A 4D Vision Of The Future
Coordination Of Real Estate Time And Space
“if the landowner is to have full enjoyment of the land, he must have exclusive control of the immediate reaches of the enveloping atmosphere.” US v Causby, 328 U.S. 256, 264, (1946)
Low-altitude airspace has multiple uses. It can be built into and aggregated, it can be traded with the goal to hold it for value, it can be transited through, and it can be used to protect views. These uses develop over time, with changes in avaiation technology, zoning, planning and with new politicians come new policies over time.
In evaluating the height associated with property titles, the United States Supreme Court has reconciled legal precedent with practical considerations.
The courts and Congress have established a threshold at which privacy and exclusivity rights remain attached to land ownership, specifically 500 feet above ground level.
Below this height, physical aircraft occupancy has been deemed to infringe upon a landowner's rights (air rights), highlighting the need to balance competing interests in airspace utilization and property ownership.
Drones And Flying Cars - The Missing Link
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) operators have the privilege to utilize the high-altitude public easement, above 500 feet if authorized by the FAA. However for commercial drones to operate they must fly, according to the FAA, below 400 feet. To deliver packages efficiently at scale they require private low-altitude airspace access.
Drones hold no liberty, property, or property interest in the airspace that vests with title to the land below or severed in title to the air rights. Drones hold no “rights” under the US Constitution, and implied rights to occupy airspace cannot be presumed valid.
There is no meaningful system for getting permission to be in private airspace and the pushback from landowners who find their airspace trespassed into has been sporadic. The push back has led to dangerous situations with drones being shot by airspace owners who have objected to unidentified flying machines above their homes. It has also led to jamming devices being deployed by homeowners who object to drones without permission to be in their airspace. Identifying whose drone it is in your airspace can be difficult and shooting them down can lead to unintended consequences for the private air rights owners.
Security
Drones and UAVs are an amazing technologies and when used correctly can be incredibly beneficial to society. It is important from a security point of view that they are used responsibly. FBI Director Christopher Wray provided details about the drone and explosive devices that belonged to the shooter who carried out an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Canada were deducted six points in the Olympic women's soccer tournament and their head coach Bev Priestman banned for a year following a drone spying scandal that has tainted their gold medal defence. New Zealand complained that Canadian staff flew drones over their training sessions before their opening fixture at the Olympics.
As technology develops tracking drones is becoming part of a peoples day by using apps and other means. To integrate drones into society the communities that will use them to transport goods are the ones who have a significant stake in the application of the technology and the unlock.
Live Life In 3D
Deeds only record property ownership on a two-dimensional plane, which does not constitute the actual "real" estate vested in a title. To become tangible and valuable, property must be three dimensions: length, width, and depth (height). A two-axis system only denotes a theoretical construct with no weight or mass, it’s an abstraction. A vertical axis transforms this theoretical plane into tangible, legally binding real estate. Without the third dimension, all associated rights, laws, and financial values would be purely conceptual.
Federal land management agencies' jurisdiction over national parks and forests would be effectively nullified if these boundaries lacked a vertical dimension. It is essential to recognise that existing laws, statutes, property titles, and rights remain valid, even as drone technology advances.
As drones need permission to be in private airspace the fourth dimension comes into play and the time of entry and exit into private aispace parcels needs to be recorded.
The success of commercial drone operators in marketing their products as a new innovation does not automatically give the right to occupy low-altitude airspace under private ownership. National boundaries, valid rights, and long-standing legal precedents remain intact despite advances in drone technology.
These rights cannot be arbitrarily disregarded or invalidated by a dream of societal utility or the hope of benevolent low-altitude airspace owners passive permission. There is no public right of access to private property.
The current approach has led to stagnation in the adoption of commercial drone operations. Lobbying the federal government by large commercial interests to whittle down property rights has been rightly pushed back by government departments. The owners of low-altitude airspace are decentralized landowners who can use their air rights how they see fit.
Systems that embrace rather than ignore landowners’ property interests in the low airspace above their land will accelerate the widespread deployment of commercial drone technologies.
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