Toronto city planners recommended approval for The Donway Covenant United Church’s plan with non-profit Options for Homes: a six-storey building with 308 homes and a new ground-floor place of worship on the church’s site.

The Sisters of the Congrégation de Notre-Dame are selling their 1.7-million-square-foot Montreal estate, owned since 1854, with proceeds going to poor children and the school on site protected until 2030.

A Toronto developer paid $16.5 million for a 16-acre monastery property beside the Humber River to build about 2,400 homes, sparking a bitter fight with followers of a Marian shrine in the grounds.

Three Toronto congregations, one led by the daughter of a Jamaican Canadian bishop, have been housing, feeding and clothing more than 600 refugee claimants and are calling on all three levels of Canadian government to step in.

Two Acadian groups bought St Bernard Church in southwestern Nova Scotia, listed at $250,000, and plan to raise $2.5 million to turn the landmark into apartments amid a rural housing shortage.

Oliver United Church in BC’s interior, bought for $550,000 in 2022, is becoming eight apartments, funded partly by 523 small investors who put an average of $467 each into the project through crowdfunding.

Seniors who paid deposits of up to $110,000 for a life-lease retirement project on a Scarborough church’s land protested after the developer went bankrupt, saying refunds reached some church members but not them.

A 2.76-acre Kelowna site home to New Life Church was sold to developer IUVI for Vitae Village, a mixed-use project with homes, shops and a new multi-purpose space for the church.

A vast deconsecrated Nova Scotia church built from more than 8,000 granite blocks has been listed for $250,000, though repairs to its roof, water system and interior are estimated at over $1 million.

Toronto-based Jamaican Archbishop Lloyd Battieste told a Portmore Bible school graduation that church attendance fell sharply after COVID-19 closures as worshippers stayed home to watch online, saying there are good cameras but nobody wants to come to church.