CRANBERRY TWP — Resident Jim Wood has filed an appeal with Butler County Court of a denial by the township's zoning hearing board of his application that challenged the residential zoning of his Freedom Road property.

The appeal of the board's decision was filed on Jan. 17 by attorney Ernest Simon of Pittsburgh. A court date has not yet to be set for the appeal.

Wood is requesting the court amend the zoning to allow for commercial use similar to the properties across the highway on the north side of Freedom Road.

Those properties include a gas station, dry cleaners and the Freedom Square Plaza at the intersection of Haine School and Freedom roads.

Township solicitor Neva Stanger said Cranberry officials were pleased with the zoning board's decision to deny Wood's request and thought it accurately reflected the law.

Wood's property was not treated less fairly that any other properties in the area, she said.

Wood said the zoning hearing “board's decision came as no surprise to us,” but declined to comment further. His attorney wasn't available for comment.

Last March, Wood had made his challenge before the zoning board.

After three hearings last summer and after several weeks of deliberation, the board in mid-December denied Wood's request.

Wood owns two lots at 1156 and 1158 Freedom Road that were bought by his parents in 1956. Either he or his parents have lived at the property since then.

He operates a business, Wood Electronics, a home electronics retail store, on the Freedom Road property.

Wood's land use appeal court document contends the zoning hearing board erred in concluding that no reverse spot zoning had occurred on his property and that no spot zoning occurred as a result of the passage of the Traditional Neighborhood Development Corridor zoning.

Reverse spot zoning means zoning of a huge area of land without considering the zoning of a small piece of land within that area.

Spot zoning is the application of zoning to a specific parcel of land in a larger zoned area when the rezoning is generally at odds with a master plan and zoning restrictions.

The rezoning may be for the benefit of a particular owner, and at odds with pre-existing adjacent property owners.

The appeal also contends the zoning hearing board was wrong in relying on the statement that Wood's property could be “economically used for a permitted use” under its zoning designations, which he contends is irrelevant to a spot zoning challenge.

“The zoning hearing board's conclusion that Wood's ‘circumstances' are the result of general growth and development and not the result of any zoning action is patently erroneous and is belied by the record,” according to the documents.