College Station may house Amazon Prime Air Drone Facility

The City of College Station could potentially house an Amazon Prime Air Drone Facility, which would allow Amazon products of a certain criteria to be delivered directly to people’s homes via drones.

The city’s Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously approved rezoning at 400 Technology Parkway along Texas 6 near Texas Avenue during the Thursday night meeting.

Engineering Services and Construction Inspections Manager Anthony Armstrong told the commission that the applicant, Amazon, requested the zoning district change from research and development to a planned development district in order to provide small consumer aerial distribution.

“This would be an additional use provided on the property, to allow the use of drones or similar devices weighing less than 100 pounds,” he said. “Three buildings already located on the property [on Technology Way], in addition there would be three areas … designated as an operating area for the small-scale aerial distribution, and additional landscape buffers will be provided by the applicant to screen visibility from the site.”

Calsee Hendrickson of Seattle, a member of the Technical Program Management for Prime Air at Amazon and a member of the development team for the project, addressed the commission and said they will operate from two out of the three buildings and will store products there.

The drone only carries products 5 pounds or less and can deliver a package in less than a minute; service users also can decline to use the drone service and request a package be delivered by a driver, she said.

“College Station is one of the first communities that we are offering this service to. At Amazon, we work really hard to be good neighbors; the site we are looking at is very intentionally secluded,” she said. “Our drone can’t fly very far; we have a 12-kilometer [4-mile] radius that we can cover at most, so we have to be close to people in order for this to be a viable business.”

She noted that toward the end of the year, this service also will be operational in Lockeford, California; she also assured the commission the facility will provide jobs to area residents and will reduce traffic on the roads.

Planning and Zoning Commissioner Bobby Mirza asked Hendrickson what made the College Station community stand out in the process for Amazon to select this location.

Hendrickson responded: “We conducted a nationwide search for the perfect community, and given that this is the beginning of this service, College Station ticks all of the boxes. From a pure function of geography perspective, it is flat, the weather is predictable and mild … the wind levels are within the range most of the time. And the community is leaning to technology and development.”

Hendrickson concluded by saying Amazon Prime Air doesn’t think of this service as “a test or as a trial or as a pilot, but as a beginning,” for College Station.

Armstrong said Amazon held posted meetings and sought feedback from neighborhoods belonging to the Homeowners Association [HOA], including Emerald Forest, Sandstone, Fox Fire, Amber Lake, Shadowcrest, Stonebridge, Chadwick and Woodcreek.

During the meeting, the commission heard from some HOA residents expressing concerns regarding safety, noise and privacy with drones being close to their homes.

Among those against the drone facility was Amina Alikhan, who lives in the Sandstone neighborhood along Oakwood Trail, and said having a 100-pound object in the air is not safe.

“We are calling this ‘the beginning’ but that is just another name for the ‘pilot program, new thing’ we don’t know,” she said. “This 100-pound object falling from the sky onto our home, our car, our children, onto anything. I think we may not have enough data and enough history on it. We are being used as a test site and if we don’t recognize that we are the test site, we are not allowing ourselves to fully investigate this.”

She noted this is an opportunity to set those guidelines for air space rights for homeowners in town. City staff previously mentioned there are currently no regulations in the city regarding air rights for homeowners. The Federal Aviation Administration sets drone guidelines nationwide.

“California, bless their hearts, if they want to be the test site, let’s let them be the test site and let them try it for sixth months or a year,” Alikhan said. “Take some time to consider this because there are so many issues that have not been flushed out and as the pioneer we have the chance to do that.”

Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp spoke out in favor of the rezoning and said supporting Amazon’s request is beneficial to the Texas A&M community.

“The Amazon Prime Air Drone Facility would put College Station at the forefront of this in the nation. These would be only two places in the United States who would design this technology for the rest of the country and perhaps the rest of the world,” he said. “We are no stranger to drones … we believe drones are going to be very much our future. As only two places in the country — at least for awhile — that are going to do this, we are going to show this technology and prove this technology to the rest of the world.”

The College Station City Council will consider this item at its July 14 meeting at City Hall.