NORTHAMPTON - The continuing drama surrounding the landfill took another twist this week after a prominent land-use attorney advised that a special permit is not required to expand.

The opinion of Mark Bobrowski, a Concord lawyer who has written a handbook on land use and planning laws in Massachusetts, debunks a years-held belief that any expansion of the Glendale Road facility would require a special heavy-use permit from the City Council and site plan approval from the Planning Board.

City Council President David J. Narkewicz called the memo "provocative," but he doesn't believe that the zoning opinion will change the process the city established for expansion three years ago.

In the end, he noted, the council still must decide whether to approve funding for an expansion. And both Mayor Clare Higgins and the Board of Public Works have stated publicly that they will not ask the council for money to advance such plans, something Higgins confirmed at Thursday's council meeting.

BPW Chairman Terry Culhane, meanwhile, essentially ruled out expansion based on the current political climate, even though Bobrowski's opinion, if correct, would make such an expansion easier.

"In general, I think we're done spending money on this unless there is some indication that the city has rethought" its position, Culhane said.

Resolution passes

Meanwhile, the council Thursday approved a nonbinding resolution that advises the BPW to halt landfill expansion efforts in favor of studying other options for trash disposal when the landfill closes in March 2012.

Narkewicz, who sponsored the resolution with Ward 4 City Councilor Pamela C. Schwartz, believes that shifting the focus away from expansion and toward future trash removal options is the right move.

Not every councilor was comfortable with the resolution. Ward 6's Marianne L. LaBarge voted against it and reiterated her concern that its wording violates the council's self-imposed gag order, despite assurances from attorney Michael Pill that councilors could approve it without going against his earlier instructions not to discuss the landfill expansion issue until a special permit was filed.

Three councilors - Ward 3's Angela D. Plassmann, Ward 7's Eugene A. Tacy, and Ward 5's David A. Murphy - abstained from voting.

Pill said the resolution falls in line with what a legislative body should be doing, in that it provides direction on what the city should do with its trash.

"This resolution is part of the legislative process," he said. "It doesn't violate or contradict the advice I gave you."

When Tacy asked about the gag order and wondered if he could talk about the landfill with residents, Pill said he could, noting that the positions of the BPW and mayor and last fall's referendum vote make the filing of a special permit unlikely.

The BPW still believes that expansion is the safest and most economical way to deal with the city's waste, and Culhane won't rule out the idea that future councils or administrations might put expansion back in play.

Bobrowski's opinion stems from a request for advice by the city's Planning Department regarding a possible zoning amendment submitted by citizen petition. That amendment seeks to prohibit landfills in water supply protection districts.

Regardless of the proposed amendment, the current landfill and its proposed expansion site are grandfathered, and the zone change would not affect the option to expand, according to a summary of Bobrowski's opinion by Carolyn Misch, the city's land use planner, and approved by Planning Director Wayne Feiden.

Expansion would not trigger a special permit because the landfill, established in 1969, predates the city's heavy public use requirement. This grandfathering includes both the parcel of land that contains the current landfill and the adjoining parcel where expansion takes place because those two pieces of land have merged for zoning purposes, Bobrowski said.

If the opinion is correct, the BPW could seek site plan approval from the Planning Board without going to the City Council, although the council would still have the ultimate responsibility of approving the funds for the project.

The Planning Board and Ordinance Committee have scheduled a joint public hearing on the issue Thursday, March 25, at 7 p.m.