[MassHistPres] Church sues over district creation

[slater at alum.rpi.edu]

>Should we assume this is a move because they hoped
>to tear it down? I can't think of another reason why they would say
this. 
>
>Sounds like a great opportunity to have a design charette to come up
with
>alternative uses for the site and get some developers to pay attention
to it.
>

The church attorney claimed that government is interfering in its
ability to dispose of its property, and the attorney advanced the
argument that it is constitutionally offensive for the church to even
have to appear before government to request permission to do anything. 

There have been no stated plans, but the site is attractive for retail
development, being a corner lot in a business district. The church
already sold one parcel on that corner several years ago to Walgreens --
I think it used to have the church's convent on it, which was then
demolished. 

I think this brings up some interesting questions -- if a church is
exempt from being in a historic district, then could a church within a
district (but exempt) that wanted some extra parking purchase an
abutting property and then demolish it, claiming that the new property
would also be exempt because it is now church-owned?

Ralph 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.cs.umb.edu/mailman/private/masshistpres/attachments/20100122/57c4e995/attachment.htm>