by PETER GRACE
The Church on the Kapiti Coast, 52km north of Wellington, is trying to sell churches and a school as it responds to changing needs.
The Paraparaumu and Waikanae parishes were amalgamated less than a year ago to form Our Lady of Kapiti parish. Now the parish is testing the market with the aim of selling the churches and St Patrick’s School in Paraparaumu.
Archdiocese general manager Paul Bayliss told NZ Catholic that Paraparaumu had been working on a strategic analysis and direction for at least five years, responding to the way the area was growing and developing. A new motorway from Paekakariki to Otaki was part of that analysis, with the parish thinking it would be better for the church and school to be located reasonably handy to the motorway ramps.
“St Patrick’s is on the wrong side of the railway, and quite challenging to get to,” Mr Bayliss said.
The school is also quite old and needs quite a lot of maintenance. Building a new church is expensive, and the parish will have to find the money for that.
Although it is likely there will eventually be no church at Waikanae, Mr Bayliss said, there could be a period of no church at Paraparaumu, and worship continuing at Waikanae in the interim. “We have churches for Christmas across the diocese and the question is, how do you maintain all that infrastructure with shrinking numbers [of Massgoers]? “The Coast is on a journey to decide
what to do,” said Mr Bayliss. “And we recently got another shock, because the Society of Mary decided it was going to pull out of Levin and Otaki.” Those two parishes were amalgamated on February 1 this year, with the society agreeing to take on the amalgamated parish. But the Marists then came to a point of uncertainty about being able to provide staff and how long they could maintain an active presence. “They felt it was fairer and more appropriate to withdraw now [February 1 next year].” Mr Bayliss said the Church didn’t know how much the properties would fetch. “The market is being tested at the moment to find out what sort of demand
might be out there. It’s one thing to have a valuation but . . . how do you value a church?” It was a journey, Mr Bayliss said, and there are people who are supportive and people who are pretty sceptical.
“It’s a pretty brave journey they are under way with. But there seems to be a very strong level of support from the leadership,” although this was happening in the middle of amalgamation of two previous parishes and there were still sensitivities.
Paraparaumu was very different from Waikanae, which was more of a retirement area, Mr Bayliss said, although increasing numbers of younger families were going to Waikanae, a trend that would probably accelerate with the completion of the motorway.
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