Homeowners Challenge Zoning of Freedom Road Business District

Cranberry’s zoning hearing board will hear an appeal next month from more than a dozen Freedom Road residents who are upset by a special business district included on their property.

The public hearing is planned for Aug. 15 at the

In their appeal filed July 21, the 14 homeowners who live on or around Freedom Road say their property no longer is suitable to live on due to traffic and commercial development in the busy corridor over the years.

They dispute the original residential zoning of their properties, which permits single-family homes only, and not businesses, saying that the zoning is no longer valid under present day conditions. 

The homeowners also challenge the validity of a district established in their neighborhood, saying that it is too restrictive to development of their property.

The Traditional Neighborhood Development designation does permit a range of uses for properties within that district, including a mix of homes, apartments, and businesses. Township manager Jerry Andree said big-box type stores and chain restaurants such as are not permitted in a TND district.

Buildings with retail space on the first floor and residences above it also are permitted, as are townhouses, small retail stores, banks, professional office space and more. Cranberry’s board of supervisors approved the TND for the township last October. 

Andree said the township created the district on Freedom Road in the hopes of balancing the desires of homeowners who wished to develop their properties for commercial use with those who live in neighborhoods behind Freedom Road and want to keep big businesses from abutting their properties.

He said the township met with residents for months before a majority of residents in the Sun Valley neighborhoods behind Freedom Road OK'd the district for the area.

Andree said the designation was a compromise that allowed development, but not the type of high-intensity stores and restaurants that would have been permissible with a commercial zoning.

“It had the overwhelming support of Sun Valley residents,” he said. “It was the right solution.”

Five of the 14 homeowners who filed the appeal currently have homes listed for sale as commerical development opportunities on the Howard Hanna website under real estate agent Hal Martin. These homes are located across the street from the Freedom Square shopping center.

Besides Freedom Road, a TND zone also covers sections of Rochester Road. At its Aug. 4 meeting, the township’s Board of Supervisors also plans to review a to the Route 228 corridor.

Adding a TND overlay to a location does not change its original zoning.

The filings from the 14 Freedom Road area homeowners can be viewed online on the Cranberry Township website.

Another Freedom Road Hearing

On Monday, Cranberry’s zoning hearing board also heard an appeal from Freedom Road resident James Wood challenging the residential zoning of his property. Wood owns a home and a small electronics retail store on Freedom Road. In his filing, Wood said his land had been singled out from the properties around it for different treatment.

Wood’s property is zoned residential while the property located directly across the street from it is zoned for commercial use, according to his appeal.

“This serves to underscore the lack of coherence in the districting along the entire Freedom Road corridor where the C-1 designation has been meted out in an arbitrary and haphazard manner,” a statement from the filing read.

“The districting along the entire corridor conveys the impression of having been accomplished by affixing a township map to a dart board rather than through the application of sound zoning principles that are reflective of the public interest and sympathetic to the rights of property owners.”

The property across the street near Wood’s home includes the Freedom Square shopping plaza and the newly opened grocery store. Andree said this property was already zoned for commercial use.

Prior to becoming a shopping center, the property was a park-and-ride lot owned by the Regional Industrial Development Corporation of Southwestern Pennsylvania, Andree said.

Andree said the zoning hearing board may issue a decision on the appeal by December.