Paradise Valley AZ Drone Ordinance UPDATE
As reported earlier this week the Arizona city of Paradise Valley was planning to enact an ordinance prohibiting all UAS operations unless the operation was pre-approved by the city via an application and fee structure.
In a City Council study session for the ordinance on 5/28/2015, the Council made the decision to scrap the June 11th planned vote on the ordinance to allow for more time for review by the Council members to include input from currently operating Commercial Drone companies. Discussed in the meeting was for investigations to occur by the city council over the summer with a possible resumption of discussions on the ordinance in the Fall.
Present at the City Council meeting was Industrial Aerobotics to provide guidance and clarification on current Federal regulations as well as the impacts such an ordinance would have on their operations in the event open discussions were allowed. John Wolcott – Owner of Industrial Aerobotics said “We are here to provide insight to the City Council Members as to the legal implications such an ordinance would open them up to. The FAA has jurisdiction over the use of airspace, not the City of Paradise Valley.
In the same way they cannot fine someone for flying a hot air balloon over the city at 200′ AGL, they cannot fine someone for legally flying a UAS under those same laws.” In November of 2014 the NTSB ruled that UAS are aircraft and the use and control of them falls to the FAA.
http://www.ntsb.gov/legal/alj/Documents/5730.pdf
“Industrial Aerobotics is in favor of local ordinances controlling UAS use” said Mr. Wolcott. “It will give the local law enforcement agencies the teeth they need to help enforce the FAA rules in place prohibiting unsafe and unapproved commercial UAS operations.”
Currently the only option available to a city is to get the offenders information and forward on to the FAA who admittedly does not have the resources to investigate and prosecute offenders. With an ordinance in place, the local authorities will be able to respond to and control drone operations to protect its citizens safety and privacy. “This delay will hopefully allow them to get it right.” said Wolcott. “A simple ordinance that states anyone flying outside the FAA UAS guidelines and current regulations can be fined would quickly and easily provide the city the results they are seeking.”
http://www.12news.com/videos/news/12-news/2015/05/29/28136325/
Hawaii is the only state that has had a local ordinance that has prohibited certain use of the airspace over its city limits. The restriction was raised to the courts and it was determined that because the restriction was based on advertising (Banner Towing) and not a dead-set restriction of all air travel that the FAA regulation did not preempt the local ordinance. In 2008 Huntington Beach, CA also enacted a banner towing restriction but was overruled by the courts with the decision made that the FAA controls all airspace operations from the ground up.
As evidenced in the above two cases, a fight is brewing in the federal courts to determine who truly has the ability to control what happens in the air over US cities. Can a city enact its own ordinance to control use up to some low altitude limit such as 200 or 500 feet? Or, will the current operation model remain and cities are required to work through the FAA to make changes to rules governing the airspace over their cities e.g. as they do for arrival and departure routes for noise abatement at major airports.
“All the controls the ordinance wants to enforce to ensure safe operations as well as protecting the citizens privacy are already being enforced through the FAA. Approved commercial operators have to document and report to the FAA all operations as well as what data was collected and what was done with that data. To have to perform the same work at a city level is too burdensome on UAS operators.” said Mr. Wolcott.
“Having to submit an application and a fee in advance would limit our ability to react to urgent requests of our clients such as fire and storm assessments and urgent Real Estate imaging requests. Add that we would now have to pay to use what by federal law is free access to the US airspace and the city is opening itself up to guaranteed litigation.”
