Facing pushback on an idea that had emerged last month, parks officials now are weighing a new plan that would see drone operators in New Canaan restricted to a playing field at East School during the summer and a parking lot behind Waveny Pool for the rest of the year.
Part of the East School field. Google Streetview
The playing field is isolated, unused when school is out and visible from Little Brook Road, according to Parks & Recreation Commission Chair Sally Campbell, and nobody goes to the Waveny Pool parking lot when the facility itself is closed from Labor Day to Memorial Day.
“One of the things we were struggling with is where to put the drones—they are not gong to go away, they will just increase,” Campbell told fellow commissioners during the group’s regular meeting, held Wednesday night at Lapham Community Center.
As per a policy adopted last summer, New Canaan now requires drone users to join the New Canaan Radio Controlled Society and fly the contraptions in an approximately 50-by-90-yard area near where Lapham Road comes into the main road through Waveny. Allowable hours of drone-flying vary by season, under the town’s plan, and they’re only allowed in Waveny and no other park, under the town’s policy.
The society’s members have been very good about bringing drone operators up to speed on protocol, but those seasoned mini-aircraft flyers aren’t always on site to keep an eye on things, said Campbell, who has been spearheading efforts to create rules on drone use with commissioner Kit Devereaux.
Also, that part of the park—everything south of the main road through it—“has always been sort of passive recreation,” Campbell said, so “we do not think drone activity there is really appropriate.”
The drone operators there primarily are flying the devices low—no more than five feet—and are racing them through gates that they set up in the grass, according to Recreation Director Steve Benko.
On a recommendation from a resident, officials considered re-locating the drone operators to the mulch piles on the west side of Lapham Road—however, public works officials raised concerns about that plan, as the town needs to get into that area at different times through the year, and often with heavy machinery, Campbell said.
According to Campbell, district officials have been receptive to the East School plan (when school is not in session), and the town’s highest elected official is looking into whether the town is on solid ground as far as insurance and liability go.
Campbell said the commission’s goal is to review a formal plan for recommendation at its June meeting and to have a new set of rules—on where and just when drone operators may fly their devices—in place by July 1.