Distance property does not seem to be working

[rremigius]

HI, I'm trying add zoom buttons to my scene with orbit controls, so I need to programmatically increase/decrease the distance of the orbitcontrols camera.

The issue is that the distance property doesn't seem to do anything, not the initial value, nor the programmatically updated value.

I've created a codepen to illustrate the issue.
https://codepen.io/anon/pen/zpqqEQ

Is there something I overlooked, or is the distance property malfunctioning?