AUBURN — The city will host a public planning session at 6 p.m. Thursday at Rolly’s Diner to launch a village study of the core of New Auburn’s downtown.

“This is not a meeting, another boring meeting,” Economic Development Specialist Al Manoian said. “It’s a public design session. We’ll have large street maps set up and various stations and we’ll break folks up into design teams so they can lay out some fine-grain designs for that area.”

The city adopted the New Auburn Master Plan in 2011. It was part of an updated citywide Comprehensive Plan.

The New Auburn plan suggested creating a downtown village area, possibly rerouting traffic from Main Street after it crosses the bridge over the Little Androscoggin River.

The New Village study will result in a set of action steps that should go to the city Planning Board this fall. If adopted, it could guide economic development, planning and zoning decisions, traffic and parks, among other things.

“They are talking about really fundamental changes,” Manoian said. “Talk about redesigning the way streets are, blocking off some historic roads and creating new ones. They are talking about traffic, circulation, about a whole new building form along the streets. So this is serious stuff. It’s not lighthearted street-scape stuff. It’s real fundamental design improvements.”

The meeting is open to anyone in the Twin Cities, but Manoian said he hopes anyone with a stake in the area attends. That includes New Auburn residents and business owners.

“We don’t want folks looking years in the future, saying, ‘I wish I’d participated in this,'” Manoian said.

staylor@sunjournal.com


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