Churches services get under way in Hawke's Bay but under a new normal

Rev Jill McDonald of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Hastings speaks to her congregation in person for the first time in many weeks as churches reopened over the weekend. Photo / Ian Cooper

Church congregations were back over the weekend in Hawke's Bay for the first time in months but remain very different from normal.

St Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Hastings was one of many churches across the region to reopen its doors.

Church finance committee member and parishioner Derek Burns said it was great to see a few familiar faces again even if there were fewer than they expected.

"We originally catered for 40 people with social distancing rules in force but managed to open the churches lounge area and foyer to stretch it to 60, which is quite a bit different from the 150 we normally have."

Burns said it seemed some people are still a bit hesitant to go out.

"Some people are still a bit on edge ... but over the next couple of weeks we expect the numbers to grow and when we go to level 1, see things go back to normal."

The church's trust has applied to the government's "Shovel Ready" investment fund to help develop some big projects for the community.

The trust has honed-in on five projects to support in the region that aim to stimulate employment and improve the environment and peoples' lives.

Two of the projects are around building solar energy farms.

These projects will improve New Zealand's environment and will also provide cheap power to low-income homes throughout the bay.

Te Rā Power is partnering with Mangaroa Marae at Bridge Pa over the solar farms, and where Te Rā Power had been developing a 1MW plant, the marae is looking for a solar farm 25 times larger.

The other three projects are in the areas of social housing, community housing and supported living.

St Andrew's church has land in the centre of Hastings and is looking at developing a supported living facility, like Presbyterian Support's Rowan House in Taradale.

The Options Group has been looking at how to generate the money the church needs to run and to undertake mission work.

One of the more promising options was to develop social housing on the Market St carpark.

The group had got made some preliminary calculations about building a two or three story structure there: this could cost about $10-12 million.

The lease returns from this would be enough to cover the mortgage payments, operate the building and provide an annual revenue.

Another of the housing project is at Bridge Pa.

The Mangaroa Marae has purchased 20ha of land for flood protection, water storage and housing.

It wants to build 20 houses and sell them to people who would be involved in the construction.

The St Andrew's Trust is partnering with other organisations in all these projects to ensure that they are developed in the best manner possible.