Resident Again Challenges Zoning Approval for Consol Site

An Upper St. Clair resident is again challenging the validity of the commissioners' October 2011 approval to allow mixed-use development at the site of the Consol Energy headquarters.

A public hearing is scheduled at the Upper St. Clair Zoning Board meeting at 8 p.m. on April 24. The hearing will be held at the Community and Recreation Center at Boyce Mayview Park, which can hold more audience members than the Upper St. Clair municipal building.

Moira Cain-Mannix argues that the township's decision is "spot zoning," a zoning change that benefits a single property or owner, a process the courts often consider illegal, according to the Tribune-Review.

The former Consol property at the corner of Route 19 and Fort Couch Road had a special business zoning before the commissioners approved zoning for a mixed-use development.

The property owners have plans to build a Whole Foods off of Route 19, a two-story building comprised of restaurants, shops and offices off of Fort Couch Road and a mix of townhouses and patio homes off of Fort Couch in the rear of the development.

Cain-Mannix and another neighbor, Jarrod Shaw, filed a similar challenge in 2011, claiming that Upper St. Clair changed the property's zoning without following proper procedures, and a Common Pleas Court judge dismissed the case in July, according to the Tribune-Review.