WESTBROOK — The city's Planning Board sent a message to Pike Industries on Tuesday night, voting 5-1 to support new zoning that would restrict Pike's operations in the Five Star Industrial Park and rule out its plan to build an asphalt plant.

After the vote, Pike officials charged the Planning Board with rubber-stamping a proposal promoted by the city and Westbrook Works, a private group that opposes the company's operations.

The City Council is scheduled to review the new zoning on Dec. 7, said City Administrator Jerre Bryant, who did not attend Tuesday's meeting. The council will have the final say on the zoning change.

Bryant has said that rezoning the Five Star Industrial Park from heavy manufacturing to light industrial would promote and attract technology-based businesses.

The new zoning would prohibit the extraction of raw materials, mining and drilling operations, and asphalt plants.

Jonathan Olson, Pike Industries' regional manager, said the Planning Board ignored Pike's offer of a compromise that would have created a 30-acre buffer between neighboring Idexx Laboratories and Pike's land.

"We are very disappointed," he said. "The Planning Board took the document submitted by Idexx and the city and rubber-stamped it."

The proposal says: "The intent is to establish a new zoning district to promote the vision for the area south of the Stroudwater River The vision includes expansion of the high-tech business and manufacturing sector and the prevention of negative impacts that would detract from the area as a high tech manufacturing and business park."

All but one Planning Board member, Paul Emery, endorsed the change.

Emery said he would have preferred to see the city take a less heavy-handed approach, meeting with Pike and trying to negotiate a compromise that would integrate the company into Westbrook's economic development plans.

No one else on the Planning Board supported Emery's position, with Edward Reidman, Dennis Isherwood, Scott Herrick, Anna Wrobel and Rene Daniel voting to recommend the new district.

Tuesday's discussion took less than 45 minutes because public comment, which lasted more than four hours at a hearing last month, was not allowed.

"There is always the possibility of reopening the public hearing, but we would have to reschedule another meeting," said Reidman, the board's chairman.

Meanwhile, a lawsuit by Pike is pending in Cumberland County Superior Court.

In July, the Zoning Board of Appeals ruled that Pike doesn't have the right to operate a quarry in the industrial park because its predecessor, Blue Rock Industries, never met conditions the board established for the site in 1968.

Lawyers for Pike have argued in court that the city has known about Pike's quarry operations since 1968.

Olson said the Planning Board's vote will have no effect on the lawsuit.

"We are in this for the long haul," he said "This is not going to be a short fight."

Staff Writer Dennis Hoey can be contacted at 791-6365 or at: dhoey@pressherald.com