Paying for repairs and maintenance on old churches

katydid

At the recent synod of the Church of Ireland, Dean Maria Jansson proposed that similar special treatment be given to church properties in relation to VAT on building projects as are given at the moment to private houses. Small communities struggle to pay for repairs and maintenance of historic churches, which are often listed, which means that even ordinary repairs cost a fortune. Little or no help is given to these communities by the government, which means they have to do fundraising for sums of money often running into hundreds of thousands of euro.

Is this fair? Would the Dean's proposal help? Are there other ways these Christian communities can be helped?

Manach

Tourism grants? In that buildings like these are part of the historical & artistic legacy. They add to the appeal to draw tourists to the country. This sector is of vital important to the economy and these buildings are by their nature explicitily part of any type of campaign to draw in visitors.
So a starting point might be check out various state bodies: http://www.ahg.gov.ie/en/AboutUs/AgenciesBodiesunderDepartmentsAegis/

ScumLord

The state could certainly make a selection of churches that are significant for historical or architectural reasons and contribute to the upkeep. But for the most part it's up to the organisation and its members to fund the maintenance of their buildings. Wanting to have mass in a building that's difficult and expensive to maintain is basically your own problem, all the other non Catholics shouldn't have to pay for that privilege.

katydid

ScumLord wrote: »

The state could certainly make a selection of churches that are significant for historical or architectural reasons and contribute to the upkeep. But for the most part it's up to the organisation and its members to fund the maintenance of their buildings. Wanting to have mass in a building that's difficult and expensive to maintain is basically your own problem, all the other non Catholics shouldn't have to pay for that privilege.

Firstly this isn't about "Catholics" or any specific denomination. I specifically referred to a motion at the CofI Synod.

It's not a matter of "wanting to have mass" anywhere, it's simply that communities have care of these buildings and are obliged, morally and legally, to maintain them. In some cases, it's too big a burden and they are sold, but you can't sell all churches; people have to meet for worship somewhere...

And nobody is going to buy a building that costs so much to maintain.

I agree that the state should make a selection of buildings that need to be maintained for heritage purposes - not every church building is worthy of keeping. But the fact is that many are already selected, in that they have been listed - which means that any work done on them has to go through much more rigorous procedures than otherwise. Specialised architects have to be consulted, and special materials have to be used. Which cost more. And the state, while happy to list the buildings, washes their hands of helping out with finance. I know a small listed country church where the spire was in danger of collapse; the tiny congregation had to find almost eighty thousand euro with absolutely no help from anyone. There's only so much people can give...

katydid

Manach wrote: »

Tourism grants? In that buildings like these are part of the historical & artistic legacy. They add to the appeal to draw tourists to the country. This sector is of vital important to the economy and these buildings are by their nature explicitily part of any type of campaign to draw in visitors.
So a starting point might be check out various state bodies: http://www.ahg.gov.ie/en/AboutUs/AgenciesBodiesunderDepartmentsAegis/

Trust me, I know all about this, being on the church committee that has had to deal with this in the past. If you're looking at an eighty thousand euro repair to a church building, tourism grants won't get you very far. In our situation, we managed to scrape together roughly €20,000 in grants, and that was through an awful lot of begging and scraping. The congregation had to raise the other three quarters of the cost. As well as trying to raise money for heating, lighting and the ordinary running costs of the building and the parish. It's a huge burden on congregations that are getting smaller by the minute.

lazygal

Does the Lord not provide?

katydid

lazygal wrote: »

Does the Lord not provide?

Unfortunately not... :-)

Benny_Cake

Some help should definitely be forthcoming for buildings which have particular architectural or historical significance, but there has to be a sense of realism too. Congregations sometimes become too small for the buildings and in those cases inventive solutions need to be found. Making the building available for other uses such as concerts, classes and so on. If there is no way to make it work, perhaps the building should be sold, there have been a variety of examples of churches being converted in quite tasteful ways which preserve the beauty of the original building.

