Talks between Hamilton, Philpott Church reach impasse over parking lot disagreement

Philpott Church in downtown Hamilton says it has a buyer interested in revitalizing the lot that’s sat mostly vacant on York Boulevard for the past year.

However, they say talks with the city have reached an impasse, after a disagreement over a parking lot.

Officials from the church say the building has been falling into disrepair for several years.

“The ceiling above the sanctuary, which you can see here, has really started to come down,” said Jackson Theune, the interim senior pastor at Philpott Church. “I mean, we’d have Sunday mornings where people would have plaster coming down on their heads.”

That’s why the congregation made the move to a new building at 160 King St. East, and now the church needs to sell the old property.

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They had a buyer lined up to purchase it, but the deal fell through when the city looked into designating the building as a heritage property.

The city has since stopped pursuing the designation.

“Basically, that deal enabled us to move to our new location, and gave us the funds that we needed to do that, but now that the deal has fallen through, we’re in a really difficult financial spot,” said Theune.

The church says it’s found a new buyer now, but can’t seem to strike a deal with the city.

The church says one of the major sticking points is whether or not they’ll be allowed to have commercial parking — in the parking lot that currently exists — as well as after the building is demolished.

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Theune says a new developer plans to knock down the former church, and is looking for the city to sign off on a one-year moratorium to use that land for commercial parking, with TD Coliseum right across the street. The city is pushing for two years.

“The plan is not to have parking here long term,” said Theune. “We don’t want that, we want this area to be redeveloped into something that’s good for the city.”

The impasse has been brought to the Ontario Land Tribunal and the city says it won’t comment on the deal in the meantime.

Downtown City Counc. Cameron Kroetsch says city hall is on board with housing being built in that spot, but not more surface parking.

“The story seems to be changing,” said Kroetsch. “Now, it seems to be about more parking and knocking that heritage church down. When we had the conversation at council about the heritage church, everyone came forward saying ‘housing, housing, housing, that’s why we want to knock the church down, we want to put housing here.’ We want to think about affordable housing, and development — development is not a parking lot.”

Conversations will continue between the two sides, hoping to reach a deal before it gets to the land tribunal.

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