St. Peters, MO Drone Rules: Park Drone Restrictions (2026)

Section 245.010(L) gives the City Administrator authority, consistent with the rest of Chapter 245, to promulgate policies and procedures governing unmanned aircraft system operation upon and over property owned or controlled by the City, a category that reaches City parks such as 370 Lakeside Park and the grounds around the Rec-Plex as well as other municipal buildings and land. Those policies must impose only reasonable restrictions on the time, place and manner in which a person may land, launch or otherwise operate a drone, aimed at protecting the health, safety and welfare of City residents, and the Section expressly caps that authority: restrictions adopted under it may not place an undue burden on either recreational or commercial operation of unmanned aircraft systems.

The City Administrator may also require certain conditions be met before a drone takes off, lands or operates from designated City-owned or City-controlled properties, giving the City a permitting-style lever over launch sites without creating a separate license scheme in the text. This park-and-property authority operates alongside, not instead of, the baseline operating rules that apply throughout the City under Section 245.010(C) through (K): visual line of sight, the twenty-five-foot buffer from people and structures, the ban on flying over unsheltered persons or moving vehicles, daylight-or-twilight-only hours with anti-collision lighting, and the fifty-five-pound weight cap. A drone flown in a City park must clear both layers of the ordinance at once.