The Vermont Supreme Court on Friday affirmed an environmental court decision, giving the cathedral charitable trust the go ahead to demolish the now-shuttered Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in downtown Burlington.
The church’s demolition had been halted after Preservation Burlington, a local historic preservation group, filed lawsuits in both federal and state courts in early 2023 challenging the demolition.
The federal court case was dismissed, and an environmental court judge in February ruled in favor of the cathedral charitable trust, which owns the Pine Street site.
The resident group then appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing in court documents that the building is architecturally significant. (The cathedral was designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes, and its landscape designed by Vermont-based architect Dan Kiley).
The city and its Development Review Board erred in granting a religious exemption, they argued, affording special treatment to a property that is no longer a religious use. The property has sat vacant for years, and an active sale agreement is in place with a potential buyer for the redevelopment of the property, the preservation group said in court documents.
The court also erred, they said, in not allowing them a discovery process, which would have shed more light on the property’s intended future use.
The Supreme Court, however, affirmed the lower court’s ruling that state law restricts municipalities from applying zoning standards to certain building types such as religious institutions — meaning there was nothing on the books in Burlington’s ordinance to prevent the demolition permit from being issued.
Furthermore, the court said that any execution of a purchase and sale agreement with a buyer or developer was “irrelevant” to the church’s demolition.
Preventing the church’s demolition, Supreme Court Justice William Cohen wrote in the decision, would amount to interfering with the religious deconsecration of the cathedral.
“To allow review of, and require documentation for, a potential future use of a property at the same time as reviewing the present religious use would interfere with the applicant’s ability to execute the present religious use and would not be consistent with the statutory purpose,” Cohen wrote. “To hold otherwise would also allow zoning officials to engage in speculation as to future permits needed and would lead to advisory opinions by courts on appeal.”
Ron Wanamaker, of Preservation Burlington, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. John Franco, the attorney for the cathedral charitable trust, commended the decision by the Supreme Court.
The church at 20 Pine St. has sat vacant for several years — fenced off and masked in graffiti. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington in 2018 began proceedings to deconsecrate and demolish the church, and first applied for permits with the city to do so in 2022.
The original cathedral was built in 1867 but burned down in a fire thought to be arson in 1972. The current cathedral was completed five years later.
Franco said the cathedral charitable trust intends to proceed with the demolition sometime after the new year.
