Studies fortify Pike quarry battle
Photo/Whit Richardson
Pike Industries' quarry and asphalt plant in Poland
As the battle between Idexx Laboratories and Pike Industries in Westbrook wages on, the two local heavyweights have unleashed their latest weapon: economic impact studies. The competitors have recently handed city officials new reports that each argue for the economic superiority of their position.
"[The reports] were done by very reputable organizations and individuals," Westbrook city administrator Jerre Bryant says, "and they concluded exactly what the client wanted them to conclude."
The two studies by PolicyOne and Planning Decisions take slightly different perspectives on the conflict that has divided the community for more than a year. At the heart of the fight is whether Westbrook should let Pike move its rock crushing operation and asphalt plant from Main Street, where its quarry is getting too deep and expensive to mine, to its valuable blue-rock quarry in the Five Star Industrial Park. But that would put it next door to Idexx. A biotechnology company that makes veterinary medicine, Idexx is trying to block Pike's efforts, arguing an expansion at the Spring Street quarry would hinder business growth and degrade quality of life.
As the two sides continue to clash, lawyers have been summoned, 40-year-old city permits have been unearthed, a court case is pending, city rezoning is being considered, negotiations have been attempted and failed, and now they have turned to economic policy reports.
Westbrook Works, a coalition of residents and businesses that includes Idexx, hired PolicyOne Research of Scarborough to evaluate property values in the industrial park and other areas the town is considering rezoning to stop Pike's expansion. The report looked at the "best use of property and best tax rate of property," Dick Daigle, Idexx's director of facilities, explains. It claims an acre of Pike property equates to about $1,000 per acre of tax value. Other businesses in the industrial area pay roughly $8,300 an acre, while high-tech businesses, like Idexx and Artel, pay closer to $11,350 per acre in property taxes. "We are suggesting that it is a greater tax benefit to use that property for similar uses or a high-tech vision," Daigle says.
But Tony Buxton, a Preti Flaherty lawyer representing Pike, fumes about the way Idexx has tried to squash Pike's expansion. "This is a form of elitism in the extreme," he says. "This is an industrial park we're in."
As the planning board considers whether to rezone the park - and it is scheduled to resume its deliberations Nov. 17 - Buxton says there are many more issues than land value to consider. "What's wrong with PolicyOne is it doesn't look at the right question," he says.
Pike's economic report doesn't just calculate land value at the industrial park, but also incorporates Pike's promise to turn its Main Street quarry into a lake and redevelop the surrounding area. Pike worked with economist Charles Lawton of Planning Decisions to analyze three different scenarios for Westbrook.
The first vision was an "Idexx wins, Pike loses" outcome, Lawton explains, where a high-tech area would be developed with no quarry. Over the next 20 years, as other industrial uses leave and new high-tech businesses move in, Lawton calculated the tax revenue for the city at around $5.8 million.
The other scenario is the "Pike wins, Idexx loses." In this case, Pike would consolidate its quarry and asphalt plant at Spring Street, "and the high-tech people say they're out of here, and the empty lots fill in with trucking and wholesale operations that don't have the value of high-tech," Lawton says. But coupling this with the redevelopment of Pike's Main Street site into a "downtown gateway" would result in $9.1 million in tax revenue over the next 20 years, he argues.
The third vision is a compromise where high- and low-tech co-exist and the Main Street quarry is redeveloped. That would give the town $9.3 million in tax revenue, Lawton said. "If I were a Westbrook taxpayer, I would want someone just to tell me the bottom line: What does it mean to me if vision one or vision two or vision three happens? My report was an attempt to answer that question."
But Daigle, of Idexx, says the report is flawed in part because it does not address the dampening effect "that the mere presence of a Pike operation" would have on high-tech investment in Westbrook.
Westbook Mayor Bruch Chuluda says while the two reports had interesting information, he was not particularly swayed by either. "The issue we're talking about goes beyond the data contained in these particular reports," he says, to the whole feel of the surrounding area.
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