It's a particular issue for the Church of Ireland which for historical reasons has been left with an oversupply of church buildings, many of them beautiful but old and expensive to maintain. There are three Church of Ireland churches within a 5 minute drive of my house, the main one would have a good sized congregation but the other two don't hold services every Sunday and it must be difficult to keep them going.

silverharp

there are just too many for the number of members, the buildings are normally impractical to be used for anything commercial and I must say trying to use the tourist angle wears thin unless we are talking about some in the bigger cities. Mr Franklin was right....

Looking for government help is cheeky as a leaky school roof should always get priority. sell them off and rent a gym hall?

steamengine

Most C of I and other Protestant churches have had 'dwindled' congregations for decades. From memory many could serve as community halls, with not a whole lot of expensive conversion required. Perhaps dual purpose could be considered, whereby the main building is partitioned into a sizeable community hall and small church.

In this way they could be retained by the religious and wider community for the benefit of all. 'God helps those who help themselves'.

katydid

silverharp wrote: »

there are just too many for the number of members, the buildings are normally impractical to be used for anything commercial and I must say trying to use the tourist angle wears thin unless we are talking about some in the bigger cities. Mr Franklin was right....

Looking for government help is cheeky as a leaky school roof should always get priority. sell them off and rent a gym hall?

The state insists that historic buildings be saved but should take no responsibility in helping towards it financially?

katydid

Benny_Cake wrote: »

Some help should definitely be forthcoming for buildings which have particular architectural or historical significance, but there has to be a sense of realism too. Congregations sometimes become too small for the buildings and in those cases inventive solutions need to be found. Making the building available for other uses such as concerts, classes and so on. If there is no way to make it work, perhaps the building should be sold, there have been a variety of examples of churches being converted in quite tasteful ways which preserve the beauty of the original building.

It's a particular issue for the Church of Ireland which for historical reasons has been left with an oversupply of church buildings, many of them beautiful but old and expensive to maintain. There are three Church of Ireland churches within a 5 minute drive of my house, the main one would have a good sized congregation but the other two don't hold services every Sunday and it must be difficult to keep them going.

The buildings should certainly be used for other things, but these things don't pay the kind of bills some of them rack up. You have to have a lot of concerts and classes to even scrape the surface of major maintenance issues. Some churches will have to be sold...and whoever buys them will be stuck with the costs. Good luck to them!

The bottom like is that church communities are custodians of historic buildings which are part of the heritage of this country, are expected to maintain them at very large expense, yet get next to no help in doing so.

Should the congregation of a medieval cathedral, say, sell it rather than maintain it? Who's going to buy a medieval cathedral? And should such a building become a shopping centre instead of a place of worship?

katydid

steamengine wrote: »

Most C of I and other Protestant churches have had 'dwindled' congregations for decades. From memory many could serve as community halls, with not a whole lot of expensive conversion required. Perhaps dual purpose could be considered, whereby the main building is partitioned into a sizeable community hall and small church.

In this way they could be retained by the religious and wider community for the benefit of all. 'God helps those who help themselves'.

The income you'd get from renting out churches as community halls would be a drop in the ocean in terms of the multiples of tens of thousands of euro needed for basic repairs on an ongoing basis.

steamengine

katydid wrote: »

The income you'd get from renting out churches as community halls would be a drop in the ocean in terms of the multiples of tens of thousands of euro needed for basic repairs on an ongoing basis.

Not renting - sharing with the wider community, hence lowering the cost to the individual. Add into the mix, volunteerism, men's sheds etc., which would reduce maintenance costs dramatically if the wider community bought into the idea. The community get a hall, and in turn the congregation's bills are shared out. It would probably contain elements of a barter system - jobs done in exchange for use of the hall.

katydid

steamengine wrote: »

Not renting - sharing with the wider community, hence lowering the cost to the individual. Add into the mix, volunteerism, men's sheds etc., which would reduce maintenance costs dramatically if the wider community bought into the idea.

How is all that going to pay for specialised repairs? If the building is listed, you have to pay special heritage architects, use special expensive materials. And even if it's not, mens' sheds and the like aren't going to be much use in doing work that involves hiring cranes and steeplejacks, and specialists, which these old building need. Have you any idea how much it costs just to repair, say, a leak in a church steeple? We're not talking a couple of thousand euro, or even ten....

