Auburn Conservation Commission Unanimously Backs Potter Farm Road Acceptance, Issues Rockland Road Conditions

AUBURN — April 8, 2026 — Auburn Conservation Commission votes to support release of a 22-year-old $100,000 subdivision bond. The commission voted unanimously at its April 8 meeting to recommend amending Article 14 of a December 15, 2003 special town meeting to delete a bond condition tied to roads in the Potter Farm Estates subdivision — Potter Farm Road, Pine Valley Drive, Deerfield Circle, Birchwood Circle, Cranberry Lane, Fox Run Circle, and Bayberry Lane — clearing the way for a May town meeting vote to formally accept the roads as public ways. Assistant Town Manager Paul Dell'Aquila noted the item was procedurally unusual, saying "traditionally a road acceptance matter would not come before the Conservation Commission," but that the Select Board sought the panel's sign-off because the 2003 warrant language had referenced the commission. The board also issued an order of conditions for commercial renovations at 47 and 49 Rockland Road, signed an emergency certification for a motor oil and diesel spill that occurred April 6 at mile marker 89.6 on the Massachusetts Turnpike westbound — authorizing contractor Veolia North America's soil excavation and boom work — and unanimously vacated an enforcement order at 464 Leicester Road after Chair Michael Garland determined that fill material on the site fell outside the commission's 100-foot buffer jurisdiction.