In early 2020, Messiah Lutheran Church in Schenectady, New York, began addressing a critical need for accessibility improvements. To their dismay, however, the renovations were going to cost far more than the church could afford. In conversations with a fellow local pastor, Reverend Dustin Longmire discovered that a nearby church with accessible facilities was facing declining attendance and contemplating closure.
A solution became clear: the two congregations would merge, utilizing the accessible building, while Messiah’s former church would be transformed into a community center with future plans for housing development.
A year after the merger was complete, the Rotterdam Community Center opened in September of 2021, complete with a 1100 square foot food pantry, wellness center, and arts and culture programming. The operation was enormously successful, welcoming over 300 people every week.
Yet Reverend Longmire’s eye was still on what was next for the site- developing housing.
They began going through the pre-development process, secured an interested developer, and presented initial plans in April of 2024. Unfortunately, the planning commission was immediately skeptical and quickly moved to reduce the allowable stories on the site from 3 to 2, effectively killing the plan. Despite incredible mobilization at board meetings voicing their opposition to the change, the board would not reverse their decision. If they wanted to continue to try to build housing, they would have to wait for something to change.
Of course, this is an incredibly disappointing outcome. After years of work, the congregation and Reverend Longmire were left exhausted, dispirited, and feeling like all they had done came to naught. Yet there are a few notable lessons that should be learned from their challenges, and especially from their resolve to keep going.
1) Get help early
As Reverend Longmire points out, pastors aren’t zoning experts, and it’s rare that congregations have members with development experience. “I know a lot more now, but I didn't know anything about zoning law,” he says. “Just keeping things on track and keeping the lawyers doing their lawyer things, all while being a full time minister, that was a lot.”
Putting out feelers to developers, designers, and lawyers early in the process can be crucial to understand what options a house of worship might have, guiding later decisions and making sure that they’re informed the entire time.
Perhaps most important is being tapped into the broader faith-based housing conversation. Blogs like this one share stories and ideas from around the country, providing inspiration and lessons for future projects. The local developers and lawyers that a house of worship might talk to may have an intimate understanding of your locality, but it’s unlikely that they’ve worked on a church housing project before. Being informed on where fellow faith-based institutions are encountering roadblocks or finding success should be a priority for both clergy and congregations.
In this space, it’s difficult enough to find success with help. It’s even harder on your own.
2) Understand what your city or state allows
Though the board did make a predatory decision to disallow three stories, it was too easy and too quick to not have a backup plan. With how far along they got in the project, there could have been a better understanding of where the project might run into opposition, and a contingency plan for the possibility that the city opposed the project.
Of course, sometimes this is easy. In states like California, legislation has made it significantly easier for houses of worship to build on their property. This can allow churches like Messiah Lutheran to circumvent their city entirely, preventing the city from killing the project like it did. This is the gold standard, but unfortunately it is a nascent trend that is just now becoming a legislative reality. But faith organizations don’t only have to rely on expressly religious designed laws.
Other states and cities have broader housing legislation that houses of worship could tap into to make their projects faster and easier. For example, Vermont passed the HOME bill in 2023, which greatly expanded density allowances. Though on the surface it doesn’t seem to apply to churches, something as simple as having city water and sewer connections could bump up a housing project’s allowed density significantly. Best of all, these types of provisions are spreading like wildfire in cities and states across the country. If a faith-based organization can be aware and tap into them, they could circumvent some of the problems that Messiah Lutheran ran into.
Though it’s unlikely that a better understanding of their local regulations could have stopped the board’s decision, it may have shaped the project’s scope from the very beginning, minimizing some of the delays and unanticipated adaptations they were ultimately forced to make.
3) Be Open to Smaller Projects
Part of the reason that the Messiah Lutheran project ran into difficulty was because of its scale. They were planning to build 65 units in a three story building, with the bottom floor retained as a community center. Because their developer was an affordable housing nonprofit which relies on tax credits, which in turn requires a large number of units, they could not make the numbers work out with fewer units. Yet the site has an open field next to it, something that could be perfect for a village of small homes.
With the larger project seeing so many delays, why not opt for a smaller scale? Sacred Settlement in St Paul, MN managed to build 6 tiny homes for just $35,000 each, with shared kitchen and bathroom facilities in the church. If the code allows it, that is a cheaper and faster alternative that would give the congregation experience building housing and prove to the city that they are capable of doing it. They can also serve as a proof of concept for future expansions, getting the congregation acquainted with the process and demonstrating competence to city officials before ultimately engaging in larger endeavors.
The Ongoing Battle
Messiah Lutheran and Reverend Longmire have shown remarkable resolve- despite the immense setbacks their project has seen, they’re still determined to build in the future. Though the project scope has changed slightly (they’re now focused largely on veteran housing), they have not been deterred by the opposition they’ve encountered. In fact, the congregation and Reverend Longmire have emerged as leading voices in the fight to pass New York state’s Faith-Based Affordable Housing Act, which has the potential to make their project viable again.
Messiah Lutheran Church’s intentions were in the right place, but they faced challenges that many faith-based organizations encounter when building housing. These roadblocks might be surmountable for experienced developers but are often daunting for churches without relevant expertise.
Building housing is possible and attainable, but it requires creativity, compromise, and an active role from the congregation. As Messiah Lutheran shows, sometimes the process can be long, arduous, and frustrating. Yet their tenacity and advocacy will pave the way for more faith-based institutions in the future, hopefully increasing the odds of success for future projects.
For that, we should all be thankful.
Eli Smith is a senior at Dartmouth College studying Religion and Public Policy. He is the Faith-Based Housing Initiative’s Research Fellow.