Anyone wanting to put a mobile home in Auburn currently faces some pretty strict regulations about how it must be done. That could change as the Auburn City Council takes a look at the current ordinance and decides if changes need to be made.

At Monday evening’s council meeting, Mayor Dewey Roche explained that there were a couple of people interested in placing mobile homes in the city limits but they were concerned about the regulations. Roche said that as he looked at the ordinance, it seems that mobile homes are required to be on a solid foundation and bricked from the bottom of the mobile home to the top.

“We haven’t really been enforcing that,” Roche said. “That would probably eliminate any mobile homes from coming to Auburn.”

“I don’t go along with having to have brick or stone from top to bottom,” said resident Rodge Miller.

Roche said he didn’t realize that was in the ordinance and perhaps the council should consider revising the rules.

Councilmember Gayle Gregory said she believed they made the ordinance that way to protect homeowners from people placing junky old trailers in town. Nice mobile homes are fine, she added.

“If you want to open this back up it will make a lot of people mad,” Gregory said. “You’ve got to think about the future for everybody.”

Councilmember Mike Hughes said that while he agreed with much of the ordinance, he would not mind revisiting it.

“We’ve got to think about everybody,” Hughes said.

The council agreed to examine the ordinance and discuss whether or not to make any changes at the next meeting.

Another issue that the council will discuss more at the next meeting is the burn ban rules. Current rules prohibit burning leaves, limbs and branches in the city limits. Roche explained that at first the burn ban only applied to leaves because they put off toxic fumes when burned. However, when people burned branches and limbs, they often put leaves in with them, so the city expanded the ban to cover branches and limbs as well.

“Now it’s a bigger problem than I ever dreamed it would be,” Roche said. City workers spend a lot of time picking up limbs and branches and then having to burn them behind the Auburn Park is a lot of work as well.

“It’s just getting out of hand,” Roche said. He suggested changing the burn ban back to only prohibit burning leaves and once again allow residents to burn limbs and branches on their own property.

The council agreed that it was worth revisiting and Roche said he would look it over and make a recommendation at the next meeting.

In other news:

• Hughes told the council that the skate park equipment has been ordered and should arrive soon. Then they will have to get it installed and put up signs. Hughes said they could still use donations to help with the cost of the skate park.

• Hughes also told the council that he and others would finish up work on the new tee ball field after work on the skate park is finished.

• Roche said progress on the Senior Center is kind of at a standstill as they wait to find out about getting a grant to cover most of the cost. However, he said he is still confident it will happen.

• Roche told the council that the Park View Apartments are moving right along and that the owners believe they have all eleven apartments rented and still have some on a waiting list. The owners want to build even more apartments on the same site and the council agreed to sell another acre and a half to Park View Apartments so more can be built.