[MassHistPres] grants for a historical church

[roberta cameron]

Thank you for this analysis! I would just add that under the Anti-Aid
amendment it doesn't matter whether the organization or individual is
practicing a religion - any funding must go to a public benefit, not the
support of the organization.

So focusing on the "delta" of historic preservation versus cheaper
improvements could help to make a case for restoring windows and doors. But
what about roofs and code improvements that make buildings "functional for
their intended use, including improvements to comply with federal, state or
local building access codes?" A CPA-funded grant for roofs and windows
could be sufficient to trigger a requirement for the building to come into
full compliance with ADA. Most of the historic preservation projects that I
have seen are for buildings owned by nonprofit organizations who don't have
the resources to replace a roof or repair urgent structural or code
deficiencies on their own, and there isn't a cheaper method to compare to
the historic preservation. Or the buildings are under an LHD, so they would
be required to do the historically appropriate method regardless of whether
they receive funding. In all of these cases, without public investment the
restoration simply wouldn't happen, and the buildings fall into a worse
state of disrepair (leaving the city with fewer locations to accommodate
childcare and food pantries.)

On Thu, Jan 9, 2025 at 9:11 AM Ralph Slate via MassHistPres <
masshistpres at cs.umb.edu> wrote:

> It is definitely confusing since SCOTUS issued an opinion *after* the
> Supreme Judicial Court issued their Acton opinion. The SCOTUS ruling
> implied that the Anti-Aid amendment is likely unconstitutional because
> SCOTUS now perversely considers the prohibition of governmental
> entanglement with religion to be "discrimination against religion" rather
> than "establishment of religion".
>
> The Acton ruling can be found here:
>
>
> https://www.communitypreservation.org/sites/g/files/vyhlif4646/f/uploads/sjc_court_opinion_-_caplan_v._town_of_acton_sjc_12274.pdf
>
> The Acton opinion did leave room for funding *historic* activities but
> broadly defined such grants as "aiding the church" because it stated that a
> church could fungibly shift money to religious activities if the state paid
> for necessary facility repair costs.
>
> One angle which might satisfy people who want to remain faithful to the
> Acton ruling is to very clearly establish the cost of "historic" versus
> "non-historic", and only fund the historic piece.
>
> For example, if a historic church needed to address a front door, then it
> could be argued that funding a historic front door restoration would aid
> the religious activity because the church no longer had to use its monies
> to restore the door - it was then free to spend on "programs and personnel".
>
> However I think there is still room there. For example, let's say that a
> church has a historic front door that is in need of restoration. They could
> get a quote for a *new* door which would satisfy the church's need to have
> a door - say, $10,000. And then they could get a quote for the restoration
> of the historic door, say $30,000. The price of historic preservation, in
> that case, would be $20,000 - which is the amount above what the church
> would spend if it was only interested in practicing religion and not
> preserving history.
>
> The historic preservation could be funded, and it would be plainly obvious
> that said preservation was above and beyond the price of the religious
> activity. The state would only fund the historic activity.
>
> You could even do the same for stained glass windows - get a quote for new
> windows (perhaps even with identical religious imagery on them but done
> using cheaper modern techniques) then a quote for restoring the historic
> stained glass. Windows, even those with religious imagery, could be deemed
> necessary for worship, but restoring the *historic* windows are above and
> beyond that necessity, so the difference could be funded.
>
> I truly have no desire to fund or aid religion, my interest is solely in
> preserving the historic materials which just happen to have been used in
> the practice of religion. However they still have significant historic
> value despite that, and I think it is extremely important to fight for this
> point. This is why I pushed hard for the City of Springfield to prevent the
> unnecessary demolition of two significant churches by the Diocese of
> Springfield, and pushed the city to defend against the Diocese's lawsuit
> where they claimed that the very idea of a municipality imposing even
> agnostic historic preservation standards upon a church had the impact of
> making religion subservient to government and would violate RLUIPA
> (Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act).
>
> The city prevailed in that case, though not as strongly as I would have
> liked:
>
>
> https://casetext.com/case/roman-catholic-bishop-of-springfield-v-city-of-springfield
>
> The victory was weak in that the judge ruled that since the Diocese did
> not actually request to demolish or alter the buildings, they could not
> rule as to whether preventing this activity was a violation of RLUIPA - the
> case wasn't ripe. But the two church buildings are still standing (though
> one has not been used in 16 years).
>
> Ralph Slate
> Springfield, MA
>
>
>
> On 1/8/2025 4:27 PM, roberta cameron via MassHistPres wrote:
>
> This is a very sticky issue, which gets more complicated the more deeply
> you get into it. Medford's City Solicitor prepared an opinion a few years
> ago, post Acton decision, weighing the concern about the Anti-Aid amendment
> and spending public funds on religious purposes, versus case law which
> establishes that public funding cannot be denied to a religious
> organization solely because of its religious beliefs for a project which
