Drones and New Construction In The Villages
 

In this video, I will update you on an issue I and others have been facing with the drone videos we've made in The Villages, showcasing new developments in progress. I wasn’t planning to address this, but I believe our rights are being infringed upon, and I feel it’s important to share my perspective. I want to keep all of you who support channels that create drone content in the loop about these recent developments. Thanks for your continued support.

https://youtu.be/ZQFLWkkNIaI

I believe that I read that The Villages has recently disallowed drones over their new construction areas.

That is fine with me. That makes sense. There is a lot of theft these days of both equipment and supplies.

Someone who most of us respect is apparently upset because his drone pictures are very interesting and not at all in any way doing anything wrong.

I still agree with The Villages. They have a right to protect areas that could be harmed and that is a cost spread to everyone eventually.

Not a lot of theft by way of drones.

If you can see it, you can film it.

The developer does not own the air over the Villages

But the law says differently.

well if they can fly drones over air bases why can’t you fly them over a construction site

Law states if you can see it from a public place, it's legal to photograph

I agree with whoever is legally correct.

Intimidation to scare away people that don’t have pockets as deep as the developer. Seems this would backfire, nobody likes a bully…

And they don’t own all the property
 

And in many cases the Villages doesn’t even have complete ownership of the property. What if there is a county road involved? What about the conversion of County road 470:to Central Parkway? This is a huge grey area and road systems are generally owned by the county or state. Just ask the people who want their roads fixed at Lake Sumter Landing with bricks….lol. Or ask the people who have already purchased their homes that are still being built? What if they don’t object, or better yet what if the want someone to film construction ? Like another poster has said, “If you can see it, you can film it.”

If the drone operators comply with the laws, they should be free to produce the videos—period. If you don't like it, work to change the law.

We recently built in the villages and will be moving in next week. Our decision to do so was influenced in no small part by the drone videos on YouTube, which provided another favorable input on our decision-making process.

We used Don Wiley's Gold Wingnut drone and photography services to get updates on our home construction process. This was well worth it. Highly recommended.

This episode shows a shocking lack of social media awareness from the developers. I can't think of a single YouTube drone video from any of the producers that has a negative tone toward the villages. Instead, these videos should be viewed as another marketing channel for them (a free one at that). Many people use Amazon to obtain independent product reviews, and I think these videos provide a similar benefit. I look for many objective inputs when making serious decisions, such as where to live. I don't want to rely solely on state-run media.

Finally, this is an incredibly bad look for the developers - it puts off David and Goliath vibes. I am rooting for David.

Maybe, the developers don't want the public to see the poor quality of new construction.

Ok. You post that. What does the law say differently? Time to back up that statement.
Pretty please

Hopefully Don will post here

good point!

Agree 200%!!! There is a lot about TV that seems like a monopoly! :bigbow:

I used Goldwingnut's video and photo service when we had our home built in 2020. I often refer to the photo's to show me what type of materials are used within the walls for plumbing or simply picture hanging purposes.
The video content is invaluable to see different stages of build-out. Archived arial snapshots of slab processes and plumbing can only be done once.
Don Wiley is an asset to the community, and for him to be pushed around and harmed financially is a disgrace. The Morse family should be ashamed of their actions. They know they have 'deeper legal pockets' than most around here, and will bankrupt people that attempt to fight them in court. As another poster stated, the federal airspace is free to fly in (certain airspace restrictions apply). Don, being a commercial licensed drone operator has ALWAYS adhered to those regulations and even mentions them during video editing. The the 'developer' absolutely hates bad word of mouth and social media posts, so GAME ON GOLIATH!

To the best of my knowledge "The Villages" is not a charitable organization but a business, the bottom line is always the bottom line. One cardinal rule of any business is Lower cost,, Not price , they have right to protect them selves, and will do so to protect those costs and profits . From what little I know of recording of conversations and video laws in Florida it seems to me that it is some what restrictive, I would like to hear from someone who went shopping for a new car and tried to record the discussion with the sales person, LOL as you would need approval of all parties

Developer not WANTING drones over their construction is just that. They can not want all day long.
According to an FAA approved drone airspace go/no go live website, to check the airspace for any flight restrictions, ALL OF TV IS IN CLEAR/NO RESTRICTIONS AIRSPACE. The ONLY NO GO ZONE is the large prison property, in its entirety. There are not even any temporary flight restrictions above ANY of TV. The law is the law, last I checked.
The developers have no legal say who can legally fly anywhere in TV. Construction or not. If they desire a temporary flight restriction, apply for one. Hopefully my 2 screenshots clearly show clean, legal airspace to fly ANYWHERE over TV. The small magenta dot near my blue dot is just a pin marker. Nothing more.

I had the opportunity to see Don's well reasoned and knowledgible response to the letter he received. In a nutshell, a lawyer (from CA) wrote to him on behalf of the owner and told him that he had no proper license and no legal right to do what he has been doing. It's Don's position, which he backed up with authority, that he does.
In my experience, some junior lawyer in the mailing firm was assigned the job of getting rid of Don's videos. He may have done a little research, but it's clear from his letter than he had no legal authority to cite to back him up. So he just used the threat of expensive legal costs to engage in what we now call lawfare. I thihk Don is going to fight and from what I can gather, he'll eventually win.

