Church, inc.

Religion | New approach to church real estate seeks to dispel civic resentment over lost tax revenue | Mark Bergin

"We should be willing to bear more pain on our shoulders than we create"—Vanderstelt

Stafford, Texas, a Houston suburb of fewer than 20,000 people, has 51 churches. On Sunday mornings, the town swells with commuting church members, clogging roadways and public spaces with congestion that civic leaders can't afford to solve. The tax-exempt houses of worship occupy so much of the city's seven square miles that tax revenue can barely cover police, fire, and schools, never mind new development. The predicament has pushed government officials to explore legal pathways to block church growth.

In Pittsburgh, the local government has taken a different tack, approaching religious congregations and other nonprofits to ask for voluntary donations. Some give but most do not, keeping these "payments in lieu of taxes" well beneath the potential public revenue businesses could generate on the same land.