This isn't about leaking gutters or cracking plaster. I'm talking major repairs needed to keep buildings that are hundreds of years old intact for everyday use and for posterity.

ted1

ScumLord wrote: »

all the other non Catholics shouldn't have to pay for that privilege.

VAT reliefs or exemptions etc don't affect others it's not a grant. But it dies enable projects to happen that migh not necessarily happen and thus provide jobs and More taxes to be paid etc

steamengine

katydid wrote: »

How is all that going to pay for specialised repairs? If the building is listed, you have to pay special heritage architects, use special expensive materials. And even if it's not, mens' sheds and the like aren't going to be much use in doing work that involves hiring cranes and steeplejacks, and specialists, which these old building need. Have you any idea how much it costs just to repair, say, a leak in a church steeple? We're not talking a couple of thousand euro, or even ten....

This isn't about leaking gutters or cracking plaster. I'm talking major repairs needed to keep buildings that are hundreds of years old intact for everyday use and for posterity.

Oddly enough, it can be done if the will, organisation and the contributors are there. It's either that or the respective churches will eventually have to close.

And the more mundane maintenance you refer to is where the savings can be made to pay for steeple repairs etc.,

If the intention is to seek government assistance with heritage listed C of I churches, then almost certainly the backing of the wider community would assist greatly when lobbying the local politicians. Better still if everyone in the community feels they have a 'stake' in the church.

Expecting the taxpayer to fund C of I congregations, per se, I would imagine would be a non-runner.

katydid

steamengine wrote: »

Oddly enough, it can be done if the will, organisation and the contributors are there. It's either that or the respective churches will eventually have to close.

And the more mundane maintenance you refer to is where the savings can be made to pay for steeple repairs etc.,

If the intention is to seek government assistance with heritage listed C of I churches, then almost certainly the backing of the wider community would assist greatly when lobbying the local politicians. Better still if everyone in the community feels they have a 'stake' in the church.

Expecting the taxpayer to fund C of I congregations, per se, I would imagine would be a non-runner.

There's no point in lobbying politicians. The state is not going to support one particular church just because they are lobbied - there are rules and regulations for supporting this kind of thing, and they only allow for very small allocations of money, regardless of the scope of the work needed.

Of course the wider community is invaluable, and they are reached out to. There's no way a small community can raise a hundred thousand euro without involving the wider community; and in my experience the wider community are brilliant in helping out. But the question is why any community, smaller or wider, should have to maintain historic buildings which the state acknowledges need to be preserved in the interest of heritage. It just happens to be churches in a great number of cases, because most older buildings still in use happen to be churches, but it could be any historic building and any community. Saving on mundane maintenance comes nowhere near the kind of money involved in heritage repairs.

No one is expecting the taxpayer to fund CofI congregations or any other congregations. Congregations fund themselves; the only income they have for lighting, heating and the basic running costs come from the offertory plate and donations from parishioners. I'm not talking about that - I'm talking about, for example, major structural issues with a five or six hundred year old listed building, costing tens of thousands of euro, which the congregation has to find money for as well as funding the everyday running costs.

This building is being preserved for the state, for heritage and for the future, not to improve its market value or to provide some kind of luxurious living for the users of the building. If you allow a medieval wall to subside, say, or a roof to fall in, you will eventually lose the entire building, and a part of our national heritage is gone. Does the state have no responsibilty here?

steamengine

katydid wrote: »

There's no point in lobbying politicians. The state is not going to support one particular church just because they are lobbied - there are rules and regulations for supporting this kind of thing, and they only allow for very small allocations of money, regardless of the scope of the work needed.

Of course the wider community is invaluable, and they are reached out to. There's no way a small community can raise a hundred thousand euro without involving the wider community; and in my experience the wider community are brilliant in helping out. But the question is why any community, smaller or wider, should have to maintain historic buildings which the state acknowledges need to be preserved in the interest of heritage. It just happens to be churches in a great number of cases, because most older buildings still in use happen to be churches, but it could be any historic building and any community. Saving on mundane maintenance comes nowhere near the kind of money involved in heritage repairs.

