BY DANIEL SCHMIDT
FOR THE OBSERVER
AUBURN – Developers will now have greater flexibility when building in rural zoning districts within the city of Auburn after the Auburn City Council on Tuesday night unanimously approved a zoning ordinance amendment.
That change will allow for commercial and entertainment uses in rural zoning districts if they are consistent with certain development standards, primarily being located on arterial or collector roads and intersections in high-traffic areas.
Allowed conditional uses in rural zoning districts include: book, hobby, music and sporting goods stores; brewpubs; professional studios; restaurants; specialty food stores; community recreation centers; convenience stores and small grocery stores that are less than 3,000 square feet and do not offer fuel and mobile vendor food courts.
Some other unlisted conditional uses may be allowed on a case-by-case basis as long as they are a similar commercial or entertainment use. Full-sized grocery stores will not be allowed as conditional uses under the amendment.
Commercial and entertainment facilities will also require adequate utilities, such as septic tanks that percolate, to be approved for a permit.
Before adopting the updated ordinance, the city was relatively restrictive when it came to allowing development in areas that are zoned as rural.
In the past, non-residential land uses were overwhelmingly conditional and mostly restricted to feed and seed stores, amphitheaters, amusement parks, fairgrounds, miniature golf, driving ranges, tracks, stadiums and arenas, among others.
The idea to make rural development less restrictive first arose during a stakeholder meeting to review the planned unit development criteria. In that meeting, some attendees expressed interest in building small-scale PUDs and in creating commercial uses in rural districts along high-traffic areas and intersections.
There was also an expressed desire from the city to meet the demand of a rapidly growing and changing city that has added an estimated 9,200 residents since 2020 alone.
“[There’s] kind of a shift in demographics in Auburn where we’ve gotten a lot more rooftops in our rural designation areas than we thought. We have entire rural subdivisions, places that are high-traffic corridors from our zoning districts that are exclusively rural, but now with the traffic that they’re seeing, they kind of embody much more of a commercial corridor,” said planning director Justice Wahid Cotton. “[This] would be providing amenities in a lot closer proximity to some of those people who live in the rural outposts on the fringes of town.”
However, not everyone was happy with the proposal to allow for more businesses to be developed further from the city’s urban core.
Auburn resident Robert Wilkins, who has long railed against the city’s short-term rental ordinance and other topics, accused city officials of acquiescing to developers and demanded to know who requested such changes at the stakeholder meeting.
“There are so many unanswered questions. This could be spot zoning, but the courts have said that this terminology was a little ambiguous. It reminds me a little bit of Ordinance 3288 short-term rentals, where you can discriminate against one neighbor while the other one can do a short-term rental,” Wilkins said. “Mayor Anders, the city council members and the city manager have an incredible appetite to devour the rural land surrounding Auburn and feed this insatiable Auburn revenue machine.”
IN OTHER BUSINESS
- The council approved a special events retail alcohol license for Plainsman Park, which is located at 351 S. Donahue Drive.
- The council approved a $24,166 contract with Cook’s Pest Control to provide pest control services at city facilities.
- The council approved a $122,110 contract with Hydra Service for the emergency purchase of replacement pumps at the Northside Water Pollution Control Facility.
- The council approved a $121,735 contract with J Manifold Construction to replace the dormitory lockers at two fire stations.
- The council approved a $48,130 contract with Solid Concrete Walls for the purchase and installation of a concrete drafting pit at the Public Safety Training Center.
- The council accepted public drainage and utility easements and the redivision of several parcels from Hartbrook Development. Those easements and redivisions are located near 1407 Reynolds Drive in The Gardens at Gatewood.
- The council adopted an amendment to the fiscal year 2025 budget.
- The council approved an outdoor café permit for Purely Bowls, which is located at 211 W. Glenn Ave.
- The council approved a $250,000 contract with Hazen and Sawyer to perform a sanitary sewer evaluation survey at the Town Creek and Moores Mill sewer basins.
- The council approved a $418,413 contract with W.W. Compton to install conduit, electrical outlets, fencing, fiber optic cable, light fixtures and switches at the Public Safety Training Site.