> would be funded if the exact same request was made by any non-religious
> organization. The context for the memo was a grant to restore a historic
> door on a church building, and he argued that a door is a fundamental part
> of any building, not specifically serving a religious purpose.
>
> In the two communities I work in, Medford and Somerville, we have given
> CPA grants to churches, to nonreligious nonprofit organizations that own
> buildings which were formerly churches, and a building that was
> historically secular but is now owned by a religious organization. Any of
> these buildings at any time could be sold to another organization which
> uses them for a different purpose, so the investment to preserve
> the building in exchange for a permanent preservation restriction is
> independent of who is using the building. However, if the PR restricts the
> owner from making any exterior changes to the building, then the owner is
> bound to preserve any religious iconography that happens to be part of the
> exterior ornamentation, regardless of whether it is an expression of their
> own beliefs (whether the organization is religious or not). This compels
> nonreligious organizations to have to raise funds from private sources to
> restore that one panel  that has a religious symbol on it, to get funding
> to restore all of their otherwise plain windows. In fact, there are some
> churches who would be happy to get rid of their stained glass windows
> because it would be cheaper to replace them with plain windows, but that
> wouldn't be historic preservation.
>
> I have also heard interpretations that suggest that cities acquiring PRs
> on church-owned property is mingling church and state resources, and on the
> other hand, that stained glass windows in buildings owned by nonreligious
> organizations can be treated as secular art, eligible for public funding no
> matter what is depicted in them. It is very easy to fall into a situation
> where one is discriminating on the basis of religion (by not funding a
> project that would otherwise be eligible), or compelling a property owner
> to preserve some religious expression whether or not the City actually pays
> for it, or running into other church/state problems. There is no clear
> right answer (although I would love to know more if anyone has found one.)
> Because of the situations I have encountered, I would love to see a
> foundation that provides privately-funded grants to preserve stained glass
> windows or other religious iconography on the exterior of buildings,
> because there is so much valuable community space that is locked up inside
> these historic buildings that aren't eligible for public funds because of
> the aesthetic choice of designers from 100 years ago. (If there are funding
> sources I would love to know about them!) The buildings themselves are
> valuable public assets both for historic reasons but also for community
> purposes which we have no other spaces to accommodate.
>
> *Roberta Cameron, AICP*
>
> *Community Preservation Act Manager*
>
> Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development
>
> City of Somerville
>
> rcameron at somervillema.gov <lmorton at somervillema.gov>
>
> On Wed, Jan 8, 2025 at 2:49 PM SAMUEL R BLAIR via MassHistPres <
> masshistpres at cs.umb.edu> wrote:
>
>> But doesn't that disadvantage religious groups who use and always have
>> used religious iconography? Wouldn't that violate the 14th Amendment?
>>
>> Samuel R. Blair
>> AIA emeritus
>> Fitchburg
>>
>> On 01/07/2025 3:47 PM EST Judy Markland via MassHistPres <
>> masshistpres at cs.umb.edu> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> Olivia,
>>
>> Many communities have funded CPA projects for restoration work on
>> churches.  The work must be for restoration of the building itself, rather
>> than for any religious components of the building.  Thus plain glass
>> windows may typically be restored with CPA funds, but not stained glass
>> windows.  The Community Preservation Coalition has an informative piece
>> on the state court decision
>> <https://www.communitypreservation.org/home/news/ma-supreme-judicial-court-issues-decision-acton-lawsuit>
>> on this matter and its interpretation.  They advise that any CPA
>> application for work on religious structures be reviewed by municipal
>> counsel before approval.
>>
>> Judy
>> On 1/6/2025 12:27 PM, Olivia Davis Mausel via MassHistPres wrote:
>>
>> Any suggestions for a restoration grant for an historic church here in
>> Holyoke.
>> Many doors are closed to this 'Iglesia' because of its religious
>> affiliation....denied by local CPA, and state mandates. Sacred Places is
>> not an option- either.
>> Thank you for any information/suggestions that you can provide.
>> Olivia Mausel
>> Holyoke, MA
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> MassHistPres mailing listMassHistPres at cs.umb.eduhttps://mailman.cs.umb.edu/listinfo/masshistpres
>>
>>
>>
>> <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient>
>> Virus-free.www.avg.com
>> <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient>
>> _______________________________________________
>> MassHistPres mailing list
>> MassHistPres at cs.umb.edu
>> https://mailman.cs.umb.edu/listinfo/masshistpres
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> MassHistPres mailing list
>> MassHistPres at cs.umb.edu
>> https://mailman.cs.umb.edu/listinfo/masshistpres
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> MassHistPres mailing listMassHistPres at cs.umb.eduhttps://mailman.cs.umb.edu/listinfo/masshistpres
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> MassHistPres mailing list
> MassHistPres at cs.umb.edu
> https://mailman.cs.umb.edu/listinfo/masshistpres
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.cs.umb.edu/pipermail/masshistpres/attachments/20250109/408b2c8e/attachment-0001.html>