Two years after Calvary United Methodist Church put about 18 acres of woods behind its Northfield Drive campus up for sale to pay off its debt, the congregation and a group of neighbors who want the land preserved are pursuing different futures for it.
The church has a signed purchase agreement with Fischer Homes, owned by parent company Grand Communities, which wants to build a 20-lot subdivision called Woodland Reserve. A neighborhood committee, Save The Woods, says it has raised commitments of more than $600,000 to buy the property and dedicate it as a nature preserve.
Neither plan is settled. The developer needs the land rezoned from institutional to R2 residential, a request that must go through the Brownsburg Advisory Plan Commission and the Town Council. Grand Communities introduced its plans Sept. 24, and the council took no action. A neighborhood meeting is scheduled for Oct. 15.
Calvary has owned more than 38 acres since 2000, said the Rev. Michelle Knight, the church’s lead pastor. She said church leaders built on the cleared portion and kept the wooded acreage in reserve. That changed in 2022 and 2023, when the church faced a balloon mortgage payment of about $1.2 milli...