No one is expecting the taxpayer to fund CofI congregations or any other congregations. Congregations fund themselves; the only income they have for lighting, heating and the basic running costs come from the offertory plate and donations from parishioners. I'm not talking about that - I'm talking about, for example, major structural issues with a five or six hundred year old listed building, costing tens of thousands of euro, which the congregation has to find money for as well as funding the everyday running costs.

This building is being preserved for the state, for heritage and for the future, not to improve its market value or to provide some kind of luxurious living for the users of the building. If you allow a medieval wall to subside, say, or a roof to fall in, you will eventually lose the entire building, and a part of our national heritage is gone. Does the state have no responsibilty here?

There are examples of both, St. Mary's Collegiate Church in Youghal which the state has a hand in running via an arrangement between Youghal town council and the Representative Church Body. This church is probably a good example of the worst case scenario you outline above.

While not C of I, Clontarf Methodist Church on Dublin's north side which had a tiny congregation, has somewhat re-invented itself. It downsized its church internally, and the large unused portion is let out to commercial business, creche and fitness training.

Other parishes seem to get by with running their annual fairs, and normal fund raising measures, coffee mornings etc. But, I would agree the clock is ticking slowly for a number of C of I churches, and I guess some will be preserved via state aid and self help, others won't and will close.

katydid

steamengine wrote: »

There are examples of both, St. Mary's Collegiate Church in Youghal which the state has a hand in running via an arrangement between Youghal town council and the Representative Church Body. This church is probably a good example of the worst case scenario you outline above.

While not C of I, Clontarf Methodist Church on Dublin's north side which had a tiny congregation, has somewhat re-invented itself. It downsized its church internally, and the large unused portion is let out to commercial business, creche and fitness training.

Other parishes seem to get by with running their annual fairs, and normal fund raising measures, coffee mornings etc. But, I would agree the clock is ticking slowly for a number of C of I churches, and I guess some will be preserved via state aid and self help, others won't and will close.

Annual fairs and coffee mornings only help with the normal running costs of a parish, they come nowhere near the tens of thousands of euro that are the norm for some of the structural repairs that ancient buildings need.

Some churches will be closed in the next decade or so, that's inevitable, but many will struggle on, because the community they serve is viable, and the church is needed. I can think of many medium size CofI churches in smallish communities that wouldn't be full every Sunday, but are reasonably full. For example, I was in a church in a biggish town last Sunday (I'd rather not say where) which dates back to the Middle Ages. There was a good scattering of people in the pews - I'd say about thirty, not including the choir. Not a huge lot, and very few under fifty, but they want to worship there and are a community. Earlier, I was in another, smaller medieval church in a smaller town, with five people in the congregation. It's not feasible for both of these churches, within 15k of each other, to keep going in the long term.

But that's really a different issue. A valid one. My point is really different - I am trying to differentiate between the reasonable expectation that a community should finance their own running cost, and the question of whether custodians of historic buildings should be helped financially in this responsibility, since they are preserving the buildings for the state and the Irish people, not for some selfish purpose of their own.

Peregrinus

Depending on the technology used to construct it, any building has a rough lifespan. There are only a handful of building in Dublin city, for example, which predate 1700, and they are constructed very solidly or have substantial money spent on them with some regularity, or both.

For historical reasons, the Church of Ireland does have a large legacy of buildings - probably more than is strictly required for its contemporary mission as a church. And many - though not all- of these have some artistic, historical or cultural significance. Plus, in many cases, they fill a communal function, for more than just the crowd that rocks up every Sunday. But they are aging, and the costs of maintaining them are rising and will continue to rise.

Yes, they often have a significance to people other than those who turn up on Sunday mornings. And, yes, it would be good to provide public support to keep them in repair, and keep the functioning. But it's hard to lay down hard-and-fast rules about exactly what should be done. do we focus public support on buildings of artistic or architectural merit? Do we focus support on buildings that are on the verge of collapse? Do we focus support on buildings that are well-supported by a congregation or parish, so that if we solve the immediate crisis there is a good chance that the building will then be kept in good order for decades to come? Do we focus support on buildings in the most isolated communities, where the closure of a local church will have a relatively big impact on the community? I don't think there are easy answers to these questions. I certainly don't have them.

