There’s something fundamentally wrong when city leaders repeatedly tell a private property owner that there’s nothing that can be done with their property. Want a zone change? Not a chance. Want to tear down a building currently sitting alongside one of Wheeling’s busiest roads and build residential homes in its spot? Highly unlikely, as the building there is a “contributing historic structure.” Want to return it to its original use as a church? No, unfortunately the property no longer meets the zoning requirements needed for a church.

Such is the current plight of Tom Tuttle, as the property he owns at 1154 National Road in the city’s Edgwood neighborhood is, essentially, undevelopable. He owns the three lots that form the former Edgwood Evangelical Lutheran Church, which closed about a decade ago. But now, he finds himself with few to no options, dealing with a city bureaucracy that either refuses or is unable to work with him due to what clearly is a less-than-accommodating city planning process.

On Monday, Tuttle’s request for a zone change for that property — it’s currently zoned residential, and he sought a C2 — General Commercial designation — went before the city’s planning commission. And after a lengthy debate, the entire board voted down his request.

To be fair, commissioners did discuss how the city’s current zoning code limited Tuttle’s options in developing the site. But that aside, there also was discussion about protecting the neighborhood — the same neighborhood that has commercial ventures already located on the adjacent corners.

“The crux is trying to figure out the balance of protecting the integrity of our neighborhoods, but also not being so closed off that we have a church where there is no incentive to find investments,” said planning commission member and Wheeling City Councilman Ben Seidler. “The alternative is to let the church just sit there and rot because nobody is going to pour money into a building that you can’t do anything with.”

Unfortunately, the planning commission, when it comes to this property, has had one thought-process in recent years — and that’s to ensure nothing happens there (unless you operate a food truck, of course). Remember in 2019, when a proposal for a bank was turned away? The reasoning for that decision continues to be unclear.

Tuttle, for his part, presented his zone change request with no real plan for the property, “because it makes no sense to me to put that kind of effort into it before I was approved.”

In essence, Tuttle knew going in that the planning commission’s decision had been made.

That’s patently unfair.

Monday’s meeting, and the comments from some commissioners and other city officials, effectively signals that, outside of intervention from city council to force a zone change there, nothing ever will be allowed to develop at that site. What type of response is that? What happened to personal property rights in Wheeling?

It’s time for city council — those elected to represent all citizens of Wheeling — to step in and rectify this injustice. Either the planning commission is being far too restrictive in its review of the zoning code, or the zoning code in its current state is unworkable. It’s one or the other. And in the middle is Tom Tuttle, sitting on a valuable piece of property, unable to do anything with it other than, as Seidler put it, watch it “just sit there and rot.”

Again, that’s the wrong approach for a city that needs to be open to new ideas and new ways of thinking.