Pike sues Westbrook over expansion plans
Pike Industries has sued Westbrook in an attempt to prevent the city from killing its controversial plan to build a $5 million asphalt plant in a sensitive part of the city.
The Westbrook City Council last month sent a proposal to rezone as light industrial an area of the city where Pike wants to relocate an asphalt plant. The proposal, which the Planning Board will debate this month, would essentially kill the company's plan, according to the Portland Press Herald. Pike's lawsuit asks a judge to rule that the company has a right to build an asphalt plant where it has proposed, claiming any rezoning by the city would be "an unconstitutional regulatory taking of Pike's vested property rights," according to the paper.
Pike Industries currently operates at two locations in Westbrook. It has an asphalt plant and quarry on Main Street and a quarry at Five Star Industrial Park. It wants to relocate the Main Street facility to the industrial park and sell the Main Street parcel, which is the proposed site of a $114 million mixed use development. But Pike's neighbors at the industrial park, including Idexx Laboratories, are opposing the proposal, claiming the asphalt plant would decrease property values and hurt chances of attracting high-tech firms.
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