Fishers City Council President John DeLucia announced a 30-day delay Monday on a rezoning request that would let Heart and Soul Church expand its campus near Interstate 69 and East 126th Street, pushing back a vote so city staff can complete additional research, including a traffic study along the corridor. The pause follows weeks of pointed pushback from neighbors who say the project is moving forward without the technical groundwork to back it up.
The delay comes just days after the Fishers Plan Commission voted 5-2 in favor of recommending the rezoning petition, known as RZ-26-8, but was unable to give it a formal endorsement because city rules require six votes for a favorable recommendation, according to LarryInFishers. Plan Commission President Howard Stevenson and City Councilor Tiffany Ditlevson were among those who voted against the petition, sending it to the City Council without the commission's blessing. As IndyStar reports, the proposed zoning change would allow the church to expand its campus with worship and recreation facilities, including pickleball courts, as well as small-scale commercial uses.
What's Actually Being Built on 126th Street
The proposed Heart and Soul Community Campus would sit on 18.66 acres at 11616 East 126th Street, land that's currently zoned for residential use and could otherwise hold up to 32 single-family homes, per Current Publishing. The rezoning would swap that residential designation for a custom Planned Unit Development tailored to the church's mixed-use vision. Before the commission hearing, the applicant tweaked the plan to address neighborhood concerns, converting what had been outdoor pickleball courts into indoor facilities and adding a six-foot privacy fence along the property lines shared with neighbors. Those changes mark a shift from the initial concept presented to council in August, which had included outdoor sports amenities.
Opposition has centered on the Whispering Woods neighborhood, where residents submitted petitions against the project and argued, per the same outlet's report, that the proposal still lacks completed traffic, noise, drainage and wetland delineation studies. Seven residents spoke against the project at the October 7 hearing, while four spoke in favor, according to Citizen Portal's coverage of the meeting. The missing studies have become the crux of the neighborhood's case heading into the council's 30-day review window.
A Nonprofit's Retail Plans Raise Tax Questions
Beyond traffic, Fishers planning staff have raised a separate regulatory question: whether Heart and Soul Church can directly own and manage commercial retail space on the campus while keeping its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status intact, the same local outlet reports. Church representatives have maintained that the retail component is part of the broader community mission, even as the question of nonprofit ownership of taxable commercial space remains unresolved.
The church has also significantly revised its projected staffing numbers. An initial August estimate pegged daily employment at 75 to 90 workers, a figure that fed directly into early traffic projections. That estimate has since been corrected down to 15 to 20 daily church staff plus up to 20 retail workers.
Echoes of a 2017 Church Fight on the Same Corridor
This isn't the first time a church proposal along 126th Street has run into neighborhood resistance. Back in 2017, iTown Church sought to build near Brooks School Road on the same corridor, but ultimately relocated its project to 136th Street after residents pushed back over traffic congestion, according to LarryInFishers' reporting at the time. That history underscores how traffic along the suburban 126th Street corridor has remained a persistent flashpoint for Fishers planning decisions for nearly a decade.
Same Meeting, Bigger Budget News
The rezoning delay wasn't the only major item on the council's Monday agenda. During the same session, the Fishers City Council gave final approval to a $224 million spending budget for 2027, a 10 percent increase over 2026 driven primarily by public works capital investments, per LarryInFishers' report on the meeting.
With the vote now pushed into November, the fate of the Heart and Soul Community Campus will likely hinge on what the city's traffic study along East 126th Street turns up, and on whether church representatives and city staff can resolve the lingering questions over nonprofit ownership of the project's commercial space.
