St Johns Vicarage
In June 2024 the St Johns vicars Rev Simon and Jessica Falconer asked the vestry to consider options for building a new vicarage on St John’s church grounds. The parish does not currently have a vicarage. The previous vicarage was demolished in the late 1990s, with the sale price from vicarage land being invested to provide a housing allowance for vicars. An area of church land was at that time earmarked as the site for a possible new vicarage. When the Vicarage Fund was established in the late 1990s, the cost of a new build was estimated to be $200,000; house prices and rental costs have increased significantly.
The primary missional drivers for the proposed new vicarage are:
provide onsite missional housing;
wise utilisation of St John’s church land;
good stewardship of St John’s resources;
creates an asset and resource of benefit to the future of the parish; and
being consistent with the vision, values and priorities of the Wellington Diocese.
The default position of the Diocese’s Standing Resolutions is to provide a vicarage. If there is not a vicarage, then the parish must pay a housing allowance to clergy receiving a stipend. This can either be paid to the vicar for a mortgage or as a rental payment (as St John currently does).
If a vicarage is built, there will be additional costs in mortgage, rates, insurance and ongoing maintenance. These costs will need to be covered by church in the absence of a Vicarage Fund.
A vicarage sub-committee was appointed in June to explore options and report back to the vestry and church. Several options were explored:
1) continue providing a housing allowance from the Vicarage Fund;
2) purchase an existing house;
3) build a new house using EasyBuild, a local company; or
4) buy a new house from Bedrock Housing. Based on the success of the recent St Aidan’s Miramar Discipleship House build,
The sub-committee decided to focus on an EasyBuild house, given:
the success of St Aidan’s EasyBuild Discipleship House build
EasyBuild having a 4-bedroom house (Glenorchy) design that can fit on our church land
EasyBuild being an Upper Hutt based company, with houses built in a suburb near Trentham
prefabrication off-site minimising disruption to parishioners and neighbours using Smallfield Lane
out-of-the-box full compliance with MBIE, Wellington Water, and Upper Hutt City Council requirements
end-to-end low-risk cost and project management
The parish and vicars visited the Easybuild sample home on Fergusson Drive and approved the EasyBuild Glenorchy option in August 2024. The sub-committee then confirmed the required funding for the purchase and ongoing costs.
A costed proposal based on the Easybuild Glenorchy was submitted to the Diocese in November 2024 and accepted ?
A motion to proceed with the vicarage was submitted and accepted by the Parish at the 2025 AGM.
We finalised a concept design with Easybuild and firmed up the costings. It was found necessary to remove the garage during the initial part of the build. The garage could be added at a later date.
The Anglican Welington Diocesan Board of Trustees signed an agreement with Easybuild for the build of a new vicarage on Smallfield Lane on Thursday 14 August.
Work is now commencing on the next phase of the project.