Decrepit church would cost millions
A decrepit church, facing the Met, twice burned out, and originally built in an eye-joltingly unpleasant style to begin with, is still being considered for rescue and renovation by the diocese. The Journal is pondering the fates of church buildings this weekend, although the elephant in the room – the fact that hardly anyone uses these buildings any more and certainly few people want to tithe to support them – isn’t directly addressed. A church like the massive Saint-Eusèbe in eastern Ville-Marie will never be filled with parishioners again.
Even the $20 million promised by the CAQ to shore up the remaining church buildings is hardly going to touch the problem.
This is what they need to do: pick out the buildings that are either of outstanding architectural value or maintain valuable sociocultural purposes separate from their original religious purpose, and let the rest – like the burned-out St-Bernardin-de-Sienne – go. Most churches are not easily renovated for other purposes, and if nobody needs them, they should go. They certainly shouldn’t be patched together on the public dime.
Spi 12:30 on 2019-08-17 Permalink
If Quebec is truly a secular state then a coherent thing to do is to start taxing religious organizations and accept real-estate transfers as payment. Many churches sit on absolutely prime real-estate since they were once the center of community life.
Oh would you look at that, the size of the lots just happens to be the perfect size for a potential school?
Kate 15:14 on 2019-08-17 Permalink
Eventually even the Roman Catholic church would run out of land to barter for taxes. To repeat what I’ve said before on the blog, many church halls and basements serve useful social purposes. The church nearest me, for example, has an organization in the basement that offers services for the deaf. Another collects and sells used clothing cheaply. I know there are others that offer free or very cheap lunches and so on.
Church halls have offered affordable space for events like Expozine and Puces Pop, which support independent writers, artists and artisans. I don’t want to see those things disappear.
So there has to be some balance somewhere.
ant6n 23:47 on 2019-08-17 Permalink
I feel like the church across where I live installed office space in the basement; and also they seem occasionally sell the big church and the small chapel for expensive private events, which I’d all not consider not actual social community functions. I’d prefer incentives for churches to be used for local community functions, maybe it would be possible to offer deductions on the real estate taxes that Spi wants to levy.
Kate 08:13 on 2019-08-19 Permalink
ant6n, that’s kind of gross. I wonder how the tax people assess that kind of thing. On the one hand, the church probably does need the revenue to maintain the building – but a standard commercial lease makes the idea of a church as a nonprofit kind of a joke.
Michael Black 11:48 on 2019-08-19 Permalink
I think I said it before, churches were often the first shared space in an area. So they saw secondary use for meetings and such. Then later, because they had space and resources !ike kitchens, things like Meals on Wheels wefe housed at churches, I suspect the congregations themselves wanted to do such projects.
Even when there’s a book sale at a church they aren’t raising money to fix the roof, it”s for some project they have in mind related to church activity.
But as congregations shrink, churches have become desperate. So churches close and the congegation combines with another church. Sometines that happens a few times. But even then there can be problems sustaining the physical church.
So they’ve gone to renting out space, maybe at a good price, but a bit more mercenary than in the past. When the NDG Food Depot moved into Trinity Church in NDG, they were paying rent. The church needed the space rented, and even that just postponed things a but, until the church had to be sold.
So it’s a bit jarring, but not too surprising to see a bit more “commercial” use. There’s not too big a difference between renting a church hall for a post-wedding event and something related to a business. I don’t think the churches are putting money in the bank, they need money to pay the heating bill or fix the roof.
The big news is that the Gazette has a story today about how the Westmount Park United Church wants to set itself up as a non-profit to sustain the building. This is to keep the building for the small congregation, but also as a communuty resource. There’s long been a seniors’ activuity centre there, and the Film Society shows films, along with other activities.
So instead of selling the church, and removing the resource, they want to keep it available. A lot if such spaces have been lost in recent years, and gone to private use.
Michael