Church Land Seen As Fertile Ground For Affordable Housing In Massachusetts
"On the corner of North Harvard Avenue in Allston lies a humble Baptist church. It was built in 1903 on land donated by a pair of siblings, George and Georgina Hill, on the condition that a future chapel be named after their father. Hill Memorial Baptist Church subsequently provided a home for worship for generations of churchgoers.
But over time, the church’s membership numbers steadily declined, even as Hill Memorial became the last Baptist church in the Allston-Brighton neighborhood. As the number of parishioners dwindled, the idea was formed to once again transform the land for the common good — this time for affordable housing.
The church closed its doors in 2023, and the nonprofit planned to redevelop it into a $48M, 49-unit affordable housing building and community center. It has been a tricky process, Allston Brighton CDC Executive Director John Woods said.
"Churches require some real finessing, and then it starts to become sort of financially tough to make it work," he said.
Church redevelopments can face serious zoning and permitting hurdles. And unlike other adaptive reuse projects, church properties often have unusual structures and footprints, and many carry historical and cultural significance.
Massachusetts lawmakers have been aiming to lower barriers to developing these properties.
Sen. Brendan Crighton and Rep. Andy X. Vargas have drafted Yes In God's Backyard legislation that would make it easier to permit these projects by making housing by-right on church land in the state. This would allow many conversions to go forward as long as they meet certain basic requirements, clearing many local zoning hurdles.
There are roughly 6,000 religious institution-owned and underutilized parcels that, if redeveloped, could produce upward of 80,000 new housing units across the state, Crighton said.
The bill would help unlocking swaths of church land for redevelopment and could be an important piece in the patchwork of solutions needed to meet the governor’s goal to build roughly 220,000 housing units by 2035. ....
...Developers who have worked on church-to-housing conversions say the process is definitely unique, even among historic adaptive reuse projects. From navigating irregular floor plates to ensuring reuse of the original stained-glass windows, each project comes with complexity, Pennrose Regional Vice President Karmen Cheung said.
"With office or school conversions, you're trying to reuse the fabric that's there, like a classroom becomes a unit. Even if you might kind of get rid of some of the walls, you are generally following that kind of footprint," Cheung said. "But a church brings that to another level."
...Preservation of Affordable Housing, a Boston nonprofit, is working on a church conversion project in East Cambridge. POAH Senior Project Manager Vitalia Shklovsky said the development at the former Sacred Heart Church has logistically become one of her most challenging projects.
To complicate matters, many of these conversions are also affordable housing projects, which means they inherently have complex capital stacks and numerous stakeholders, many of whom have diverse and sometimes competing goals for the project.
For example, POAH received state and federal historic tax credits since the rectory was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
"It kind of comes with some conditions, with some strings attached," Shklovsky said.
These developers see the YIGBY bill as a potential win-win-win for the community, the religious institutions and the developers...