Planning board approves new Auburn public safety facility with conditions to limit light trespass and secure easements

The Auburn Planning Board unanimously approved plans for a new public safety facility at 550 Minet Avenue, allowing a combined police and fire station to proceed with conditions aimed at reducing lighting impacts and ensuring water and sewer easements are in place before activation.

Staff described the project as a delegated review SLOA application for a roughly 8.4‑acre site that will replace the existing central fire station and provide six drive‑through apparatus bays, a police asset building, a fire training building and burn structure, and an emergency operations center. The project triggered a traffic movement permit and requested two forms of relief: a dimensional variance (building‑height relief for a hose tower used for training and hose drying) and reduced driveway spacing. Staff recommended the waivers and noted coordination with other city departments.

Megan McDevitt of Woodard & Curran and the applicant team detailed operational shortcomings at the current facilities—crowded quarters, insufficient evidence storage and vehicle impound capacity, and outdated apparatus bays—and said the new building is intended to meet modern standards for both departments. The team also described site work including a proposed box culvert replacement and stream improvements to address an undersized culvert and erosion into Taylor Brook; the proposed finished building grade is ~225.5, approximately 12 feet above the FEMA 100‑year elevation cited in the application.

The board discussed whether the planning board has authority to grant dimensional variances under state law or whether those should be heard by the board of appeals; staff pointed to a planning‑board authority in the municipal code to relax dimensional requirements as part of site‑plan and special‑exception review. After discussion, the board voted to grant the two waiver/variance requests (building height and driveway spacing) and then approved the full application as a site‑plan special exception with the conditions that the applicant submit an updated site plan showing additional screening to mitigate light trespass on adjacent parcels and that final sewer and water easements be in place prior to activation of services. The board also recorded that the applicant is completing Section 106 historic‑preservation consultation for the existing station, with an agreed mitigation memorandum of agreement (recordation of the existing building) in process.

The approval is conditioned on staff review of the revised screening and easement documentation; the board said it expects those elements to be documented before permitting proceeds.