- Messiah Lutheran Church in Yorba Linda sold 1.9 acres for $8.1 million
- Olson Urban Housing plans 40 townhomes on the site
- Eight homes are reserved for moderate-income buyers for 45 years
- Partners say church land spares developers years of land costs
A Southern California church has sold part of its land for new homes, The Real Deal reported in June 2026.
Messiah Lutheran Church at 4861 Liverpool Street in Yorba Linda, Orange County, sold 1.9 acres to Olson Urban Housing, a subsidiary of the Olson Company, for $8.1 million. The developer plans 40 townhomes. Eight of them will be sold by lottery to moderate-income households and will be income-restricted for 45 years.
The report also looked at how church-land deals are financed. Martin Porter, founder of Logos Faith Development, described a mix of “grants, low interest loans, forgivable loans, impact investors that may require a different return, and then your typical investor and your typical lender… it’s a really distinct capital stack.” He said structuring deals carefully could secure a welfare tax exemption and “minimize negative tax consequences that occur when you transfer title into a new joint venture entity.”
Tara Barauskas, executive director of Community Corporation of Santa Monica, said working with a church on another project had saved years of holding costs: “We’ve been working on this Culver-Palms project for six years, and we didn’t have to buy the land and pay six years worth of property taxes, insurance, land loan payments, interest and all those things.”
The Yorba Linda sale is a straightforward model: the church sells land it does not need, gains cash for its ministry and buildings, and the neighbourhood gains homes, some of them below market price.
Jamaican churches with more land than they need could consider a similar approach. The key steps are a proper survey and valuation, confirmation that the title and any trust deed allow a sale, a clear decision on how proceeds will be used, and, where possible, conditions that keep some of the new homes within reach of ordinary families.
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