St Peter's Lutheran Church (Photo from Google Maps)
A Wiarton church is partnering with the Association for Community Living for a proposed housing project.
Minister of the Lutheran and Anglican Ministries of the Bruce Peninsula Janika Bandara says the proposed project aims to house nine people with intellectual disabilities on the St Peter’s Lutheran Church property.
She says the project started in early 2023 when they noticed a decline in the amount of people coming to church compared to before the pandemic.
“The church property in Wiarton belongs to the Lutheran congregation and generally speaking in Lutheran churches when there is a possibility of the church closing, if the church people do not make a plan for what is going to happen with the property, it basically gets lifted in the open market and is sold to the highest bidder,” says Bandara.
During discussions about a path forward, one church staff suggested looking to the community for a potential project on church property.
“We don’t know how much longer we are going to be here at the congregation, and we want to make sure that we leave some kind of mark in the community to say that we were here,” says Bandara. “But also that partnership is a good way to build the ministry of the church.”
Later in 2023 the church held a community partner open house to gauge interest in which organization would be interested in working with the church.
“Coming out of that, the Bruce Peninsula Association for Community Living showed up as a strong and interested possible partner because they were looking for a place to build some more housing for their clients,” says Bandara. “We have been gently working on that process now from all of 2023 coming on to where we are now.”
She adds there is no timeline for the project as of yet.
South Bruce Peninsula’s committee of adjustment will be reviewing the project’s requested zoning amendments on May 6.
