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2001 SESSION
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:
1. That § 57-12 of the Code of Virginia is amended and reenacted as follows:
§ 57-12. Quantity of real and personal property trustees may hold.
Such trustees shall not take or hold at any one time more than 15 acres of land
in a city or town, nor more than 250 acres outside of a city or town and within
the same county. The city or town council of any city or town may by ordinance,
however, authorize such trustees to take and hold in such city or town not more
than 50 acres of land at any one time if such acreage is to be devoted
exclusively, and is subsequently so devoted, to a church building, chapel, cemetery,
offices exclusively used for administrative purposes of the church, a
Sunday-school building and playgrounds therefor, and parking lots for the
convenience of those attending any of the foregoing, and a church manse,
parsonage or rectory; such trustees of a church diocese may take or hold not
more than 250 acres in any one county at any one time; and they shall not take or
hold money, securities or other personal property to the extent that such taking or
holding causes the money, securities or other personal property held at the
time of taking by such trustees to exceed in the aggregate, exclusive of the
books and furniture aforesaid, the sum of ten million dollars. Where two or
more religious congregations, churches or religious societies shall merge or
consolidate, such religious congregation, church or religious society so merged
or consolidated, shall have three years' time within which to dispose of its
land in excess of that which it is permitted to hold under this section.
Land taken or held outside of a city or town shall always be considered as such for the purposes of this article although such land later becomes part of a city or town through annexation or otherwise.
Nothing herein contained shall affect the validity of any land within a city or town legally acquired by a church to be exclusively used for a church manse, parsonage or rectory between June 30, 1954, and June 27, 1964, provided the total amount of land owned by a church within a city or town does not exceed twenty acres.