WESTBROOK – Pike Industries will be allowed for the time being to excavate and crush rock at its Spring Street site – a court decision that came the day after the city’s Planning Board supported a zone change that would kill the quarrying company’s expansion plans.

Chief Justice Thomas Humphrey Wednesday granted Pike’s motion for a stay, allowing the company to operate to a certain degree as its lawsuit against the city of Westbrook and nearby businesses opposed to its expansion plays out in court.

“The court concludes that the harm done to Pike will outweigh that to the city and its inhabitants,” the ruling said.

However, Humphrey ruled that Pike could not start blasting rock again at the site. According to Pike’s spokesman Dennis Bailey, the company is happy with the ruling and hadn’t planned on blasting anyway.

“We’re very pleased with it,” said Pike’s regional manager Jonathan Olson. “It’s a great first step toward being successful with the court case.”

Not all of Pike’s opponents saw the ruling as a loss.

“We’re very happy that blasting isn’t permitted,” said Warren Knight of Smiling Hill Farm, one of the businesses in the opposition group called Westbrook Works.

Still, Dick Daigle of Idexx Laboratories, another Westbrook Works member, said he believed attorneys made a good case at the hearing last week that Pike would not be harmed by having its operations halted.

“I’m disappointed in the court ruling,” Daigle said.

But it wasn’t all good news for Pike this week.

After days of discussion, hours of hearings and several drafts defining a light manufacturing zone, the Westbrook Planning Board supported the implementation of that zone in and around the Five Star Industrial Park.

If the City Council follows suit, the change would prohibit Pike from building an asphalt plant there.

The Planning Board Tuesday voted 5-1, with Paul Emery opposed, to recommend the City Council change the zone from industrial to light manufacturing.

Though the council could support, deny or amend the board’s recommendation, the vote is significant because it’s the first indication of where city officials stand on a debate that’s been drawn out for years – and is expected to continue in court for a couple more.

The zone change was brought forward by Mayor Bruce Chuluda in 2008 after Idexx Laboratories threatened to halt its expansion plans if Pike were allowed to build an asphalt plant on its nearby Spring Street site.

Later, Idexx and other businesses in the Five Star Industrial Park, which formed Westbrook Works, also argued that Pike never had the proper permits to quarry on Spring Street at all, let alone expand. Earlier this year, the Zoning Board affirmed that argument – a decision Pike has since appealed in Cumberland County Superior Court.

There was very little discussion by Planning Board members at the meeting before their vote Tuesday.

After Emery made a motion not to recommend the zone change, which failed for lack of a second, it became clear how the rest of the board would vote.

“I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I would or would not recommend,” Emery said.

Pointing to the public relations campaigns put on by both sides of the battle, Emery said he didn’t take into account full-page newspaper advertisements or T-shirts worn by people sitting in the audience at Planning Board meetings. Instead, he said, he considered what “the spirit of Westbrook was trying to accomplish.”

Examining the city’s 2000 comprehensive plan, Emery determined that the goal was to make businesses work together.

“The emphasis should be on integration, not exclusion,” he said. “We’re trying to write this to push one side at the expense of the other.”

Though no other Planning Board members were swayed by Emery’s argument, Olson said he hopes city councilors heard his message.

“We’re hopeful they will look to Mr. Emery for some guidance,” he said. “We’re looking for a fair shake.”

Olson said the Planning Board decision was disappointing but not surprising.

Regardless of these first few decisions from the city and the court, both sides have indicated that they’ll play this battle out until the bitter end.

“We’re in this for the long haul,” Olson said. “If it’s years, it’s years. If it’s millions of dollars, it’s millions of dollars.”