First, consider
starting a NAR section. The is no fee and all you need is 2 NAR members, one being an adult, for the first 2 years, then 5 after that. That way you have insurance and can easily (relatively speaking) obtain field use.
For a model rocket launch, you site must conform to the site requirements in the
model rocket safety code.
For a high power launch, your site must conform to the site requirements in the
high power rocket safety code.
High Power Launch Site Requirements. An open area where trees, power lines, occupied buildings, and persons not involved in the launch do not present a hazard, and that is at least as large on its smallest dimension as one-half of the maximum altitude to which rockets are allowed to be flown at that site or 1500 feet, whichever is greater, or 1000 feet for rockets with a combined total impulse of less than 160 N-sec, a total liftoff weight of less than 1500 grams, and a maximum expected altitude of less than 610 meters (2000 feet).
High Power Launcher Location Requirement. The launcher will be 1500 feet from any occupied building or from any public highway on which traffic flow exceeds 10 vehicles per hour, not including traffic flow related to the launch. The launcher will also be no closer than the appropriate Minimum Personnel Distance listed in the high power safety code table from any boundary of the launch site.
All of your launch activities must conform to
FAR 101. Class 1 rockets (weighing not more than 1500 grams and containing not more than 125 grams of propellant (in all motors total) do not require a waiver (This extends into the low to mid H-impulse class.). Heavier rockets and/or rockets with more propellant require a formal written waiver.
More operational details are described
here.
The ideal minimum field for high power is a 3000' diameter circle with is a tad over 162 acres. The maximum allowed waiver altitude for that field size is 6000 AGL however if there is any wind, that altitude drops quickly and the practical altitude limit in a 20 mph wind is 1500' AGL to recover in-field, and on most day a apogee deployment need to be restricted to not more than 3000' AGL.
If you help the FAA, they will help you. We used to have a 6000' AGL waiver at our launch site, and the Victor-3 Airway to Boston goes over our field at 7000'. The FAA must maintain a 2000' vertical separation and a 3 nm horizontal separation between air vehicles so during our launch Logan Approach control had to divert 60 flights per hour around the launch. They asked us if they could reduce the horizontal separation to 1 nm so we invited a controller to our next launch. Once we realized what their problem was we asked if we dropped our waiver request to 4900 AGL did the problem go away. They said yes. We always set our launch schedule in January, and submitted a request a waivers on ~10 days each yea, and got the approval back in early April. The year after we dropped the altitude to 4900' AGL, we put in our usual 10 day request and were happily surprised to receive a 365 day waiver approval with a 24 hour call-in! As the reduced altitude created no extra work for the controllers, the schedule became unimportant!
The lesson learned is to check where the air traffic is above your field and where the approaches are to the major airports near you and be realistic. It your waiver adds no additional workload it will be granted quickly.
An additional piece of information. If you have a large field and are requesting a waiver over 16,000 MSL, your waiver request may take longer to process. The separation between the low altitude control sectors and the high altitude control sectors is 18,000' MSL, and any waiver request above 16,000' MSL (to maintain 2000' vertical separation) is sent to Washington so that the appropriate low and high altitude sectors can coordinate. You are likely to obtain a full-time waiver to 16,000 MSL with call-ins to higher altitudes. Your high altitude waiver will usual start 10-20 minutes after the call-in and last for a fixed time period as the air traffic above 18,000 MSL is in long distance cruise mode and with air traffic moving at 10 miles per minute, it takes time to reroute flights.
Good luck and have fun.
Bob