Churches seek holy ground
Houses of worship compete for scarce zoned land as number of congregants rises in Barrhaven
BY JENNIFER GREEN, THE OTTAWA CITIZENFEBRUARY 8, 2009 10:03 PM
OTTAWA — A religious revival is sweeping Barrhaven with no less than 11 congregations jockeying to build in the burgeoning suburb.
Canada’s first joint Anglican-Lutheran church wants three acres at Claridge and Beatrice drives, and the Sequoia Community Church is angling for 14 acres west of Greenbank Road near the railway tracks.
Sequoia’s pastor, Rick Lamothe, hopes to build a $14-million, 40,000-square-foot “cross-training” facility with a sports centre, soccer fields, counselling, and worship areas — a hybrid of a church and a community centre.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses already have their site of about three-quarters of an acre at Fairpark and Prince of Wales drives, and, with this summer’s volunteer “church raising,” their costs are likely to be under $750,000. As the men build, the women bake; some food is already in the freezer.
All the religious leaders say they want their buildings to be part of the community, not something that stands empty every day but Sunday. As the Anglican priest, David Selzer, says: “To be a church is to be in the community.”
Rev. Selzer’s project, with Lutheran pastor Ann Salmon, is something of an adventure. In 2001, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Anglican Church of Canada signed the Waterloo Declaration, meaning they agree on just about everything and can worship together. Ottawa’s St. John’s Anglican disbanded to form again in Barrhaven with Rev. Salmon’s group. Now, they worship at Pierre Elliott Trudeau elementary school on Longfields Drive, and attract about 100 people a week.
Many of these congregations have an evangelical bent, even the Jewish outreach group, Chabad, which has just over an acre on Lamplighters Drive west of Cedarview.
Sequoia’s pastor, Mr. Lamothe, says his church has been involved in volunteer work, Canada Day festivities, anything to get the church out of the chapel and into the streets. Although Sequoia is aligned with the Baptist Church, he downplays denominations. “We don’t do religion, it’s all about the relationship (with God).”
On a more practical level, no one wants to become the white elephant that so many inner city churches did. Many are incorporating rental halls, or services such as daycare, to help with costs.
And they all know they are competing for increasingly scarce institutionally-zoned land. St. Andrew’s Catholic Church just announced on its website that it would not be making an offer on the Woodroffe site it hoped for. “Unfortunately the price of $1.8 million … the extremely tight timeline for payment and an expectation of almost immediate preparation for construction is beyond our reach at this time.”
Although there are more than 16,000 Catholics in Barrhaven, roughly four times the number of any other single faith, St. Andrew’s parish is still holding masses in Catholic schools.
Mr. Lamothe says: “There is a struggle for land — big time.”
Emdad Khan, with the South Nepean Muslim Association, agrees. “It’s very difficult. We’ve been looking for the past five years. Prices used to be about $200,000 an acre; now it’s $300,000.” His group is hoping to build a community centre with a Muslim prayer area. It’s not a mosque, he hastens to add, and it will not have a tall minaret or dome. He estimates there are about 5,000 Muslims in Barrhaven.
The Ottawa Christian School has outgrown its building on Woodroffe near Carlingwood, and has bought land on Tartan Drive. A two-storey, 15-room school should be ready by September 2010.
“My guess is that it is a booming area in terms of young families,” says school spokesman Paul Triemstra. “Some of the research seems to indicate that people who start having kids have a tendency to go back to church.”
Evangelical churches have been more nimble in building where the young families are, and better at coming up with programs that children and youth actually like attending.
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
this is the ottawa christian school property - they recently requested development charge exemptions...
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