Agree
 

It’s kind of like the police don’t care for it if you film them, but the bottom line is you are protected under first amendment rights (as long as you don’t interfere with law enforcement applications).

There are also easements of land applications to law that The Villages won’t be able to clear.

We are here in the villiages right now and we’re meeting with a villages agent today to tour the street of dreams and most likely buying a new home while we’re down here. This is all taking place mostly due to all the you tube channels especially the drone footage buy gold wingnut and papa pineapple. The villiages marketing materiel is aweful. I can’t believe any company would fire employees that are doing a great job and willing to work for free. If they only knew how many houses these channels have sold for them….,,,,,,,

Can you please point out where in FAA Regulations, the FAA has the authority to allow or not allow, "taking video of private property" and using such vidoe, commercially?

The developer wants to protect its reputation, thereby protect the future values of your home. I think what is happening is misinformation is being put out by these drone video creators (except for maybe 1 or 2 that do get it right) and the developer receives phone calls all around the world (literally) with people wanting to confirm if X area” is opening in 3 months as the drone video states, when it’s really not scheduled to open for 6 months. The ones that don’t get it right are creating added work and diminishing reputations by being wrong. I’m sure there are also liability issues, along with showing assets at construction sites.

My suggestion is the developer needs to issue special permits for drones and limiting how many are out there. Then it can be controlled and managed.

Not sure where you may have read that, but the Developer has ZERO authority to ban anything in the airspace above their construction areas. Only the FAA can dictate how the federal airspace is used. The Developer CAN certainly prohibit drone pilots, and anyone else for that matter, from trespassing on their private property. This would prevent drone pilots from using Villages private property for takeoff and landings. But, once that drone is in the air, the Developer has no control over where it flies.

The Developer is overreacting their authority and trying to intimidate Don. His videos are very informative and he has always been supportive of the Villages. Nothing negative. I am not sure how this all came about???

Put yourself in their shoes
 

Bet you would feel differently if you were the one building houses and trying to market your product nationwide and some guys with no skin in the game were taking drone videos of product you don’t have ready for the market yet and posting it on you tube for their own profit.

Very much correct, the developer pretty much "owns" the local courts, HOWEVER they are scared of the Federal Courts, which is exactly where I would take this case. They'll lose in a heartbeat.

I think the real reason is sales are down and they don't want anyone to know how crappy they are building down there.

Excellent.

I am not a legal expert, but reading Florida SB 767, which was signed into law, it appears there must be an expectation of privacy in order to ban the drone flights. Line 82 forward defines what that is. The drone also has to stay in a line of sight and he greater than 50 feet. I believe that part is from federal law

"72 (3) PROHIBITED USE OF DRONES.—
73 (a) A law enforcement agency may not use a drone to gather
74 evidence or other information.
75 (b) A person, a state agency, or a political subdivision as
76 defined in s. 11.45 may not use a drone equipped with an imaging
77 device to record an image of privately owned real property or of
78 the owner, tenant, occupant, invitee, or licensee of such
79 property with the intent to conduct surveillance on the
80 individual or property captured in the image in violation of
81 such person’s reasonable expectation of privacy without his or
82 her written consent. For purposes of this section, a person is
83 presumed to have a reasonable expectation of privacy on his or
84 her privately owned real property if he or she is not observable
85 by persons located at ground level in a place where they have a
86 legal right to be, regardless of whether he or she is observable
87 from the air with the use of a drone."

Almost, here's the rub

"Private Property" this is a grey area, yes they own the property, however building on it so it's technically not so private. This can and probably will be argued.

Tresspassing, the legal definition of a piece of land also includes air space above it. They would have to be outside that air space, which if the drone is traveling the streets (so to say) then it's 100% legal as that is considered public property. It is unlike a HOA, as the county is responsible for road maintenence here not TV

You cannot fly drones over airbases. They are restricted airspace.

I hope the drone flyers win, but am worried at what cost. They will need deep pockets.

Yes but here's the phrase that will be of debate in court -

"with the intent to conduct surveillance on the individual or property"

From a legal perspective the word surveillance has to be determined in this context, these guys aren't actually performing surveillance, now if they are hired to monitor the build of a home, then yes they COULD lose this battle, however the fly overs for what is going on and where it's headed is not considered surveillance.

It would go to State Court first. The developer would have to show there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in a construction zone in order for it to violate State Law.
State Law is more restrictive than fed law in this instance and it spells out that if the person can be seen from the ground, outside of private property, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. If they cannot be, but can be seen from the air, there IS a reasonable expectation of privacy.
I posted the law, above.

Airspace is not “private property.”

I agree. Though at least with Don, he only does building films if the homeowner (purchaser) requests it. I suspect that would be good enough for a judge to say the surveillance is authorized.
I could easily be wrong as I only use common English and legal definitions are sometimes the exact opposite of the word's everyday use.

Yes and no. Up to 50 feet above the property is still considered private property wet flying a drone.

Hopefully he will win but what will it cost him to do so? In the videos I have seen he has basically been a cheerleader for the Villages. Hope we can see the letter and his response.