NLCU: Spiritual Brownfields: How Can Cities Strategically Reuse and Redevelop Their Emptying Faith Properties?

Cities, towns, and villages are experiencing a tsunami of emptying houses of worship washing across the U.S. and Canada. Membership is aging and declining. Real-estate operating costs are climbing.  Worshipers can connect via internet to any religious service in the world. The Covid-19 pandemic greatly disrupted attendance.

We’re left with a Great Mismatch between small, aging congregations and large, deteriorating properties at tens of thousands of houses of worship. The former Deputy General Secretary of the National Council of Churches, Eileen Lindner, estimates that up to 100,000 houses of worship may have closed by the end of the next decade—potentially creating spiritual brownfields across the continent. 

The good news is that many are considering turning their properties into mixed-use developments with affordable housing or other community assets.

Municipal, religious, real-estate officials and just plain citizens are beginning—only beginning—to face the challenge. 

Course Outline

Workshop One: Wednesday, September 16, 2-3:15 PM ET

View from the Hilltop. An overview, featuring Ten Principles of Reuse and Redevelopment of Faith Properties and the four barriers to effective projects—and Q-and-A.

Workshop Two: Wednesday, September 23, 2-3:15 PM ET

View from the Street. A pragmatic view, including mini-case studies and Ten Community Actions to Promote Reuse and Redevelopment of Faith Properties.

Workshop  Three: Wednesday, September 30, 2-3:15 PM ET

View from the Field. A panel of three officials of religious institutions-experienced and successful reusers and redevelopers of faith properties-sharing their experiences working with neighborhoods and cities and offering prescriptions for the future.

Learning Objectives

The purpose of these three one-hour NCLU workshops is to inspire cities to:

• Learn about the fast-growing issue of spiritual brownfields and what leaders are doing to turn them into affordable housing and other community assets.

• Offer models—organizational, technical, and financial—to deliver the positive community change needed to transform them and sometime add them to the tax rolls.

• Look at faith properties in a new way and listen to religious officials on how cities can interrelate and deal with these critically important properties.

Course Instructor

Rick Reinhard

Rick Reinhard is a former journalist, economic-development official, mayoral chief of staff, and real-estate developer who a decade ago went to work as an official of the United Methodist Church. For the past five years, he has been a consultant and thought leader on the issue of reuse and redevelopment of emptying faith properties. He has a Bachelor of Science degree from the College of William and Mary, a Master of Business and Public Management from Rice University, and was a mid-career Loeb Fellow at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. His article, “Affordable Housing:  YIGBY (“Yes in God’s Backyard”) Movement Seeks to Counter NIMBY Movement,” won Urban Land Institute’s Apgar Thought Leader Award for 2023-24.