It's not the business of the state to be ensuring that divine worship is celebrated, or is celebrated fittingly. But it is the business of the state to foster and support viable, supportive communities, and I think communal religious and spiritual life is as much a part of that as communal sporting life, communal social or artistic activities, etc, etc. I think the fact that the activities that primarily go on in these buildings are religious in nature is something about which the state should be neutral. Activities which encourage and support social connectedness are good, and should be sustained; it makes no difference whether the activity is attending morning prayer or attending a local history group or a reading circle. The community benefits from all these activities happening.

katydid

Peregrinus wrote: »

Depending on the technology used to construct it, any building has a rough lifespan. There are only a handful of building in Dublin city, for example, which predate 1700, and they are constructed very solidly or have substantial money spent on them with some regularity, or both.

For historical reasons, the Church of Ireland does have a large legacy of buildings - probably more than is strictly required for its contemporary mission as a church. And many - though not all- of these have some artistic, historical or cultural significance. Plus, in many cases, they fill a communal function, for more than just the crowd that rocks up every Sunday. But they are aging, and the costs of maintaining them are rising and will continue to rise.

Yes, they often have a significance to people other than those who turn up on Sunday mornings. And, yes, it would be good to provide public support to keep them in repair, and keep the functioning. But it's hard to lay down hard-and-fast rules about exactly what should be done. do we focus public support on buildings of artistic or architectural merit? Do we focus support on buildings that are on the verge of collapse? Do we focus support on buildings that are well-supported by a congregation or parish, so that if we solve the immediate crisis there is a good chance that the building will then be kept in good order for decades to come? Do we focus support on buildings in the most isolated communities, where the closure of a local church will have a relatively big impact on the community? I don't think there are easy answers to these questions. I certainly don't have them.

It's not the business of the state to be ensuring that divine worship is celebrated, or is celebrated fittingly. But it is the business of the state to foster and support viable, supportive communities, and I think communal religious and spiritual life is as much a part of that as communal sporting life, communal social or artistic activities, etc, etc. I think the fact that the activities that primarily go on in these buildings are religious in nature is something about which the state should be neutral. Activities which encourage and support social connectedness are good, and should be sustained; it makes no difference whether the activity is attending morning prayer or attending a local history group or a reading circle. The community benefits from all these activities happening.

There are many old buildings around the country that have not had the kind of money spent on them that buildings in Dublin would have had. I travel around my diocese, and while many of the churches are Victorian First Fruit churches, there are quite a few that go back to the Middle Ages. They have been "improved" over the years, and are generally manageable until some major crisis arises. Then the small community is called on to come up with a massive amount of money for building works that, in a more modern building, would cost a fraction of the cost.
It is, I agree, difficult to say exactly what criteria should be used in deciding the value of preserving/rescuing a building. But there IS a criterion which would be a starting point; listed buildings. If a building is listed, repairs and maintenance are more expensive, because of specialist professional fees and materials. Instead of hiring a local engineer, a special heritage architect has to be brought on board, for example. Instead of ordinary plaster, certain old buildings have to have lime plaster, which is more expensive to buy and more problematical to apply, so needs certain skills. If the state accepts that a building is listed, it accepts it should be preserved, and should facilitate that preservation in some way, in my opinion, Especially when it is not owned by a private individual, but by a small community in a non-profit making organisation.

It certainly isn't the business of the state to facilitate Christian worship, or any religious worship, and the day to day expenses that facilitate worship - heating, lighting, basic maintenance etc. is undertaken by the community from other sources.

Churches of whatever denomination should definitely be centres of the community in the way you suggest - but in terms of financial help towards major repairs, would be very insignificant in relation to the huge sums that are often needed for this kind of work.

steamengine

http://www.hc.ireland.anglican.org/legislation/

Grant aid in the Republic of Ireland
To help the owners of 'protected structures', state funded grant aid is available (subject to funding capacity) from three sources:

Local Authority Conservation grants. Administered annually. Up to 75% of proposed expenditure to a max of Euro 12,000. Grant must be drawn down within the calendar year of date of approval. Only paid on completion of works.

