AMY MAAS

DES RES: St Paul’s Presbyterian Church in Devonport.

A landmark Devonport church is back on the market three months after an earlier attempt to sell it was scuttled by the community.

St Paul’s Presbyterian Church has been listed for sale by Harcourts for $1.72 million and has a capital value of $3.3m.

The 1919 building features kauri floors, wall panelling, pews, a pulpit, vaulted ceilings, leadlight windows and a stained glass window.

The sale of the church, which is next to a graveyard, was opposed by the community who raised questions about its saleability, due to its heritage listing and suggestions it may have been built on top of other graves.

The cemetery closed in 1891 and construction of the church began in 1916.

Due to the building being a heritage protection site, the vendors had to seek permission from the Ministry of Health before the graveyard could be sold.

The sale, listed in October last year, was halted a month later after a public outcry.

It was understood steps were being taken in November to subdivide the graveyard from the rest of the property so the sale could proceed.

Real estate agent Ilse Evans refused to confirm if the new listing meant the property had been successfully subdivided or whether an archaeological survey had cleared the church area of any human remains.

She said the property’s saleability was never in doubt and believes a buyer will snap it up.

“[The vendors] have to sell, they are obligated to sell because it is a closed church,” she said.

“For a church group it is a huge interest and even a developer with insight and guts will find it exciting.”

Claudia Page, of Devonport Heritage, did not know what the Ministry of Health had concluded, or what measures Harcourt’s had undertaken before listing it for sale.

“I’m a little surprised it happened so quickly. But it is looking less likely, when you look at the topography at the back of the church, that there are graves underneath it because it is so steep, but there are markers that show graves within a metre of the church and also one partially underneath the footpath,” she said.

While Page does not oppose the sale of the building, she believes its future use needs to be sensitively considered.

“A new owner would need to keep the envelope of the building and anything that is done near it or to it must be given council consent and be up for public consultation,” she said.

“If it is sensitively done it could be done well. There are a number of churches in the city which have been converted into houses and they’ve been done very well.”

The fate of the contents within the church are also up for discussion as a stained glass window and other items had been bequeathed by the public.

To date, only the war memorial and honours board housed in the church has been relocated to the local museum.

St Paul’s closed its doors after a Christmas Eve service in 2009 after dwindling congregation numbers.

– © Fairfax NZ News

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