Cranberry Officials Reject Freedom Road Rezoning Request

In a 3-0 vote, Cranberry’s board of supervisors on Thursday rejected an application from several Freedom Road homeowners who want to change the zoning of their property from residential to commercial.

Supervisors Dick Hadley and Dave Root were not at the meeting.

Although officials denied the homeowners’ request, there are more challenges ahead regarding zoning for Freedom Road, one of the township’s busiest corridors.

More than a dozen Freedom Road-area homeowners are scheduled to go before Cranberry’s zoning hearing board on March 19

In 2010, the township approved a district for the residential-zoned area of Freedom Road. This permits the construction of homes, apartments and low-impact businesses in the area. Big-box type stores and chain restaurants such as are not permitted in the TND district.

Cranberry’s zoning hearing board already has denied

Wood, who owns a home and on Freedom Road, claimed his land had been singled out from the properties around it for different treatment. His property is zoned residential, while the property located across the street from it is zoned for commercial use, according to his appeal. In his filing, Wood said this showed a lack of coherence in the district along Freedom Road and that the commercial designations were meted out in a haphazard manner. 

He has since filed an appeal of the zoning hearing board’s December decision with the Butler County Court of Common Pleas.

Supervisor Chairman Bruce Mazzoni on Thursday said the challenges to the Freedom Road zoning have taken up too much of the township staff’s time and the taxpayers’ money.

If a resolution on Freedom Road isn’t reached by July, he said, he favored ridding the area of the TND district altogether and reverting it back to its original residential zoning.

“I just think we’ve been going through this process for too long and for too much time,” he said. “We’re wasting a lot of energy and money on this.”

Mazzoni said the township spent close to 12 months examining the Freedom Road corridor and meeting with residents before approving the TND district, which is part of the comprehensive Cranberry Plan for the community’s future.

He said the special business district was meant to balance the desire of neighbors — particularly residents in the Sun Valley neighborhood — who want the area to remain residential with those who live in the Freedom Road-area and want to commercialize their property.

“I think we made a concerted effort to try to reach a compromise,” he said. “Obviously, people aren’t satisfied with that compromise. Frankly, I say if we can’t come to a settlement in July, let’s bring this up for a vote again. I’m in favor of bringing it back to the original R-2 position.”

Township manager Jerry Andree said a status conference on Wood's appeal has been scheduled for May 18 before Butler County Commons Pleas Judge Michael Yeager.