Heritage Council grants. The Heritage Council is an independent statutory body, set up by the Heritage Act 1995, and financed by an annual block grant from the Department of Finance. Grants allocated annually in advance. Up to 75% of proposed expenditure must be drawn down within the calendar year of approval. Staged disbursement if bridging finance is a challenge. Conservation Plans generally required if the building is large, before grant aid would be considered, to ensure that all aspects of the conservation of the structure have been considered in a structured way.

The EU co-financed Conservation Grant Scheme for public buildings (2000-2006), provides support for 'not for profit' bodies (which includes the churches) to upgrade buildings of significant architectural and heritage merit which are in public ownership or open to the public generally. Details from the Urban and Village Development Section of the DOE. Administered annually by the Department of the Environment, with grant paid on completion of works and only within calendar year of approval.
The above state funded heritage building grants together with the income of Diocesan funds dedicated to building maintenance means that there is a matrix of funds available for the repair of historic churches.

According to the link above, church properties must be classified as protected structures to avail of the grant schemes as outlined, and it appears these are grant schemes tailored towards costly repairs.

What percentage approximately of C of I churches are classed as protected structures, as clearly this would be the essential prerequisite to grant approval ? I personally can't think of any C of I church that is not at least from the Victorian period, so would almost all churches qualify ?

katydid

steamengine wrote: »

http://www.hc.ireland.anglican.org/legislation/



According to the link above, church properties must be classified as protected structures to avail of the grant schemes as outlined, and it appears these are grant schemes tailored towards costly repairs.

What percentage approximately of C of I churches are classed as protected structures, as clearly this would be the essential prerequisite to grant approval ? I personally can't think of any C of I church that is not at least from the Victorian period, so would almost all churches qualify ?

All old buildings are not necessarily protected structures; some of the Victorian churches are pretty basic and have no intrinsic value other than a historical one. I've no idea of percentages, but I would take a wild stab and say about fifty percent. The churches I am most familiar are medieval or Georgian, and most of them are listed.

The grant schemes are useful, but they are only a fraction of the actual costs. A lot of the money that comes in because of the building being listed goes out on the extra costs involved in it being a listed building!


In one case I'm thinking of, in which I was involved, government grants came to about a tenth of the costs, about another tenth was sourced from bequests and other sources, and the other eighty percent had to be fundraised.

Peregrinus

katydid wrote: »

It is, I agree, difficult to say exactly what criteria should be used in deciding the value of preserving/rescuing a building. But there IS a criterion which would be a starting point; listed buildings. If a building is listed, repairs and maintenance are more expensive, because of specialist professional fees and materials. Instead of hiring a local engineer, a special heritage architect has to be brought on board, for example. Instead of ordinary plaster, certain old buildings have to have lime plaster, which is more expensive to buy and more problematical to apply, so needs certain skills. If the state accepts that a building is listed, it accepts it should be preserved, and should facilitate that preservation in some way, in my opinion, Especially when it is not owned by a private individual, but by a small community in a non-profit making organisation.

Look, I agree with this. My only slight concern would be that, if listing a building carried with it the obligation to find public money to assist in conservation, a lot fewer buildings might get listed, which wouldn't necessarily be a good outcome.

I think you point to a possible way forward in your last paragraph - if the building is used for public purposes, and is owned by a not-for-profit body, it gets funding, but if it is privately owned and/or used for commercial purposes, it doesn't. Or, at least, it gets a lower priority as regards public funding.

katydid

Peregrinus wrote: »

Look, I agree with this. My only slight concern would be that, if listing a building carried with it the obligation to find public money to assist in conservation, a lot fewer buildings might get listed, which wouldn't necessarily be a good outcome.

I think you point to a possible way forward in your last paragraph - if the building is used for public purposes, and is owned by a not-for-profit body, it gets funding, but if it is privately owned and/or used for commercial purposes, it doesn't. Or, at least, it gets a lower priority as regards public funding.

That's very true. But buildings are already listed, which incurs extra costs, and very little help is available to offset these costs.

As I said at the beginning, an initiative such as that proposed by Dean Jansson, that the special VAT rate be extended to such cases might be a start. It's not giving anyone money for nothing, it's creating employment because the church community is more likely to be able to afford to get the work done, and it eases the burden on them in terms of coming up with money.