By Pete Stidman
News Editor

Fundamental disagreements over the future of the St. William's Church may force the potential re-developer of the property, the Vietnamese American Initiative for Development, to sell it instead.

"Every month we're losing $15,000 on it," said Viet-AID director Hiep Chu. "We have two or three new schemes, but we haven't invested in them because we don't know what people want."

Viet-AID's last plan, introduced a month-and-a-half ago, included razing the church and building 34 housing units on the Dorchester Avenue site. The number is on the lower side of what would allow the community development corporation to recoup the $2 million they paid the Archdiocese for the property earlier this year, said Chu, but neighbors rejected the plan with several concerns that all seem to boil down to density.

"The total number of units is supposed to be 36 to 40, because of the cost of land per unit. They say they have to have 45,000 to 55,000 square feet total floor space. If those two things are non-negotiable, it really makes it difficult to have a meaningful discussion," said Eric Chodkowski, an abutter on Belfort Street who has followed the process. "Density is huge."

"We like the idea of open space, but we can't afford it," said Chu. "I think it might have more to do with the underlying issues, with the church and the history of the neighborhood."

"Most abutters have lived here 75 to 80 years," said Anne Riley, a member of the Columbia/Savin Hill Civic Association who has taken a lead on the negotiations. "It's not about the church, it's about the quality of life in this area."

Riley and Chodkowski both sympathize with Viet-AID's dilemma, and indicate that they and their fellow neighbors are willing to continue talking with Viet-AID. But when asked if they could envision a possible solution that would allow the developer to make ends meet, they could only provide hints of an answer.

"This is a project where it really offers nothing to the surrounding community," said Chodkowski. "It's offering housing for those to come in from outside the neighborhood. But it isn't offering anything to the community that lives here now."

"I think we're going to have to face the fact that we might need to take down some trees," said Riley.

Chu seems equally stumped. He recently showed Riley a few new rough "schemes," but they received negative feedback as well.

"By the end of the year, if we still have the way it is now, we give up," said Chu. "We sell the church. It's well kept. If someone else wants to use it as a church… we know it won't be a Catholic church. I don't know if the community wants that or not."

Chodkowski said the neighborhood hasn't discussed that possibility, but said for him personally it could be "easier to swallow." Riley also spoke for herself, but took the opposite tack: "That church was my life. If it's not going to be a Catholic church, I don't want it to be a church."