2026
After residents posted video of drones over the city, Shaker Heights confirmed the aircraft fly for Amazon and for Cleveland Clinic, said the FAA regulates the flights, and said it was "still gathering more information." It pointed residents to the FAA's Northeast Ohio Flight Standards District Office. That is the first on-the-record position by a city under the circle that DroneXL found.
Cleveland Heights asks for a route changeSpectrum News 1, October 6, 2026
Mayor Jim Petras said the drones fly over residential neighborhoods and that he had a meeting with Amazon the following week to ask whether the flight pattern can be moved toward a more commercial area. Residents described the sound as a swarm of bees or a lawn mower; one said, "Nobody asked me if I wanted things flying overhead." Amazon made a similar change in Richardson, Texas, in February after complaints, and turned down a request there for routes over major roads. Nothing about drones appears on the Cleveland Heights council calendar as of October 11.
Read the full text: Village of North Randall: Innovation Takes Flight in North Randall (July 14, 2026).
What's still open for the city
Disclosure
North Randall hosts the pad, and a host town can make the operator put facts on the record as a condition of the ground use: hours, altitude band, aircraft count, daily flight frequency, a local complaint contact, and written notice to the village within 24 hours of any aircraft coming down. Northglenn, Colorado wrote exactly that. It is a land-use condition, not a flight rule, and the next time Amazon asks the village for anything, it is the moment to attach it. Northglenn staff memo (PDF)
The site
The pad sits on Amazon's own parcel in a village of 954 people. Any expansion, more pads, more aircraft, a second site, goes through the village building and zoning counter, and the village can attach conditions to what it approves: screening, ground hours, lighting, a complaint line. The first ask is simpler: publish what Amazon filed and what the village signed. Council meets the second and fourth Mondays at 7 p.m. at 4610 Northfield Road. North Randall Village Council
The circle
The hub is in one town; the drones are over a dozen or more. Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights have each gone to the FAA or to Amazon alone. One shared ask from the east-side mayors, for the Northglenn list plus a published route map and a shared complaint log, is worth more than any one city's phone call, and Amazon has already shown in Richardson that it moves routes when a city pushes. DroneXL on the Cleveland Heights request
Gone
There was never a comment window for Cleveland. The national finding replaced the per-metro reviews on July 28, Amazon launched 58 days later, and the petition 15 states filed on September 28 against the national finding, with Ohio not among them, asks for no stay. The flight caps, hours and altitude band Amazon operates under here are in an authorization the public cannot read. What is left at the federal level is the complaint record: the FAA's Northeast Ohio office and the FAA noise line. DroneXL on the national finding
Before the vote
A checklist. Ticks are saved on this device only.
Once drones are flying
Don't consent, if you don't want deliveries
Every operator requires the customer to opt in. It is a personal choice, not a shield: Amazon told a Westborough, Massachusetts ballroom in September 2026 there is no opting out of overflight. Read more
Keep a log, then complain with dates and times
Date, time, altitude, duration, direction. What living under it sounds like: a Richardson, Texas resident counted 52 Amazon drones over her yard in a day, and the FAA's own Baton Rouge filing puts an Amazon delivery hover at 92 decibels measured 25 feet from the aircraft. After Richardson residents complained, Amazon raised its outbound altitude to 225 ft and moved routes over commercial land. Amazon left College Station after two years of noise complaints. Read more
Ask the operator the 15 questions
Weight, parachute, what happens after a collision, sound at 50/100/250 ft, how often one street is overflown, what the cameras record, who pays for damage, who gets the call when one comes down. Zipline answered in part; Amazon and Wing have not. Read more
Report what comes down
The Drone Delivery Tracker logs every hub, market and incident on the public record. Several rows exist because a resident sent photos. Read more
Who to contact
Federal: the FAA's Northeast Ohio Flight Standards District Office takes drone concerns at 440-686-2001; the FAA takes general drone questions at 844-359-6982 and noise inquiries at faa.gov/noise/inquiries. None of these changes a decision; all of them create a record.
Have your say
Two minutes, anonymous. No name, no email, no address. Results are public, update live, and are feedback from people who chose to answer, not a scientific poll. Modeled on the independent Westborough, MA survey that reached 853 responses and three state legislators in six weeks, without the name and street it asked for. The drones are already flying here; the count is for the mayors meeting Amazon and the village that hosts the hub.
Read the documents yourself
Every claim in this guide traces to one of these. If a document says something different from this page, the document is right and we want to know: send a correction.
North Randall
Every US town
The east side is running the experiment the rest of the country is arguing about
On Cleveland's east side a hospital's medical drone and Amazon's retail drone fly over the same streets from bases 3 miles apart. Zipline carries prescriptions for Cleveland Clinic in a 55-pound aircraft that stays at 300 feet, lowers the bag on a tether and carries a parachute. Amazon's first Ohio delivery was an e-bike charger, in an 83-pound aircraft that descends into the yard, drops the box from 13 feet and has no parachute. Shaker Heights residents are hearing both. My read is that in a year the east side will be the clearest answer anyone has to which version people will live with.
I am for the Clinic's flights without reservation. A prescription that used to wait hours for a courier now lands in 15 minutes, and the cargo earns the noise. Amazon's flights have to earn it the same way, and a charger that could ride in a van does not. That is a judgment, not a legal fact; the legal fact is that the FAA has authorized the flights in a document nobody here can read, and no council vote on the east side is on any public record. North Randall hosts the pad, and it is the one town with a lever: the next time Amazon asks the village for anything, the village can ask for the Northglenn list in return.
Cleveland Heights' mayor is doing the right thing by asking Amazon directly. Richardson shows Amazon moves departures over commercial land when a city pushes, and refuses routes over roads. I would want the east-side mayors to push together, with a map, and I would want the village of 954 people that hosts 21 drones to say in public what it agreed to. Two drone services, no public vote, two village news posts. That is the whole record so far.
Spotted a mistake? Here is how to get it fixed
Every fact in this guide is meant to be checkable against a document listed above. If something is wrong, out of date, or missing (a meeting moved, a permit decided, a number that does not match the filing), tell DroneXL and it gets corrected, with the change logged below.
- Use the correction form at the bottom of this page (jump to it). Pick "Correction," name the guide (North Randall, OH), quote the sentence, and say what it should say. A link to the document that shows the correct fact gets it fixed fastest. The form can be sent anonymously.
- Or email [email protected] with "Correction: North Randall guide" in the subject line.
- What happens next. The claim is checked against the primary document. A confirmed error is corrected on the page and noted in the "Updates" log below with the date; a material error also gets a correction note on the DroneXL corrections page. Readers who report an error are not named unless they ask to be.
City officials, operators and residents are all welcome to use this. Disagreement with DroneXL's take is not a correction, but it is welcome in the comments.
Updates to this guide
Spotted an error, or something that changed? Every fact on this page is meant to be checkable against the documents in the Sources tab. Corrections and updates: how to report an error or the correction form below (anonymous if you want), or email [email protected]. Fixes are logged in the Sources tab with the date.
This is reporting, not legal advice. DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Editorial standards · Corrections policy
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