A debate in Philadelphia, chronicled by the Philadelphia Inquirer, has caught our attention and, we feel, highlights the risks when a desire for historic preservation teeters too far to an extreme.

Calvary United Methodist Church, in Philadelphia’s Cedar Park neighborhood, recently was designated as a historic site — despite the opposition of the church’s leadership and congregation.

The congregation has struggled for years with the financial hardships of the structure’s hardships and fears the historic designation will tie their hands and limit their future options for preserving the building both as a place of worship and as a community center, which provides a location to a number of nonprofit community organizations.

“They feared the regulations would increase the cost of needed repairs, even as the 75-member church was struggling to maintain its enormous building already,” the Inquirer reported.

With the designation now granted despite the objections of the people who actually use the facility, the congregation is now resigned to its fate.

“It wasn’t so much a change of heart; it’s just a change of will,” Emmett-Rardin said in an interview with the Inquirer afterward. “Over time, it’s just sort of worn us out.”

We find Calvary’s story, in many ways, to be depressing.

The erosion of a church’s property rights is palpable. The threat that this designation could pose to the abilities of community groups and the congregation to continue to enrich their neighborhood in frankly more substantial ways than any fixation on architectural features does is real.

We hope that communities across our state — including within our own region — can learn the right lessons from Calvary’s pain. That while historic preservation may have a place, that place is in relation to other, more critical values.

We need leadership that recognizes the paramount importance of property rights. That is cognizant of the services and amenities that our communities need and doesn’t create new burdens and obstacles to those willing to work hard to offer those services.

Philadelphia, to be blunt, appears to have had more bullying than leadership. It is not too late for us.