Hundreds of Tolleson and Avondale residents have recently started waking up to the buzzing sound of drones over their rooftops. Amazon is now deploying 5-foot-tall delivery drones from its Tolleson Fulfillment Center over nearby backyards and swimming pools, seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., to deliver goods to online customers.
Although city officials have touted Amazon’s drone project as economic development, it flies in the face of locals’ low airspace rights.
Landowners have long held legal rights to exclude unwanted objects from the “immediate reaches” of airspace above their land. These airspace exclusion rights support various other essential legal doctrines, from condominium laws to protections against overhang encroachments.
Unfortunately, rather than embracing drone delivery business models that would respect landowner airspace rights, Amazon and some other large corporations have lobbied for years for policies that would erase those rights.
After failing to persuade Congress or state legislatures to wipe out landowners’ airspace rights through legislation, Amazon has recently adopted a more subtle strategy that targets cities like Tolleson.
The company uses cash donations and promises of new economic development to secure local officials’ support for experimental drone delivery projects in their town. Amazon then gets permission from the FAA for the project and launches drone delivery services before local opposition materializes.
After its experimental period, the company seeks to dramatically expand its drone operations in the community. Amazon recently secured FAA approval to do just that in a city in Texas, despite locals’ ongoing complaints about the noise. Amazon hopes to start making at least 500 million drone-assisted deliveries per year by 2030 — a number that would have the low airspace above cities like Tolleson teeming with drones.
Tolleson Mayor Juan Rodriguez has become a vocal advocate of Amazon’s drone experiment in his city. He posted an Instagram photo earlier this year of himself holding a $12,500 oversized Amazon donation check to a local nonprofit, but the reality is that any actual economic benefits to Tolleson for accommodating Amazon’s drones are likely to be modest at best.
Meanwhile, neighboring Avondale and its residents are poised to receive essentially nothing for allowing thousands of drone deliveries originating at the Tolleson site to pass through its residents’ airspace.
Fortunately, there’s still time to challenge Amazon’s confiscation of landowner airspace rights. Among other things, Tollesonians could contact city officials and urge them to back out of their deal with Amazon or could even consider filing aerial trespass claims against the company.
Language affirming airspace exclusion rights in the 2021 U.S. Supreme Court opinion Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid suggests that in such cases Tolleson landowners could well have property law on their side. Amazon could offer to pay landowners for easements entitling the company to repeatedly cross through their airspace, but Amazon is hoping to do it for free instead.
Amazon already rakes in billions annually by making heavy use of public infrastructure such as the Internet and roads to sell and deliver goods. The company is now trying to add our low airspace to that list. There are plenty of other ways to generate buzz and economic growth in Tolleson that respect landowners’ privacy and property rights.
Editor’s note: Troy Rule is a law professor at ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. The opinions expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect those of Arizona State University. Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at AzOpinions@iniusa.org.
