[MassHistPres] Church sues over district creation

[Brian Yates]

The Archdiocese of Boston changed its mind about closing Mary Immaculate of
Lourdes church in Newton Upper Falls and gave as the reason that its
location in a local historic district would make it very difficult to re-use
the property.

Alderman Brian Yates

On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 10:13 AM, Joey Glushko <
JGlushko at town.arlington.ma.us> wrote:

>  participants in this discussion might find of interest the "Legal News"
> articles in the Jan. 2010 APA magazine, *PLANNING *(see p. 9).  In
> an Illinois case, the courts found the denial of a church relocation to
> be valid; see River of Life Kingdom Ministries v. Village of Hazel Crest,
> No. 08-2819, October 27, 2009 (7th Cir.).
>
> *Joey Glushko,* Planner
> Planning and Comm. Devel.
> Arlington, MA  *02476*
> *Phone*:  * 781-316-3093*
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: <slater at alum.rpi.edu>
> To: <acornhp at yahoo.com>
> Cc: masshistpres at cs.umb.edu
> Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 06:31:58 -0800
> Subject: Re: [MassHistPres] Church sues over district creation
>
> >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
>
>
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