David Scheie January 2024 Progress continues in our work to redevelop our campus for higher and better use. A Joint OSLC/ OSCS Property Committee has been meeting biweekly for months to guide efforts. Recently, congregation treasurer Tal Anderson and I joined the committee. It now has eight members: three with joint OSLC/OSCS affiliation (Pastor Martha, Rico Morales who’s an OSLC member and OSCS resident, and Renate Willer who’s an OSLC member and OSCS operations manager); three with OSCS affiliation (executive director Mike Huffman, housing program director La’Quadra Neal, and development & communications manager Robin Stramp); and Tal and I who are OSLC members.
Highlights to date An important early stage occurred last spring and summer when we conducted a neighborhood inreach campaign. About 20 congregation members plus several OSCS staff were trained in 1:1 conversations by our own Grant Stevensen. Then we did listening conversations with over 30 people who live or work near the church, to learn their hopes and concerns for the neighborhood, our two organizations, and how best to use our half-city block. On October 15, we held a “Property Reimagining Forum” at church to review what we learned through the neighborhood inreach and to surface ideas and cautions from church members. Pastor Martha and Mike have networked with a range of people and organizations experienced in congregational housing and community development projects. These include Hans Lee, who was pastor of Calvary Lutheran Church at Chicago and 39th when that congregation decided to partner with Trellis Company, Simpson Housing Services, and the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority to create 41 units of affordable and supportive housing on its property. Another has been City of Lakes Community Land Trust, one of OSLC’s reparations grantees, which uses the land trust model of affordable homeownership. They’ve approached Normandale Housing Corporation and Normandale Lutheran Church in Edina, who own and operate the house beside our church as supportive family housing, about cooperating with our project. They’ve spoken with neighborhood indigenous leaders and others about possible participation as well. Many possibilities – and a commitment to act We face many options and questions. What kind of housing, for what size and type of households, shall we develop? What other spaces for congregational ministries, OSCS operations, and other community programming (e.g. childcare) do we want to include? How about green space? Parking space? How can we redevelop with a racial equity and reparations lens? What about the financing – where will the money for this come from? Should the congregation expect a revenue stream from the project to support other ministries? We are conscientious about exploring these many possibilities -- and we want to make reasonable choices in timely fashion so that a decent project actually gets done. As the saying goes, we don’t want the perfect to become the enemy of the good. The Joint Property Committee is aiming to make key design decisions by early March: we will hold a retreat on March 2 for this purpose. Next steps: you’re invited! To get us – and the congregation – ready, we are launching twin ventures in January. We encourage all Our Saviour’s members who care about what we do with our campus to participate in one or both:
Please RSVP for the study group, or share questions by contacting Tal Anderson ([email protected], 612-251-8313) or David Scheie ([email protected], 612-232-2912)
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