Auburn council rejects rezoning for proposed Donahue–Farmville commercial node after hourlong public hearing

Auburn Mayor Anders and the City Council voted down a request to rezone about 13.74 acres at the southeast corner of North Donahue Drive and West Farmville Road from rural to Comprehensive Development District (CDD) after an extended public hearing and sustained public opposition.

Planning Director Justice told the council the parcel’s future land use designation is mixed-use, medium intensity and that staff recommended CDD coupled with a PDD overlay to limit by-right uses: “With a plan development district overlay, every use is conditional. There are no uses permitted by right.”

The rezoning would have cleared the way for an automotive-anchored commercial node the developer described as including a 30,000-square-foot grocery and up to roughly 112,800 square feet of commercial building area across the site; the developer said an initial grocery-driven phase might be about 40,000–45,000 square feet. Tom Haley, the developer, told the council the project had been in planning for years and that the applicant had increased the required buffer from the ordinance minimum of 15 feet to 30 feet on most sides.

Neighbors said that was not enough. Gene Elkins, who lives directly behind the planned loading area, told the council that low-frequency noise and truck deliveries would significantly affect abutting homeowners and argued for substantially greater separation: “Space by way of the buffer yard will be the most important tool for us to ensure the privacy and tranquility of the abutting homeowners.” Other residents raised similar objections: concerns about traffic at the intersection, possible odors and dumpster activity, the visual quality of future buildings, impacts on nearby Woodland Pines Elementary School and potential declines in property values.

Council members and city staff described a layered process of approvals. Planning staff noted the Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval at its Jan. 9 meeting; staff and the city’s transportation group said intersection improvements for North Donahue and Farmville are being accelerated and would be designed in roughly a year and could take about a year to build, with officials estimating late summer 2027 for full completion of widening work if funding and right-of-way alignments proceed on schedule. City staff said any development agreement would require the developer to complete or fund required turn lanes or other improvements before certificates of occupancy could be issued.

Several speakers, including residents who said they had researched local examples, contrasted larger buffers on other commercial sites in Auburn and asked why the council could not require a larger setback or different uses. The developer and staff replied that many of the larger buffers elsewhere were the product of older zoning and other site constraints, and that under the city’s performance-zoning framework buffer widths are specified by land-use intensity tables in the zoning ordinance.

After public comment and Council discussion about traffic timing, buffering and architectural control (the city attorney explained the city has limited authority to impose generalized architectural requirements outside downtown or designated historic districts), the council held a roll-call vote on the rezoning ordinance. The motion to rezone to CDD failed and the council announced that related agenda items dependent on the rezoning would be removed from tonight’s agenda.

Why it matters: The decision preserves the site’s current rural zoning and delays a commercial node many neighbors had already been preparing for; it also leaves unresolved how the city will sequence traffic improvements, future rezoning applications and community input about design and buffering if the developer returns with a revised proposal.

Votes at a glance: The council held a roll-call vote on the rezoning ordinance. The presiding officer announced, “That motion fails,” after the roll call concluded; council members who spoke during the roll call included Anders (No). The council did not provide a published tally in the public record during the meeting.