Amazon Withdraws Westborough Drone Delivery Pad Application

Amazon has pulled its application for a Prime Air drone delivery pad in Westborough, Massachusetts — but it has not pulled the plan. On Friday, October 30, the company asked the town’s Planning Board to withdraw site-plan application 26-02275 for a pad at 64 Otis Street, “without prejudice” — leaving Amazon free to file again.

A phone call and a promise

Amazon phoned three state lawmakers on the night of October 30 to tell them it was withdrawing: State Senator Michael Moore and Representatives Hannah Kane and Kate Donaghue. Their statement thanked the company for listening to the overwhelming concerns voiced, and credited the resident group Mass Blue Skies and Governor Maura Healey.

On Saturday, Amazon gave the Worcester Telegram & Gazette a statement on what comes next. “We will be resubmitting a revised project soon, after further discussions with local stakeholders,” spokesperson Lindsay Hamilton said. Neither the Boston Globe nor the Telegram, which both quoted the withdrawal letter, reported a reason for the withdrawal.

Hamilton’s statement reads as a reset rather than a retreat. Prime Air “is a welcome addition to communities” once residents see it for themselves, she said, because it delivers fast, takes traffic off the roads and brings skilled jobs. Amazon will keep “continuing the local approval processes to bring drone delivery to customers in Massachusetts,” she said.

The zoning appeal is still on the agenda

The withdrawal came three days before the Zoning Board of Appeals was due to hear the residents’ challenge to the pad’s zoning status, and that hearing was still on the board’s agenda for the evening of November 2. The residents filed the appeal on September 25. It challenges the building commissioner’s August 26 ruling that a drone launch pad is an accessory use of the warehouse on the same lot, which sent the pad to the Planning Board for site-plan review.

The appeal targets the August 26 ruling, not the application Amazon asked to withdraw, so the withdrawal does not by itself end it. Amazon had asked on September 28 for its own Planning Board hearing to wait until the ZBA ruled, and the Planning Board continued it to November 10. With the withdrawal request pending, the business left for that hearing may be to accept it.

Mass Blue Skies, the resident group that worked with the Select Board on the town’s drone bylaw, told its members on November 1 that the withdrawal is “just a temporary PAUSE on their plans. It is not over.” The group asked residents to keep their yard signs up and attend the ZBA meeting. An independent survey of area residents, self-selected and not a scientific poll, had counted 92% opposed in September.

The bylaw, MassDOT and the FAA

The bylaw Town Meeting passed 510 to 13 on October 19, which bans any commercial drone launch pad or delivery drop zone in town, went to the attorney general on October 22. If received that day, the 90-day review runs to January 20, 2027 at the earliest. The attorney general can approve the bylaw, reject it, or let it take effect by silence when those 90 days run out. MassDOT’s Aeronautics Division must approve it too.

MassDOT’s Aeronautics Division told Amazon on October 22 that it cannot open a pad anywhere in Massachusetts without a certificate of approval, that it had received no application, and that at least one public hearing comes first. State rules want a landing-area application on file at least 90 days before first use.

On October 27, Westborough sent the FAA and Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy a joint letter, dated October 23, backing the request from Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren and Representatives Jim McGovern and Lori Trahan for a site-specific environmental assessment before any flight. Select Board Chair Sean Keogh signed it for Westborough, with officials of 14 other communities. The FAA’s drone environmental review index listed no Massachusetts document when DroneXL checked on November 2.

The aircraft and the opposition

Westborough would have been the first drone delivery service in New England. Its other New England attempt, in North Haven, Connecticut, is waiting on a state coastal ruling due in mid-November, and a town official there has said no decision comes before 2027.

Hamilton’s statement says nothing about the aircraft. Unless that changes, a revised project launched from the same lot means an 83-pound MK30 with no parachute carrying five-pound consumer orders low over Westborough’s roofs.

Update, November 4

On November 2, Building Commissioner William Hezlitt withdrew his August 26 accessory-use ruling, so any revised Amazon proposal needs a new zoning review and cannot start from that ruling. The ZBA continued the residents’ appeal without deciding it.

Why it matters

The Westborough fight shows that the binding constraint on drone delivery is no longer the aircraft. It is zoning, and it is public acceptance. Amazon’s move — withdraw before the zoning board can rule against it, then come back with a revised project — is a pattern the drone industry will repeat wherever a town pushes back. A delivery network that works in the air still has to win on the ground first.

Source: DroneXL