AUBURN - The Auburn City Council approved on Thursday an ordinance that sets a policy for naming private lanes.

The ordinance allows private owners to designate names, gives the city assessor the responsibility of overseeing the naming process and establishes a design for private street signs that will distinguish them from public streets.

The measure is necessary to meet 911 requirements that all residences, buildings and municipalities have their own number.

“It's a liability issue if we're providing services to a private lane,” said City Manager Mark Palesh. It is important that operators of city equipment, such as fire trucks, know which roads are private.

The city currently has a policy for naming public streets. But the need for a policy to name private lanes has recently been underscored by new developments on Clark and York streets, where private ways with more than one municipality are currently being developed.

“Years and years ago we used to use halves,” said Auburn Fire Chief Mike Hammon. “Areas that were overgrown had some funky numbers.”

But when 911 was established in the city, a unique number for each building and for every subdivision within a building became mandatory, he said.

Owners of private lane will submit to the city an name application that will be approved by the city assessor if it does not conflict with public street names. Owners will be charged for the cost of their signs.

In addition to setting a policy for naming private lanes, the council also agreed that private lanes will be a different color than public roads. The signs of already-existing private lanes will be changed to match the new color scheme.

In other news:

* Council approved a resolution to seek bids for 12 new fire hydrants to replace outdated ones. The city moved $42,500 from its contingency fund to purchase the hydrants, which will cost about $49,000. The remainder of the money will come from the Water Transmission & Distribution Equipment fund, which has a balance of $6,500.

* The Auburn Enlarged City School District will lease from Auburn the playground across from Herman Avenue School for $1. The playground, which is owned by the city, will be maintained and improved by the school but will be available for the city's use if needed. The resolution approved by the council Thursday establishes a 10-year lease agreement.

Staff writer Sarah Gantz can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 237 or sarah.gantz@lee.net