church land

The Barbados Diocesan Trustees plan to turn more than two and a half acres of Anglican land at Henry’s Lane, St Michael, into a medical facility with housing for patients needing specialised care, and to open investment opportunities to Anglicans.

A September 2026 letter to the Observer, written after squatter evictions at Cooper’s Pen, urged churches to audit their land and grant small parcels of idle property to Jamaica’s landless, estimated by the writer at 1.5 million people.

Jamaican churches are often called the country’s second-largest landowner after government, but no public register confirms it. What an honest audit, rather than seizure, could actually reveal.

The Church of England’s Archbishops’ Council Housing Project is working towards nearly 2,000 homes on church land, including more than 1,000 affordable units, after advising 85 parishes and granting £1.2m to 54 projects, Christian Today reported.

Jamaica is often described as a Christian country. The description is not difficult to understand. Church buildings appear in almost…

As churches receive public money for restoration and campaign against landlessness, Jamaica must ask whether religious property could also help address the country’s deepening housing crisis.

Barbados Housing Minister Chris Gibbs told Parliament the government would compulsorily acquire about 2.21 acres at Ebenezer, St Philip, owned by Ebenezer Methodist Church, to build around 30 homes as part of a drive for 2,000 homes a year.

Barbados Housing Minister Chris Gibbs told Parliament the government would compulsorily acquire about 2.21 acres at Ebenezer, St Philip, owned by Ebenezer Methodist Church, to build around 30 homes as part of a drive for 2,000 homes a year.

The City of St Petersburg and the Florida Housing Coalition have begun training faith leaders to use Florida’s new Yes in God’s Backyard law, which lets places of worship bypass some zoning red tape to build affordable homes on their land.

A pastor’s doctrinal break from the Jamaica Baptist Union has become a Supreme Court property fight, with the union citing a 1969 vesting act to claim ownership of the church land he’s tried to register under his own name.

Neighborhood Congregational Church in Laguna Beach won planning, parcel map and gap funding approvals in mid-2026 for 28 affordable apartments on its land, with rents limited for at least 55 years.

A pastor’s doctrinal break from the Jamaica Baptist Union has become a Supreme Court property fight, with the union citing a 1969 vesting act to claim ownership of the church land he’s tried to register under his own name.

Seattle’s 2026 report on its religious-land housing law found eight religious organisations with 599 affordable units in eight projects, four of them finished and already providing 331 occupied, rent-restricted homes for local households.

Jamaicas churches have lost thousands of acres to squatting and adverse possession. As the government pushes a national land titling drive, denominations are racing to secure what they have left.

Jamaicas churches have lost thousands of acres to squatting and adverse possession. As the government pushes a national land titling drive, denominations are racing to secure what they have left.