The church and its real estate - why a new strategy is needed

A large number of buildings are owned by dioceses, regional churches and parishes. The majority of the buildings are used directly for ecclesiastical, charitable or pastoral purposes and must be continuously managed, maintained or modernised.

Against the background of demographics and the decline in the number of church members over the years, decreases in the available financial resources are to be expected in the future. The decline in priests and pastors also leads to a necessary realignment of pastoral structures.

This realignment of pastoral structures inevitably entails a change in the requirements for the location, size, layout and equipment of the necessary buildings. This adjustment of the building stock must above all also aim at optimising the quality of the rooms and room structures, reducing the space, the maintenance and operating costs and improving the possibilities of use (flexible use, multiple use).

Against this background, the high strategic importance of planning and implementing construction and maintenance measures should be considered. The starting point for this is the construction and building strategies to be developed, in which fundamental strategic specifications, objectives and procedures are documented with regard to the building stock. To ensure the necessary transparency, the building stock is to be recorded on the one hand and analysed with regard to its building fabric and maintenance needs (so-called "stock") and on the other hand the pastoral, charitable, ecclesiastical needs are to be recorded (so-called "needs") in order to derive a coordinated construction and building strategy.

For the examination and evaluation of building applications, they are to be classified in a standardised evaluation form, taking into account the construction and building strategy. The evaluation form ensures a uniform and structured procedure and documents the decision taken in a way that is comprehensible for all parties involved.

In order to ensure a targeted use of funds, the evaluation of individual building and maintenance projects must take into account not only pastoral aspects, but also construction and art-related, economic and use-specific aspects.