In response to the Citizens' Petition Zoning Ordinance Amendment, the city hired attorney Mark Bombrowski to issue a legal opinion as to whether the landfill has grandfathered status and would not need a Special Permit to expand.

Planning Staff Memo: No Special Permit Needed for Landfill Expansion
Northampton Media reports that:

"City Planner Carolyn Misch, citing an opinion from zoning lawyer Mark Bobrowski dated March 18, wrote in a recent memo that the  the city’s landfill should not require a special permit to expand. The current landfill is grandfathered, wrote Misch, and an expansion would not be affected by a zoning amendment proposed by citizens which seeks to prohibit landfills over Water Supply Protection Districts.

Bobrowski returned the opinion, in a March 5 letter addressed to City Solicitor Elaine Reall, that the Northampton landfill, regardless of any new zoning ordinance, constitutes a “prior lawful conforming use” and not a “pre-existing non-conforming use,” and argued that the landfill, which was established in 1969, predates the 1975 adoption of “modern zoning” in the city and that any expansion would require at most approval from the Zoning Board and perhaps a Site Plan Approval from the Planning Board."