The San Jose Planning Commission on Wednesday is scheduled to review a finalized odor report related to the Newby Island Landfill and Resource Recovery Park, which wants to expand its facility upward by nearly 100 feet.

If approved as recommended by that city’s planning staff, the commission could deny City of Milpitas’ appeal — based largely on odor complaints from surrounding residents as well as city officials — to prevent the vertical expansion of the dump at its 352 gross acre site at 1601 Dixon Landing Road in San Jose, near the Milpitas border.

The final odor study as well as the ongoing community debate regarding the dump’s planned expansion stem in part from an appeal Milpitas filed in 2014 of San Jose Planning Department’s approval of a permit allowing the landfill to grow by 95 vertical feet. Under that proposal, Republic Services of Santa Clara County plans to increase the capacity of its landfill by approximately 15.12 million cubic yards and extend its estimated closure date until January 2041. The landfill’s current closure date is 2025.

Besides paying for the city-directed odor report, Republic also looked to reduce impacts to the surrounding area. In April 2015, San Jose planning staff noted the dump operator added conditions to the permit which would mitigate operational impacts beyond what the permit required, including reducing the size of the open face to no more than 1 acre; weather and wind monitoring and no turning of compost windrows at certain wind speeds; no outdoor storage of putrescible materials for the recyclery or composting operation; and annual odor misting evaluation and expansion of the misting system (the mist contains odor neutralizers).

Still, many in Milpitas are upset over the continued presence of a landfill. Notably, in 2012, Evans Law Firm of San Francisco, in conjunction with Detroit-based Liddle & Dubin PC, sued Republic Services (named in the suit as International Disposal Corp. of California) over the San Jose landfill on behalf of Milpitas residents Peter Ng and Dolly Wu and thousands of other unnamed residents.

In July, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Peter Kirwan finalized approval of a class-action settlement, ending years of litigation involving the landfill. Under that settlement, Republic agreed to create a $1.2 million fund to be disbursed among 6,800 households mostly in a 1.5-mile radius from the landfill’s composting facility, which Dubin’s law firm claims is the main source of odors.

Moreover, the final settlement proposed to either close or dramatically alter the composting facility operation by Dec. 31, 2017. In addition to paying $1.2 million in damages to nearby households, Republic Services — which admitted no fault in this class-action case — agreed to provide $2.75 million for injunctive relief to mitigate odors. Portions of that money would be used to modify or improve gas collection at the compost facility and make other “state-of-the-art improvements” over the next five years, according to the settlement.

The planning commission meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 26 at San Jose City Hall’s Council Chambers, 200 E. Santa Clara St., San Jose.