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Date: 10/4/2022
NORTHAMPTON – During a joint meeting on Sept. 21, the Community Resources and Finance Committees met to discuss the St. John Cantius Church rehabilitation project, which has experienced some intense debate over the past several weeks.
Community Resources, which consists of City Councilors Alex Jarrett, Rachel Maiore, Marissa Elkins and Garrick Perry, voted to provide a neutral recommendation to the full City Council regarding an appropriation of $500,000 of Community Preservation Act (CPA) funds to O’Connell Hawley LLC for exterior repair to the former St. John Cantius Church at 10 Hawley St. The Finance Committee, meanwhile, did not vote on a recommendation because Council President Jim Nash was not in attendance.
Background
Sarah LaValley, the city’s conservation, preservation and land use planner, said that this Comimunity Preservation Committee (CPC) project has received more public comment than any other to date. Brian Adams, the chair of the CPC, said he received 61 letters before the Aug. 24 meeting regarding the redevelopment plan. Adams said 48 of the letters were in favor of the plan while 13 were against it.
In 2010, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield closed the church at Hawley Street and Phillips Place after a myriad of parish consolidations. Afterward, several groups put forth failed redevelopment plans for the church, which was built in 1913 by Polish Catholic immigrants. O’Connell Development in Holyoke eventually purchased the property for $1.26 million.
O’Connell initially said they would preserve the church and put townhouses around it, but the coronavirus pandemic put a dent in that plan, so the development group applied to demolish the church entirely for five units of three-story houses for 10 Hawley St.
Also in 2021, the city offered to buy the church for $550,000 to use the property for the city’s Community Resilience Hub, a resource center for the homeless. O’Connell, however, declined the offer in the fall.
After pushback from the public about the possibility of the church’s demolition, O’Connell returned with a redevelopment plan for the church this past spring.
The committee decided then that additional information about the project was needed before any decision on funding could be made. The CPC requested that O’Connell prepare a historic structures report with the goal of “informing future work and demonstrating compliance with the secretary of interior standards for the treatment of historic properties.” The CPC also requested that the owner receive the support of the Historical Commission for the application, which they eventually did in early August. The CPC subsequently approved rehab plans for the church later that month.
O’Connell hopes to use this money to fund repairs to the church’s masonry wall and its roof where tiles are cracked and missing, and gutters and downspouts must be replaced. The money is part of a broader $4.6 million project to build 10 market rate one-bedroom apartments, projected to rent for $1,800 to $1,900 a month.
CPC members, as well as some people from the public, expressed concerns during the Aug. 24 meeting about the idea of providing public money to a privately-owned church that will ultimately be utilized for market rate housing, rather than affordable housing.
“I’d feel really different if it wasn’t market rate housing,” said a resident, during the Aug. 24 meeting. “If it was affordable housing in there, great, that would be a wonderful thing.”
The Sept. 21 meeting
Despite the concerns, Adams made it clear during public comment that the CPC is not setting some precedent regarding the offering of public money to privately-owned organizations.
“There is no precedent-setting here,” said Adams. “We evaluate projects on an individual basis, and the fact that we are recommending in this case public money for O’Connell does not mean we will recommend public money for any private entity that comes.”
Adams reiterated that, if this money were to pass at the council level, then a historic preservation restriction would be placed on the building, and O’Connell would have to document that their work fits with a historic structures report, and they also must hire a historic preservation consultant.
According to Carolyn Misch, the director of the city’s Office of Planning & Sustainability, a historic preservation restriction is really the only tool the city can use to maintain the building’s historical integrity, despite some questions about whether or not there are other alternatives for preservation.
Misch also added that when O’Connell applied for the property in 2020, they were looking at other uses like restaurant and bar options, but when COVID-19 hit, O’Connell figured that the market for those businesses fell apart.
“If [O’Connell] decided to shift gears and put something else inside, the funding through CPC doesn’t preclude them from doing that,” said Misch.
Councilor Marianne LaBarge asked Misch about why O’Connell declined to use the church as the city’s resilience hub, to which Misch then described how O’Connell felt it would not jive with the location, and its surrounding investments.
“I’m still left in a place of discomfort with this,” said Maiore. “I am still sitting here thinking, ‘What is the public good?’ Five-hundred thousand [dollars] is a lot of tax money … and we are the gatekeepers for taxpayer money.”
Jarrett, meanwhile, said he supports historic preservation, but he wants to make sure that as much fall funding goes into the future affordable housing projects. “I’m not feeling comfortable with a positive recommendation at this dollar amount,” said Jarrett. “I don’t think that it provides a sufficient public benefit for the amount of CPA dollars contributed. I would consider a lower amount, or if an additional benefit such as affordability or public use was added.”
If the money is not approved, O’Connell would most likely have to find an additional funding source, which may not be available, or possibly consider another use for the church.
LaBarge also stated that she was not comfortable with making a recommendation on the project, and added that she will do extensive research. “Affordable housing is very important to me, and always has been,” said LaBarge. “I have to agree from what I just heard Councilor Jarrett talking about, which are some of the concerns about also.”
The full City Council will consider the issue at their next meeting on Oct. 6, and Reminder Publishing will have more on their decision.