Auburn planning board approves Brickyard Commons site plan with conditions after abstention and public groundwater concerns

The Auburn Planning Board on June 18, 2025 approved a site plan for Brickyard Commons, a proposed 96‑unit apartment complex at Brickyard Circle, with conditions including completion of a left‑turn lane on Washington Street North and a traffic warning sign before certificates of occupancy. Planning Board member Bob Hayes abstained from deliberation and the vote after saying prior zoning and administrative actions had “tainted” his ability to be objective.

The vote concluded a contentious public hearing in which several neighbors urged the board to require a hydrologic and soil analysis before permitting, citing historical spills at the adjacent industrial property known in the record as the Safe and Handling/gantry area. Steven Bridal, a resident who identified addresses in Auburn and Durham, said the applicant’s submitted documents did not answer “the core question” of whether any discharge, drainage, or seepage from the Safe and Handling site flows downgrade or otherwise to the subject parcel. Marcel Larose, who said he formerly managed maintenance at Safe and Handling, described hundreds of recorded spills and cited specific incident reports from 2006 and 2015.

Why it matters: neighbors and at least some board members said the outstanding technical question about groundwater and contaminant pathways…