Snob zoning around the Catholic church
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Snob zoning around the Catholic church

It’s good to see “liberal” values in action. With about 80 church properties about to go on the market in Boston, where lots like these are hard to come by, real estate mavens are salivating at the prospect. Of course, the Church’s primary focus is on affordable housing for the poor. But some wealthy and liberal suburbs have other ideas.

n other cases, any hopes that church property will find a new life as more modest, lower-cost homes may be short-circuited by skyrocketing real estate prices and developers eager to build luxury manses. Such may be the case at St. Bernard’s in West Newton, an 11-acre collection of church and parish buildings and parking lots.

City officials recently moved to put in new development rules for the church site near the Massachusetts Turnpike, barring lower-cost multifamily housing with much pricier single-family homes. Homes built on the site could rise well past the $1 million mark, acknowledged Brian Yates, the Newton Alderman who headed the rezoning effort.

We wouldn’t want any of those undesirable poor people moving in next door. Better that they should remain in “their” neighborhoods getting government handouts, and so we could get millionaire neighbors instead.

St. Bernard’s is doing such an obviously great job of evangelizing its neighbors. No wonder why they want to stay open.

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